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Why “Medicare for All” Isn’t Really Medicare at All
It was only days ago that Democrats were lambasting the Trump administration for its perceived indifference to the plight of 800,000 federal workers temporarily going without pay. Yet there seems to be little concern about the long-term fate of the more than half-million Americans who work in the health insurance industry from Democrats who support “Medicare for All.”
During a CNN interview Monday, anchor Jake Tapper asked presidential candidate Kamala Harris whether people would be able to keep their private insurance, if they preferred, under her MfA plan. Harris breezily responded “Let’s eliminate all of that. Let’s move on.” Now maybe some of these folks would end up working for the government helping to administer the expanded Medicare program. Others, seeing the writing on the wall, might start transitioning to other work before such a plan was ever implemented. The rest? Well, that’s the way the labor market churns, I guess. Millions of American gain and lose jobs every month, as it should be in a dynamic economy.
But it’s certainly worth noting the trade-off and acknowledging that there would be costs as well as benefits. Granted, consideration about employment disruption in the health insurance sector probably wouldn’t change public opinion about MfA. That, even though healthcare jobs overall have been a massive driver in the recovery of the US labor market since the Great Recession.
But other issues might. For instance: Most Americans support MfA, by a healthy 56-42 percent margin, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey. They are less likely, however, to support the idea once they hear about trade-offs such as eliminating private health insurance companies (37-58 percent) and requiring most Americans to pay more in taxes (32-60 percent). (Such numbers are hardly surprising if you know that an overwhelming number of the 180 million American with private insurance — 70 percent, according to Gallup — rate their coverage as “excellent” or “good.”)
And then consider what the average American thinks they hear about “Medicare for All.” They probably think everyone would get the same Medicare coverage currently going to their parents and grandparents. Not so. Despite the clever branding, the MfA plan that Harris has supported is actually a universal coverage plan that covers more services than Medicare while eliminating deductibles, co-insurance, and co-pays.
Indeed, once more Americans hear about MfA, they might start wondering how total healthcare spending would be the same or even less under such a regime. As my AEI colleague Ben Ippolito notes in a recent blog post, such fiscal estimates assume Washington would require providers to accept Medicare payment rates for treating all patients — a 40 percent reduction from what privately-insured patients currently pay. That’s a big number, and the comforting “Medicare for All” name barely hints at the sizable economic and policy implications — such as, Ippolito notes, tasking a single federal agency with setting the correct price of any given medical service or procedure — that come with it.
Published in Economics, Healthcare
At the risk of being rude, I have no idea what you’re trying to convey in this comment.
I had to jump to the next page to see if I was the only one who found those ‘explanations’ incomprehensible.
“Most Americans support MfA, by a healthy 56-42 percent margin, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey. They are less likely, however, to support the idea once they hear about trade-offs such as eliminating private health insurance companies (37-58 percent) and requiring most Americans to pay more in taxes (32-60 percent).”
I think what Pethokoukis is saying is that popular support for MfA goes down to 32% if it will increase taxes.
I re-read it just now, and when I figure it out, I will post an update.
I just confessed to the Brown-Eyed-Beauty that I’d had a flare-up of a condition I inherited from my father, called Incomprehensible Sermonizing Disorder. I told her I’d been held accountable by Mendel, one of my compassionate friends–sort of a Ricochet Comments Intervention. But was avoiding reading any more of the Comments because I didn’t want to come under hostile fire.
I tried to explain the economics point I had waved my hands over in my Comment, about us conservatives and Rightists seeing only the short-term, fiscal problem with taking the inevitable next step down the Democrat’s road to socialism. Not seeing that, by allowing them to dictate the terms of the argument, we were providing them with the ammunition they needed to win.
She understood what I was trying to say (she’s well-accustomed to dealing with my eruptions of economic theory and dire warnings to America). She told me I should just use Medicare Supplemental as a practical example. How it has gone from yesterday’s Medicare covering “decent, quality care” for all for free, and Medicare Supplemental just covering luxury care for a fee, to now: What was a luxury before is now a necessity.
I could probably figure out how to develop that into a Comment that would be at least clearer than what I wrote. But I’m feeling too tired and too stupid–I don’t have any facts in my pea brain about Medicare then or now. Whenever I step into the sterile, comfortable anteroom to the terrifyingly consumerist-friendly maze of socialized medicine (the latest beta version), I just dump out all of the welfare docs (insurance cards) in my wallet and wait for the receptionist to tell me if she needs any more.
Except in the future, the term “Mother” will be outlawed as it is far too cis.
The term has too many connotations of thousands of years of female suppression. Why have women do something that any test tube and laboratory could do better?
I was so sad to hear about the tragedy of misdiagnosis surrounding your mom’s death. A parent’s death is always difficult, but when it occurs due to medical neglect, that makes it even worse. The idea of any individual having to endure 6 weeks of unnecessary suffering is absurd. Period.
Oops. Mea culpa!
So it’s just another day. :)
Yeah. Thanks for a smile at the end of it.
It was really that simple. The cost would have almost doubled the state’s budget, and no one had the stomach (nor, really, the dollars) for the tax increase required to fund it.
Yeah. I have a solution. It’s called “skip a meal”.
Your “skip a meal” reminds me of practices put in place during WWII to support the war effort. (Medical) Rationing for All might ultimately be supported by just such means.
Skipping a meal doesn’t really help, but rather hurts. I’m pretty certain that it’s a mini-starvation that the body reacts to differently than merely taking in a few hundred Calories each meal.