I recall an interview where the interviewers were asking the politician if their plan for health coverage would raise everyone's taxes, to which they responded yes - of course they would. The interviewers tried to move forward with that, but the politician then notes that this would also mean that everyone stops paying for their current health insurance - and thus quite a lot cheaper.
> the politician then notes that this would also mean that everyone stops paying for their current health insurance - and thus quite a lot cheaper.
Unfortunately, not so simple:
1) Health insurance is already required to pay out at least 90% of your contributions, so even a hypothetically perfectly efficient replacement could only eliminate 10% of costs, all things equal.
2) The government run system would realistically be expensive to run, like any program covering all Americans. Many of those private insurance costs would just be transferred to a government-run operation. In theory it should be more efficient to have single payer, but it would also be extremely expensive in the short term to build and overhaul the system.
3) The actual cost savings wouldn’t come from operational efficiency (not the government’s strongest ability) but from forcing prices down because nobody would have any choice but to accept the government insurance. They were going to drive costs down by forcing doctors and hospitals to take lower payments and, as unpopular as it is to say, by limiting the types and amounts of treatments available to people.
> 1) Health insurance is already required to pay out at least 90% of your contributions, so even a hypothetically perfectly efficient replacement could only eliminate 10% of costs, all things equal.
All things remaining same, yes. But all things won't remain same because the incentives would be completely different. The 10% rule has incentivized the entire industry to raise their prices so that 10% will be worth more each quarter. Private insurance would rather have insulin at $1000/mo instead of $10/mo so that they can take $100 instead of $1 and they would rather collect $2000/mo in premiums than $200/mo. Medicare, on the other hand, can and should negotiate prices down: https://www.cms.gov/inflation-reduction-act-and-medicare/med...
These points assume that costs would stay the same and there's no overhead in the existing insurance system.
Single-payer could be cheaper and more efficient simply by returning the massive profits of health insurers directly to taxpayers. Part of high cost for healthcare in the USA is the huge number of middlemen.
> The government run system would realistically be expensive to run, like any program covering all Americans. Many of those private insurance costs would just be transferred to a government-run operation. In theory it should be more efficient to have single payer, but it would also be extremely expensive in the short term to build and overhaul the system.
The government is already the largest health insurer in the country, and providers can't turn them down. There's no system to overhaul.
The idea of "Medicare for all" is actually very simple - if you do not have private market health insurance, you can opt in to the health insurance the government already provides for about 65 million people.
> The government is already the largest health insurer in the country, and providers can't turn them down.
This is completely false. Many providers don’t accept Medicare or Medicare.
I don't know where you’re getting the idea that Medicare/Medicaid can’t be turned down by private practices.
> The idea of "Medicare for all" is actually very simple - if you do not have private market health insurance, you can opt in to the health insurance the government already provides for about 65 million people.
Again, that’s not what the “Medicare for All” bill actually said.
People just assumed it was an optional thing, but the bill said something else entirely.
Your post is a great example of how people had their own ideas about how things work or would work under new bills, but when you actually read the details it’s a different situation altogether.
I’m also amazed at the confidence with which people will deny the basic facts of “Medicare for All”, as evidenced by many comments in this thread. I posted an actual excerpt from the bill above, yet people are still trying to argue that it said something else.
You are misinterpreting the text of the bill you keep quoting. As well as equating the notion of Medicare For All as a policy with one attempt to pass it that failed.
While sure, providers could choose to not accept Medicare, practically all do because the people that need the most healthcare are all on it. That would be akin to not treating anyone over the age of 65.
> You are misinterpreting the text of the bill you keep quoting.
I don't think I am. You haven't provided any specifics and your claims above were easily disproven, so I'm not sure what you think I'm doing wrong.
> As well as equating the notion of Medicare For All as a policy with one attempt to pass it that failed.
See above: My parent comment was specifically talking about the Medicare for All bill. You are the one trying to substitute a different concept into the discussion.
> While sure, providers could choose to not accept Medicare
This is the exact opposite of what you claimed two comments up.
This discussion is a perfect example of what I'm talking about: When it comes to these discussions, people like to substitute their own facts and pretend like we can just ignore the reality of of what goes into bills. Once you start looking at actual legislation these things aren't as popular as people think because it doesn't match their imaginary ideal.
Hence my original point: Politicians have an incentive to keep these concepts as far from reality as possible, because it allows people to cling to their own idealized versions of what it would look like. The closer you get to reality, the more people realize that tradeoffs and compromise are necessary in the real world.
