1) Presidents decide on US healthcare organization and financing.
Well, of course not. All the health plan brouhaha among Presidential candidates is likely to have little impact once one is in office. Federal expenditure decisions must first successfully navigate the House and Senate before coming to the President for a signature. That is still a big role, but the nitty-gritty horsetrading is largely left to Congress, rule of the possible.
2) Under Medicare-for-All you would lose your choice of doctors.
Uhm, where would all our doctors go? Off to England, Germany, Canada, …? No, in fact, one would have greater freedom to switch MDs if they weren’t locked into contracts with specific private insurance plans. Still, terms of reimbursement for service would have to be negotiated with providers, and that will almost surely mean rates above current Medicare averages.
3) Medicare-for-All would force hospitals to close.
Medicare for All would force a re-thinking of hospital charges and abolish the “cost-shift” that has private insurance paying excessive rates to cover underpayment vs cost that characterizes some government reimbursement, namely Medicaid. Realistic payment with provision for reasonable reimbursement allowing for replacement of obsolescent equipment and new and better detection and treatment, without wasteful duplication, must be a part the implementation of this proposal.
4) Medicare-for-All is unaffordable.
But, 1) numerous academic studies have found that 25% or more of current US healthcare spending is “wasteful”, a major portion due to administrative waste, and 2) the total we spend on healthcare would fall under Medicare-for-All, though being redistributed across Federal, state and private sources.
5) But, don’t we still have the best medical care in the world?
Clearly this is not so. Overall, by most criteria we lag toward the back among developed countries. However, it is true that we have a very split, segmented system, where care for the privileged is top tier, but care for others is woefully lagging. Nevertheless, overall we far exceed other countries in our healthcare expenditures.
6) Insurance company profits are mainly responsible for driving up healthcare costs.
7) Prescription drug costs are mainly responsible for driving up healthcare costs.
8) Under Medicare-for-All over a million insurance industry workers would lose their jobs.
There are lots of health reform ideas that wrap themselves in the “Medicare for All” label, ranging from a single government-run system to plans that maintain a role for private insurance companies. But under the most ambitious schemes, millions of health care workers would be at least displaced if not laid off, as the insurance industry disappears or is restructured and policymakers work to bring down the costs of the system by reducing high overhead and labor costs. One widely cited study published in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that administration accounted for nearly a third of the U.S.’ health care expenses.
While people could be retrained for different jobs, there are no guarantees they’d work in the newly created government health care system, since one of the goals is to cut down on administrative overhead. You can’t have savings through administrative simplicity and more jobs. Medicare for All also wouldn’t be the first, nor likely the last, initiative that would cause economic upheaval for a major jobs engine. The jobs piece isn’t a metric that people should use to judge whether single payer is worth it, because in a dynamic economy different sectors grow while others shrink. What is needed is transition help for those people whose sectors are shrinking.
9) Unionized workers would lose their hard-fought-for plans.
10) Under Medicare-for-All your taxes will go way up.
11) More frequently asked questions and (possibly opinionated) answers:
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