Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for All" plan is really expensive over a 10-year period....

[LastPoet]

No more than we do, no.  Sort of amusing when you realize what the insurance options actually are for undocumented migrants in the US, how many are uncovered, and what percentage of the total uncovered population that is.

Well, they will only catch me in a hospital when I am dead. Hate those places.

The NHS here wilst not perfect is a good thing. It would be just a small fraction of the military budget.

[Fake Messiah]

The Pentagon year after year keeps telling congress they do not need all the new tanks and jets the PRIVATE military industry makes.

Nor do uber billionaires need all the tax breaks they get.

I bet if you took just a fraction of those giveaways and funded health care, and paid livable wages, less of America would be on the government dime.

Yeah all developed countries have healthcare for all but in US it's “Too expensive!” As well as Infrastructure: “Too expensive!”  Good schools: “Too expensive!”  Job training: “Too expensive!”  A living wage: “Too expensive!”  Puerto Rico having power: “Too expensive!”  Taxing billionaires: “Too expensive!”

BUT at least there is money for whole new branch of the military set in space.

[Angrboda]

We’re asking the wrong question about Medicare-for-all

So let me suggest a different question that might be asked not to those advocating Medicare-for-all, but to those opposing it and those journalists assuming it is unrealistic: How do you propose to come up with the $50 trillion you want to spend on health care over the next 10 years?

Because that’s what the status quo is going to cost. The questions about the cost of Medicare-for-all seem to come from a bizarre alternate universe where we aren’t spending anything now on health care, and we’re going to have to come up with a shocking amount of new money to fund this crazy idea of giving everyone coverage.

This $50 trillion number comes from the most recent projections by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which say that America will spend $3.7 trillion on health care this year, a figure that will increase by 5 to 6 percent per year in the coming years. Their projections go only to 2026, so I extended them out two years, assuming a 6 percent increase per year, to reach a full decade from 2019 to 2028. When you add the numbers up, you get $50.3 trillion over the next 10 years. That’s what we’re going to spend if we change nothing.

[brewer]

I doubt the AMA/RX industry (any health care provider) wants Medicare for all. At least not at the current fee reimbursement rate.

[Fake Messiah]

[Aegon]

I doubt the AMA/RX industry (any health care provider) wants Medicare for all. At least not at the current fee reimbursement rate.

That's why I figure the U.S. will need to go with the public option/two-tier system for a while before we can even dream about single payer.

It's such an incredibly complex issue. "Who knew healthcare could be so complicated," am I right?

---

Free market economics is inefficient when it comes to health services? I hear water is wet as well.

[Minimalist]

That's why I figure the U.S. will need to go with the public option/two-tier system for a while before we can even dream about single payer.

And that is really simple to start.  Any region/county/state in which is there one insurer (or less) providing coverage shall allow citizens and resident aliens to sign up for Medicare, regardless of age.

'Murricans (unfortunately) have to see that the sky doesn't fall when a new idea is tried.  I don't know when we became such a bunch of chickenshit bastards but we are.

[Angrboda]

That's why I figure the U.S. will need to go with the public option/two-tier system for a while before we can even dream about single payer.

And that is really simple to start.  Any region/county/state in which is there one insurer (or less) providing coverage shall allow citizens and resident aliens to sign up for Medicare, regardless of age.

'Murricans (unfortunately) have to see that the sky doesn't fall when a new idea is tried.  I don't know when we became such a bunch of chickenshit bastards but we are.

Sadly we're more willing to try new things when the old things are proving a disaster. Thus the ingenuity of The New Deal. Given the positives in the economy, substantial changes to the status quo may be a tough sell.

[Minimalist]

Unless you're a billionaire, I keep wondering where this wonderful economy is.

https://20somethingfinance.com/percentag...-paycheck/

The Shocking Percentage of Americans that Live Paycheck-to-Paycheck

The reason, in large part, is that the jobs which generate those paychecks suck.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/magaz...eless.html

These days, we’re told that the American economy is strong. Unemployment is down, the Dow Jones industrial average is north of 25,000 and millions of jobs are going unfilled. But for people like Vanessa, the question is not, Can I land a job? (The answer is almost certainly, Yes, you can.) Instead the question is, What kinds of jobs are available to people without much education? By and large, the answer is: jobs that do not pay enough to live on.

In recent decades, the nation’s tremendous economic growth has not led to broad social uplift. Economists call it the “productivity-pay gap” — the fact that over the last 40 years, the economy has expanded and corporate profits have risen, but real wages have remained flat for workers without a college education. Since 1973, American productivity has increased by 77 percent, while hourly pay has grown by only 12 percent. If the federal minimum wage tracked productivity, it would be more than $20 an hour, not today’s poverty wage of $7.25.

Years ago, George Carlin said "it's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to see it."

[Anomalocaris]

.......but not as expensive as the one we have now!!

Study: "Medicare for all" plan touted by Bernie Sanders would cost $32.6 trillion

Sure, it's done by a libertarian think tank partially funded by the Koch Brothers, but it is a scholarly study. I don't doubt the program would cost somewhere in that range. Conservative sites are having a field day with this news, but they're missing a key detail....

The system we currently have is going to cost $33 trillion over 10 years!

I don't personally support single-payer. I don't think it's the best way to go in the US. BUT I have to say... two systems that cost about the same amount, but under one of them I wouldn't have to be afraid to call an ambulance because I can't afford it? Sounds enticing for sure.

The American medical system is optimized to extract the greatest profit from those who could manage to pay, not to reduce the total social cost of ill health.   So naturally the overall cost would seem prohibitive if the same extractive pricing scheme is broadened to universal coverage, especially if the offset in reducted social cost of ill health is not considered in the balance.

I don’t think real medical reform is possible in this country without such violent social upheaval as to put the fear of real death in minds of those whose vested interests would otherwise be to oppose it.