Single-Payer Health Care Would Be Even Worse than Obamacare

From FEE.org (Nov. 3):

The late, great Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman said it best: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Friedman’s pithy proverb reminds us that there is also no “free health care.” It’s a timely reminder, as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is making a public push for his “Medicare for All” bill.

While liberals have long advocated “single-payer” systems for health care, what’s new this time is that they are coalescing around a plan. Sixteen Senate Democrats are co-sponsoring Sanders’ bill, and 120 Democrats in the House have signed on to a similar approach.

Free Care?

This latest push for “single-payer” features the provision of “free health care” at the point of service from doctors, hospitals, and all other medical institutions.

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Last year, two separate analyses – one from the Urban Institute and another from professor Kenneth Thorpe at Emory University – outlined in dreadful detail the fiscal consequences of Sanders’ 2016 proposal.

Though the analysts differed on their assumptions and calculated conclusions based on different models, they both came to the same conclusion: The Sanders “single-payer” bill is going to cost the American people far more than the senator and his academic and congressional allies claim, and the taxes to finance this massive enterprise are going to be huge.

Loss of Freedom

There are other costs beyond the dollars and cents. As we have noted in a recent Heritage Foundation analysis of Sanders’ updated version of his bill, Americans would lose big chunks of their personal and economic freedom.

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Sanders and his 16 Senate Democratic colleagues deserve applause for their refreshing honesty. They make no pretense whatsoever that you can keep your health plan, regardless of your personal wants, needs, or preferences. You don’t count.

Under the Sanders bill, almost all private health insurance would be outlawed, including your employment-based health coverage. Today, nearly 60 percent of working-age Americans get their health insurance through private, employer-based plans.

Likewise, persons enrolled in existing government health programs – Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program – would be absorbed into the new government health plan.  [read more]

And probably the Congress would be exempt from the Sanders bill.