‘Medicare for All’ Actually Isn’t Medicare at All

From The Daily Signal.com (Oct. 28):

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was recently on comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show to discuss, among other items on his agenda, his vision for health care in America.

In one interesting statement, Sanders described the rollout of his plan: “I want to expand Medicare to include dental care, hearing aids, and eyeglasses, and then what I want to do is lower the eligibility age the first year from 65 down to 55, then to 45, then to 35, then we cover everybody.”

There is a sleight of hand here.

What Sanders seems to be describing is the gradual expansion of the existing Medicare program, which currently covers Americans 65 and over, to include everyone eventually. In reality, Sanders’ signature bill, “Medicare for All,” is anything but Medicare.

Medicare comes in several forms, including Parts A and B, which pay for inpatient and outpatient visits along a fee schedule with premiums and deductibles, and Part C, also known as Medicare Advantage.

This is the system that covers 60 million Americans and enjoys high satisfaction ratings.

Medicare for All would scrap all of this.

One of the most misleading aspects of Medicare for All is that it is not Medicare at all.

Medicare offers several choices between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage, which itself offers a whole marketplace of health plans. In addition, supplemental insurance is available that helps pay for additional costs and services, so beneficiaries are able to tailor coverage to fit their needs.

Medicare for All, however, would replace all of this with a system that is free at the point of care but paid for by taxes. Essentially, this is not Medicare but Medicaid for all.
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Medicare for All would cost over $30 trillion in the next 10 years in ideal conditions, but still require physicians and providers to take a pay cut of up to 40% and continue working with the same productivity. [read more]

Bernie Sanders has no idea how much it will cost and how it will be paid for. And that doesn’t bother him.

Other articles on health care:

• Seven Big Problems with Universal Health Care No One Wants to Address
• Health Care Doom on the Horizon
• The Cost of Sacrificing Public, Private Health Insurance for ‘Medicare for All’
• The ‘Public Option’: Government-Run Health Care on the Installment Plan