You’ve read about the Koch-funded analysis that found the increasingly popular Medicare for All costing an estimated $32 trillion – with a t- – over 10 years.
What you didn’t read was how much Medicare for All offers in terms of cost savings.
Also with a t- – nearly $17 trillion over the same 10-year period.
The first number, from a study at George Mason University, which is bought and paid for by the Koch Brothers, despite being, formally, a state-supported public school, only looked at what it would cost the federal government to provide Medicare for All, in essence single-payer.
The second number takes into account how much it costs to provide healthcare services under the current system.
Try just under $5 trillion a year, when you account for the hodgepodge of Medicare, Medicaid, private insurers and people who pay out of pocket (read: “pray that they don’t get sick, so that they don’t have to then go bankrupt”).
What Medicare for All does is shift the burden from that hodgepodge almost entirely to the federal government, which means, yes, federal taxes.
And those federal taxes come from, yes, us.
As opposed to where the money comes to fund the current system.
Which is, yes, us.
The cost savings comes, basically, from eliminating the profit motive of private insurers from the costs of delivery, and yes, it’s a lot more complicated than that, but you didn’t come here to get chapter and verse on healthcare policy.
What you came here for was confirmation that, yes, Medicare for All is cheaper, a lot cheaper, than what we pay for now.
And not only is it cheaper, but it makes it so that you don’t have to read on social media about friends who are reduced to setting up GoFundMe drives to pay for basic medical services or help them move when they get divorced after filing for bankruptcy because one of their kids got sick and they couldn’t afford the hospital bills.
If you’re reading this, and your concern is that you’ll lose your Cadillac healthcare plan, well, lucky you, that you have a Cadillac plan, because almost all of the rest of us don’t, and we can’t afford to get sick, so we wouldn’t feel sorry for you.
Basically, get out of our way already, you selfish pricks.
Healthcare is a fundamental human right.
Column by Chris Graham
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