The Democratic National Committee platform committee voted Monday to reject an amendment to insert a plank supporting Medicare for All into the party’s 2020 national platform.
And these jokers claim to have your best interests at heart.
Despite what you’ve been told, Medicare for All is a winner from a fiscal and economics perspective.
The U.S. already spends in the area of $4 trillion annually on healthcare, and with that commitment, we still have close to 30 million uninsured, and tens of millions more dramatically underinsured, at great expense.
Those numbers are sure to grow at least in the short term with the economic disruption from the government response to COVID-19.
Times of disruption are ripe for instituting systemic change.
Basically, pulling this particular Band-Aid off won’t hurt as much now, given everything else we have going on.
The fiscal sense of Medicare for All comes in the price tag associated with implementing it.
Several studies from think tanks across the ideological spectrum put the cost at $3-$4 trillion a year, which sounds scary at first glance, given that the current federal budget is in the area of $4 trillion a year, meaning Medicare for All would practically double federal spending.
But here’s where I point to how much we already spend for healthcare: that $4 trillion a year.
Does it matter if the $4 trillion a year is taxes, health insurance premiums, deductibles, out of pocket, some combination of all of those, or just taxes?
If we’re paying it anyway, we might as well pay for something that works.
And the current system: it ain’t working.
A key reason is that we’re spending our $4 trillion a year all wrong.
Among the advantages gained from going with Medicare for All: it eliminates the profit motive from healthcare delivery.
The profit motive in healthcare is the biggest reason we’re spending our money all wrong.
Healthcare delivery in the U.S. isn’t about outcomes; it’s about what can be billed.
Shifting from our hybrid public-private system to all public will mean there’d be a growth in federal bureaucracy, but there’s already a massive amount of private bureaucracy in the insurance sector.
If we don’t cut costs by bringing all of our middle managers under one umbrella, we should at the least improve efficiencies.
The biggest advantage: the millions uninsured, and underinsured, are now under the umbrella.
Couple this with a federal paid sick leave guarantee, and … it just makes too much sense.
But the DNC isn’t on board.
Why?
The answer here, of course, as with everything, is to follow the money.
Gotta keep those campaign donations from Big Pharma, the HMOs, the physicians groups, flowing into the coffers.
I mean, yeah, they also need your votes, but what are you going to do, vote for Trump?
Story by Chris Graham
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Chris Graham
