The latest news on Medicare for all.
Today, there is a lot of confusion floating around about ‘Medicare for all’. Politicians often put forth a general idea: universal health care, or some system in which everyone can afford medical care, but their visions for achieving that vary wildly. Sometimes Medicare for all is meant to promise a single-payer health care system —meaning everyone is covered by one, often government-run health plan. In other cases, politicians who say they support “for all” actually mean “for more.” Voters are beginning to catch on to the ambiguity surrounding this phrase, which can impact their voting decisions.
Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris, who’s running for president, triggered this deeper level of analysis on January 29, when CNN’s Jake Tapper asked her if she favored getting rid of private insurance. “Let’s eliminate all that,” Harris said. “We need to have Medicare for all.” However, people across the nation are not quick to give up what they are familiar with. Nearly half the population get health care coverage through their employment. Around 21 million Americans buy their own insurance in the private market. Medicare for all, essentially, would move 177 million Americans from a health care system that works into a government-run system that had never handled that many people.
The biggest change would be a profound reworking of the tax code since Medicare for all would require at least $3 trillion a year in new government revenue. So business and individual taxes would rise across the board. There would be offsetting savings since companies and individuals would no longer pay insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs. But the transition would be turbulent and some people would end up as net losers.
There’s already opposition from hospitals and other providers who worry that more Medicare coverage—and less private insurance—would hurt profits because Medicare typically pays less. Even the simple-sounding plans are complicated.
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