“Medicare for all” could be cheaper than you think
GERALD FRIEDMAN, THE CONVERSATION09.24.2017•4:29 AM
This piece originally appeared on The Conversation.
Public support for single-payer health care has been rising in recent months amid failed Republican efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
That’s perhaps why Sen. Bernie Sanders on September 13 introduced a new version of his single-payer plan with the support of 16 Democratic colleagues, a sharp rise from 2013 when none signed on to a similar proposal. It would not only expand Medicare to all Americans but make it more comprehensive by covering more services like mental health, dental care and vision, all without copayments or deductibles.
But Sanders’s plan would come at a steep price: likely more than US$14 trillion over the first decade, based on an estimate I did of a previous version.
There is, however, a simpler and less costly path toward single-payer, and it may have a better chance of success: Simply strike the words “who are age 65 or over” from the 1965 amendments to the Social Security Act that created Medicare and, voila, everyone (who wants) would be covered by the existing Medicare program.
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In SF, Sanders praises McCain for taking stand against GOP health care bill
San Francisco Chronicle
By Joe Garofoli
September 22, 2017 Updated: September 22, 2017 8:17p
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., during a nurses convention rally at Yerba Buena Gardens on Friday, Sept. 22, 2017, in San Francisco, Calif. Sanders promoted his Medicare for All 2017 plan.
Sen. Bernie Sanders barnstormed friendly progressive audiences Friday in San Francisco to build support for his Medicare-for-all proposal, saying it wasn’t enough just to play defense against “horrific” Republican health care plans.
“Maintaining the status quo is not enough,” Sanders said. “Our job is not just to prevent tens of millions of Americans from being thrown off the health insurance they currently have. Our job is to join every other major country on Earth and guarantee health care to all as a right, not a privilege.
“The time has come for a single-payer, Medicare-for-all program,” Sanders said at a downtown rally at Yerba Buena Gardens dominated by red-shirt wearing members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, which was holding its convention at a hotel across the street. The 185,000-member union, which is headquartered in Oakland, was one of the earliest and most vocal supporters of the Vermont
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Stalled universal health bill in California should pass, Gavin Newsom says
Sacramento BEE
BY CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO AND ANGELA HART
ccadelago@sacbee.com
SEPTEMBER 22, 2017 10:41 AM
SAN FRANCISCO
Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom challenged California’s Democratic-run Legislature to pass sweeping universal, government-run health care next year, pledging that if the bill stalls again, he will make it a priority regardless of what happens in Washington.
“There’s no reason to wait around on universal health care and single-payer in California,” Newsom said to thunderous applause from thousands of nurses who endorsed him in next year’s governor’s race. “It’s time to get move (Senate Bill) 562 along. It’s time to get it out of committee. It’s time to move it along the legislative track. It’s time to do that now. We don’t need to wait for the governor’s race. We don’t need even to wait another year.”
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Workers Covered By Smaller Firms Pay More Toward Family Premiums and in Cost Sharing Than Those in Larger Ones
Kaiser Family Foundation
September 19, 2017
Menlo Park, Calif. – Annual family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose an average of 3 percent to $18,764 this year, continuing a six-year run of relatively modest increases, according to the benchmark Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) 2017 Employer Health Benefits Survey released today.
This year’s premium increase is similar to the rise in workers’ wages (2.3%) and inflation (2%) over the same period and continues a remarkable slowdown. Since 2012, average family premiums have increased 19 percent, more slowly than the previous five years (30% increase from 2007 to 2012) and the five years before that (51% from 2002 to 2007).
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Democrats Bullish on Bernie Sanders and Single-Payer Health Care
September 14, 2017
NBC News, by ALEX SEITZ-WALD
WASHINGTON — The last time Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill to put every American in the government-run Medicare system, exactly zero of his colleagues supported him.
When the Vermont independent did it again Wednesday, he turned a Senate hearing room into a premonition of a 2020 presidential primary debate as some of the party’s biggest stars lined up to declare their support for an idea that has moved from the fringe to the mainstream with stunning speed.
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Bernie Sanders: Why Medicare-for-All Is Good for Business
FORTUNE
By Bernie Sanders
August 21, 2017
Despite major improvements made by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), our health care system remains in crisis. Today, we have the most expensive, inefficient, and bureaucratic health care system in the world. We spend almost $10,000 per capita each year on health care, while the Canadians spend $4,644, the Germans $5,551, the French $4,600, and the British $4,192. Meanwhile, our life expectancy is lower than most other industrialized countries and our infant mortality rates are much higher.
Further, as of September 2016, 28 million Americans were uninsured and millions more underinsured with premiums, deductibles, and copayments that are too high. We also pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.
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Richard Master: A businessman makes the case for a single-payer health care system
August 1, 2017
The Morning Call
By Richard Master
With all due respect to President Trump, he is wrong about the single-payer model of health insurance.
Single payer — centralized public financing of a continued privately operated health system — will not "bankrupt the United States." In fact, the opposite is true.
Single payer is the only internationally proven strategy to transition the U.S. out of its current crisis of runaway health care costs to economic sustainability, where overall system cost growth is consistent with overall economic growth and inflation.
At one-sixth of our economy and over 25 percent of the federal budget, health care will continue to be a focus in Congress until real progress is made and the angst of the American people about the system is resolved. It is clear to most Americans that runaway health care costs translate into flat wages and also a deterioration of real disposable income that drags down our 70 percent consumer-driven economy.
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Harvard Business Review: Is the U.S. Ready for a Single-Payer Health Care System?
Harvard Business Review
July 18, 2017
by Sandro Galea
Ironically, as congressional Republicans have been trying to replace the Affordable Care Act, the ACA’s popularity is at an all-time high, and the majority of Americans now believe that it is the federal government’s responsibility to provide health care for all Americans. This shift in sentiment suggests that a single-payer system — a “Medicare for all” — may soon be a politically viable solution to America’s health care woes.
This system has long been an aspiration of the far left, yet even the right now seems to acknowledge its growing likelihood. Following his decision not to support the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), the Senate Republican leadership’s latest attempt to replace the ACA, Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas, warned in a statement: “[I]f we leave the federal government in control of everyday health care decisions, it is more likely that our health care system will devolve into a single-payer system, which would require a massive federal spending increase.” (The BCRA, which failed in the Senate, would have kept the basic contours of the ACA but greatly reduced its ability to provide care.)
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