Medicare For All Costs

There have been a number of articles recently and some misguided statements by proponents on both sides about the cost and implementation of "Medicare for All" or publicly provided health insurance.

It would be expensive, but mathematically it wouldn't require new money, just a switch form privately funded to publicly funded.

How that would happen is the real problem, if in fact we even see it proposed seriously as opposed to a talking point by certain politicians.

To be clear, the cost of health care reflects the cost of health services being provided.  Currently most is provided under private insurance plans which are obtained in any number of ways.

Ultimately this cost might rise if more people get covered or it might decrease if the preventive care leads to earlier detection and less late intervention.

That's a matter that can be argued but, the switch from private to public funding wouldn't have a particular impact on overall costs, although of course the cost would show up as a Government expense.

As a reference point the United States has the highest per capita health care costs of any country although Switzerland is close, per the World Health depending of how you value the currencies.

The cost has been going up but it is going up partly because of inflation but also partly because new
 and improved technology has been introduced.

By most measures health outcomes do not correspond to the high cost, not that they are bad, but in many measures we are relatively average.  Of course because of our profit model, we attract some of the very best specialists in every discipline if, in fact, you can afford them.

The point is unless we are increasing this per capita cost, the total cost will not go up.  It's only a matter of how we pay for it.