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.

Health Care, Still Under Attack

You may or may not have noticed that this is the time to enroll in a health plan under the Affordable Care Act if you are eligible.

There is virtually no outreach going on for the Federal Exchange if you live in one of the states without their own exchange.

The current administration was unable to repeal it and instead is doing everything it can to destroy it by other means.

Attempts to repeal it outright are probably over, at least for the next two years if not forever, but attempts to undercut it continue.

As predicted with more experience and with a more stable outlook, premiums have generally stabilized and more providers are joining in since they see opportunities to make profits.

Current attempts to destabilize it include the introduction of low cost do little plans designed to appeal to low risk customers.  If you can get them out of the plans, it will increase costs.

However for many of those, the full coverage plans in the exchange end up being more affordable when you get the income based subsidy that's part of the act.

Now the administration is trying to allow states to apply those subsidies to non qualifying plans outside of the exchanges.

This is of doubtful legality since the coverages and the subsidies are both pretty clearly spelled out, but when you predict it will collapse and try to undermine it without success, well try harder.

Most Americans have come to, if not love, at least accept the plan and most love some of its best provisions like covering pre-existing conditions or allowing dependents to stay covered longer.

We are now going to see some attempts at expanding it even further as many progressives are pushing the concept of Medicare for All.

It will be interesting to watch.

Health Care

Health care as an issue has become form the polls something that benefits the Democrats.

The Republicans are trying to paint the proposals by Bernie Sanders about universal Medicare as a expensive socialist Democratic proposal but it remains to be seen how successful that is.

What voters discovered after the Republicans tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act is that they like an awful lot of it.

This just shows how poorly it was explained to them when it was first passed.

Many Americans were sold on it being a Government takeover of health care with 'death panel", loss of choice, terrible coverage and restrictions on treatment when it was none of those things.

The benefits it provided have become clear to the public over time and the disasters predicted never happened.

This isn't going to stop the lies and propaganda from the republicans and the faux fox network but the public has seen it in action and likes what they see, in general.

The party of the few is forced to use lies and deception to convince the many that it cares about them.

It simply doesn't, except for their votes.
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