A study by Charles Blahousat the Mercatus Center estimates that Medicare for all would cost $32.6 trillion over the next ten years. Other studies have been in the same ballpark and they imply that we would need a 25% payroll tax. And that assumes that doctors and hospitals provide the same amount of care they provide today, even though they would be paid Medicare rates, which are about 40% below what private insurance has been paying. Without those cuts in provider payments, the needed payroll tax would be closer to 30%.
Of course, there would be savings on the other side of the ledger. People would no longer have to pay private insurance premiums and out-of-pocket fees. In fact, for the country as a whole this would largely be a financial wash – a huge substitution of public payment for private payment.
With Medicare for all, you would have virtually no say in how costs are controlled other than the fact that you would be one of several hundred million potential voters.
Remember also that there is a reason why Obamacare is such a mess. The Democrats in Congress convened special interests around a figurative table – the drug companies, the insurance companies, the doctors, the hospitals, the device manufacturers, big business, big labor, etc. – and gave each a piece of the Obamacare pie in order to buy their political support.
As we show below, every single issue Obamacare had to contend with would be front and center in any plan to replace Obamacare with Medicare for all. So, the Democrats who gave us the last health care reform would be dealing with the same issues and the same special interests the second time around.
It takes a great deal of faith to believe there would be much improvement.
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