The Bernie revolution has arrived. Once considered a fringe socialist crazy with no chance of gaining ground in the Democratic Party, the populist socialist Bernie Sanders has introduced a single-payer “Medicare For All” health care bill that has been endorsed by 15 senators, meaning it may create a possible litmus test for candidates hoping to gain the nomination in 2020.
The “Medicare For All Act Of 2017” would essentially eliminate private insurance for most Americans and impose higher taxes. Here are five reasons why Bernie’s plan, endorsed by 15 senators and 117 representatives, is just plain awful.
1.) It will dramatically increase payroll taxes. Here’s a helpful tip: anytime a politician says “free,” just immediately add a few percentages to your tax bracket, which would definitely be the case in Bernie’s plan, which calls for a 7.5% payroll tax on employers and a 4% “income-based premium” on all Americans. Sanders made a similar, albeit much more modest, proposal of 6.2% payroll tax increase last year, and according to a 2016 analysis of that proposal by Emory University Professor Kenneth Thorpe, the payroll tax would reduce wages.
“The new tax burden would vary dramatically by income. Low-income working families would pay 2.2 percent of taxable income and face a 6.2 percent reduction in wages traced to the employer payroll tax,” he wrote. “Individuals and families earning over $250,000 would face a 40 percent increase in taxes to finance the plan and pay for most of the new costs of the plan.”
2.) It will cost trillions. The estimated initial costs (this is before years of inflation, mind you) is projected at $2.5 trillion per year, which would create an “average of over $1 trillion per year financing shortfall,” according to Thorpe. That means the projected cost does not match the revenue stream, which in turn will require higher taxes than Bernie’s 7.2% payroll tax.
“To fund the program, payroll and income taxes would have to increase from a combined 8.4 percent in the Sanders plan to 20 percent while also retaining all remaining tax increases on capital gains, increased marginal tax rates, the estate tax and eliminating tax expenditures,” said Thorpe.
3.) High costs means price controls. As noted by National Interest, the only way our government overlords can adequately impose stringent budgets on something as elusive as healthcare is to essentially create cost controls in the “form of old-fashioned price controls or periodic payment cuts to doctors, hospitals or other medical professionals.”
“The little problem, of course, is that payment reductions for medical services always affect the patients who need those services,” notes NI. “Cost control through budgetary limitations or medical-payment cuts typically reduces the access that patients have to treatment, starting with progressively longer waiting lists.”
4.) Bureaucrats will determine appropriate healthcare, NOT you. As Americans woefully witnessed during the horrific Charlie Gard case in Britain, if the government foots the bill for healthcare, then government gets the final say. Sanders claims the new system will be “simple” and free Americans of having to haggle with insurers, but that is a lie. Instead of haggling with insurers, whom they can always threaten to leave, Americans will now be forced to fight with government bureaucrats for their medical needs.
“Government officials cannot control the demand for medical services; they can only control the supply of medical goods and services,” NI reports. “In practice, this means that government officials must determine what kind of care patients get, how they get it, under what circumstances they get it, and how those services will be ‘priced.’ (They don’t negotiate prices; they fix them.)”
“The Medicare program, with its tens of thousands of pages of rules and regulations and guidelines, demonstrates that painful fact daily to any Medicare patient struggling with a Medicare claims denial, or any doctor or any other medical professional wrestling with Medicare paperwork. Meanwhile, forget personal freedom.”
5.) If you like your healthcare plan, you sure CANNOT keep it. Period. Even under Obamacare, private health insurance still remains. That will officially be over should Bernie’s “Medicare For All” program become the law of the land. Unless you happen to fall into the upper-income brackets and can afford your own private insurer, you will be forced to grovel at the feet of Uncle Sam for all of your healthcare needs. Here’s how the Washington Post gleefully frames it:
The bill would revolutionize America’s health-care system, replacing it with a public system that would be paid for by higher taxes. Everything from emergency surgery to prescription drugs, from mental health to eye care, would be covered, with no co-payments. Americans younger than 18 would immediately obtain ‘universal Medicare cards,’ while Americans not currently eligible for Medicare would be phased into the program over four years. Employer-provided health care would be replaced, with the employers paying higher taxes but no longer on the hook for insurance.
This will be a major platform for the Democrats in 2020, and quite possible may become the new litmus test for entry. Conservatives had better figure out a way to streamline their vision into a coherent plan or single-payer is here to stay.