Democrats vying for the 2020 presidential nomination have really gotten behind the idea that our healthcare system is broken and needs to be fixed, and that the fix is “Medicare-for-all.” Forget that just a decade ago Democrats completely overhauled the healthcare system claiming Obamacare was the answer to all our problems, but here we are.
At a townhall hosted by CNN, Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) again said the country now needs Medicare-for-all after being asked by a woman how he would help lower her medical bills.
“This is a broken system and we must fix it,” Booker said after explaining that the American healthcare system is far too expensive. “Health care is an American right and the current system is definitely wrong. I believe the best way to get there is by having Medicare for all.”
The problem for Booker is that the woman who asked the question, Miriam Birdsong, described by CNN as a “retired nurse and educator” (but who also ran as the Democrat challenger to a Republican county councilman in Dorchester County six years ago), is already on Medicare.
“My medications and my physician costs are astronomical,” Birdsong said. “I have Medicare and private insurance but they’re expensive and still don’t cover my costs.”
Booker gives some “commonsense” solutions about drugs and drug pricing that could help lower costs but doesn’t require everyone in the country to be on Medicare.
Last summer, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University calculated the cost of the Democrats’ Medicare-for-all proposal and estimated it would cost $32.6 trillion over 10 years. That’s $3.26 trillion a year. The federal budget is currently hovering around $4.4 billion. Booker said that America spends about 20% of its GDP on healthcare, or about $3.8 billion a year. But the federal government spent only $1.1. trillion on health care in fiscal year 2018, according to the Tax Policy Center.
Medicare-for-all would increase the federal government’s spending on health care (which would require higher taxes on Americans to pay for) and still not help the people it is purported to help. Birdsong has Medicare and still has high expenses. All Medicare-for-all would do is increase taxes on people and still provide an expensive service.
Ben Shapiro, The Daily Wire’s Editor-in-Chief, previously wrote of the problems with Medicare-for all, pointing out that Sweden and Britain are starting to increase spending outside of the rationed national health care systems. He quoted the Hoover Institution’s Scott Atlas, who wrote:
Sweden has increased its spending on private care for the elderly by 50 percent in the past decade, abolished its government’s monopoly over pharmacies, and made other reforms. Last year alone, the British government spent more than $1 billion on care from private and other non-NHS providers.
That’s because government provided health care simply isn’t sustainable and has other downsides that politicians who support it fail to mention, like rationing.
Booker’s office did not respond to a Daily Wire press inquiry prior to publication.
Watch the full exchange below: