Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) on Wednesday introduced a measure to overturn a Trump administration rule expanding access to non-ObamaCare insurance plans.
The move is a step in Senate Democrats’ plan to force a vote on the measure as they seek to argue Republicans are attacking protections for people with pre-existing conditions, a key argument Democrats want to make in the midterm election campaign.
Most of the prominent Democrats eyeing 2020 presidential bids — including Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — champion the idea of “Medicare for all,” suggesting it’s become almost a litmus test for the party’s base.
But the notion of government-funded health care has proved a tough sell to Democratic voters in swing districts that will determine control of the House.
Is Bernie Sanders a socialist like Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, whose mania for wealth redistribution has brought a country to its knees? Or, as Mr. Sanders suggests, is he merely a “socialist” in the manner of Scandinavian politicians, who presided over thriving free economies before imposing entitlement programs and have since cut corporate tax rates to allow economic growth to fund their promises?
Some years back, I concluded that single-payer health insurance would profoundly alter America’s financial structure, but change the country’s health care relatively little. This thesis is reinforced by the strident, bipartisan emotionalism aroused by a new study by my colleague, Charles Blahous.
In a recent tweet, the Bernie Sanders insists the plan will cut $2 trillion from the nation’s health care bill.But that’s based on a scenario in which hospitals and doctors accept significantly lower payments for many patients. It’s a big asterisk, and one that Sanders fails to disclose.
According to a July 30 study from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, establishing a single-payer health care program will cost taxpayers $32 trillion over the next 10 years.
Maryland is now the fourth U.S. state in recent years to contemplate a “single payer” government health plan. In California, the cost of creating a single-payer system was an enormous political obstacle.
Even if Congress were to double what it collects in individual and corporate income taxes, there still wouldn’t be enough money added to the federal coffers to finance the costs of Medicare for All.
Having stacked the deck in favor of Medicare for All, a new report comes up with a price tag: By 2031, the federal government would be spending an additional $4.2 trillion a year. For reference, the amount is slightly more than the total the U.S. government expects to spend this year.
The U.K.’s government-run healthcare system, the National Health Service, turns 70 this month. There’s not much to celebrate. The NHS is collapsing. Patients routinely face treatment delays, overcrowded hospitals, and doctor shortages. Even its most ardent defenders admit that the NHS is in crisis.