Medicare for all - denigrated
Here's an article from the NY Post
I've annotated it in red......
Trump is totally right about the dangers of Medicare for All
Sen. Bernie Sanders says that because Medicare is “the most popular, successful and cost-effective health insurance in the country” everyone should have it, regardless of age.
But watch out for the bait and switch. Truth is, Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation actually abolishes Medicare and Medicare Advantage (It doesn't abolish Medicare, it expands it), as well as employer-provided coverage, union plans and plans people buy for themselves. Every person will be forced into a mandatory, government-run system with the phony(clearly biased from the beginning by using the word “ phony”) name “Medicare for All.” Whether you want it or not. The quality of your medical care will plummet.(my underlining - this is a negative assumption with no evidence - the quality could and probably would improve because, as in Medicare now, the data is available for analysis where it is not in the private system. This is just simply another biased statement implying worsening care with no evidence. Since statistically America ranks no.37 in the WHO health care efficiency rating, does she think we will fall below that?)
Medicare for All will plunge hospitals into financial distress, exposing patients to dangerous medical shortages(hospitals are 70% over administrated. Yes, the patient will be forced to do with fewer administrators. Will the number of health care providers such as doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists be reduced? Possibly. The plan is not entirely worked out yet. But in France, England, Canada, virtually every civilized country in the world, they have managed to provide health care for everyone on ONE HALF our budget) and forcing pay cuts on health care workers. New York hospitals and their workforce will get clobbered the worst (fear tactics at its most obvious).
But 16 Democratic senators, including New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand, and 123 Democrats in the House endorse the legislation. Have they actually read it(what conceit)?
President Trump warns that Sanders is “eliminating Medicare as a program for seniors.” He cautions that “hospitals would be put out of business,” patients will face “long wait lines” and seniors will “effectively be denied” care they need.
Sanders calls Trump a liar. Fortunately there’s a way to determine who’s telling the truth.(If we listen to the history of the last 20 months Trump has told over 5000 lies or misrepresentations. So, just on the basis of the evidence, who would you believe) The answer is in the 96 pages of Sanders’ bill. Here’s what it says.
Four years after Medicare for All begins, all private insurance will be banned (Sec. 107), and Medicare and other government health programs will be terminated(replaced), just as Trump said. Everyone, including illegal immigrants, will be enrolled in the new government program (Sec. 106). Newborns will be automatically enrolled at birth (Sec. 105).
On paper, the new program guarantees hospital care, doctors’ visits, even dental, vision and long-term care, all paid for by Uncle Sam. Here’s the hitch: Hospitals will be forced to operate under conditions of extreme scarcity(one again, yes, a scarcity of administrators), with too little revenue and more patients than ever.
Right now, Medicare shortchanges hospitals(or, one could say, medicare pays them the fair and just rate and no the inflated rate generated by CHARGEMASTER, the system of charges based on no factual costs. Look up Chargemaster - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chargemaster), paying them less than the full cost of caring for seniors. But hospitals accept the low (fair) payments, because they can shift the unmet costs to younger patients who have private insurance that pays more(so that the CEOs making millions of dollars per year can continue to drain the system of resources).
But in the new scheme, hospitals will be paid at Medicare rates for all their patients, not just seniors (Sec. 611). With everyone on Medicare for All, no cost-shifting will be possible. The rates will be 40 percent less than what hospitals could get from private insurance plns. The severe short-changing will throw hospitals into crisis. Meanwhile, demand for care will surge, because it’s free to all comers.(Private health care insurance takes between 25 and 30% of every dollar. So, let's assume Medicare pays $100 for a biopsy and private insurance pays $140 for the same biopsy. In order to pay that $140 they must collect 140+(140x0.25)=$175. The $35 of overhead will almost offset the entire $40 difference in payments)
Hospitals will have to jam more beds into rooms and corridors(complete speculation and probably inaccurate - many hospitals are reducing beds because of the increasing proportion of procedures that are being done as outpatients - like, belief it or not, hip replacements), skimp on nursing care and make patients wait(utter scare tactics). Sounds like the austerity in the British National Health Service, only in Britain, the public has an escape hatch. They’re allowed to buy private coverage. Not under Sanders’ Medicare for All (Sec. 107). Those alternatives are banned. You’ll be trapped.
The gold-plated union health plan or Medicare Advantage Plan you used to have will be a distant memory, as you wait in crowded clinics alongside people who never paid into Medicare or earned on-the-job coverage.(Some truth here. Everyone may get treated the same regardless of income and ability to pay. But Bernie’s plan is not finalized. It does not include private health insurance - I read it - but, this being America, I suspect when a single payer system gets put in place, and it will eventually because it is the only fair, humane, cost saving, system in the world, that we will have a private insurance option. Republicans will fight for this right to buy what the poor can’t afford.)
In New York, the austerity will be magnified. Hospitals here have more debt and slimmer operating margins than elsewhere, making them less able to withstand cuts. Gary Fitzgerald of the Iroquois Healthcare Alliance warns that Sanders’ bill would “devastate upstate hospitals.”(If this is true, and it may be, possibly special measure may be needed to support urban hospitals with a large share in indigent people)
Doctors will also be paid 30 percent less than private insurance would pay them. To keep their doors open, they’ll have to see more patients per hour. That’s bad news for seniors, who take up more time. Doctors will avoid them like the plague.(The bill says that primary care providers will probably get paid more, specialists less. Nothing is said about patients per hour. Has she read the bill?)
The Sanders bill is a labor fiasco in the making.(Does this suggest bias? Does she know that over 60% of physicians support a single payer system? Does she know that the only people against it are health insurance executives, health care executives, and drug companies - all people who get paid by the health care dollar without providing ANYTHING to patient care) A staggering 1.2 million New Yorkers work in health care, more than in retail or manufacturing or any other industry. When hospitals are paid less, health care workers will see layoffs and pay cuts, too.
Bottom line: Under Medicare for all, patients will suffer, seniors will be shunned, hospitals will fail and health care workers will lose. Who exactly is supposed to benefit, except the politicians.(This article is pure propaganda. Right now you are paying, by taxes, healthcare benefits to employees, and out of pocket expenses, over twice as much for health care as a Parisian - $8233 compared to $3974 - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries.
How can anyone think that we can’t provide healthcare for everyone, just as France does with twice the money? And we can probably do it for the same amount as the French by doing what the Republicans harp about, cutting out the ‘fat’ which, in this case, are the ‘fat cats’ of the health care industry, the administrators of private insurance and hospital health plans. Physicians will take a cut in pay. They can absorb it. They have very interesting jobs and most don’t do it for the money. When the American plan is enacted - 30 years from now probably - it will probably allow private insurance given this is America where money talks.
One more thing....Amazon, Berkshire-Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase are all supporting a health care system to increase the efficiency of health care to their employees by reducing costs. And guess where the cuts will come from? Here's a quote from a Bloomberg article by the newly appointed CEO of this new, un-named company, Dr. Atul Gawande:
"Gawande said the venture will seek to target three kinds of waste in the health-care system: administrative costs, high prices, and improper health-care usage. "
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