Question

What about Medicare for all? The progressive left is strongly promoting this concept. Is it feasible, affordable (how would it be financed), and what are your concerns? What about the benefits to Medicare for all? In term of policy, is this feasible and how would this policy evolve? You might also want to delve into what the Democrats vs. Republications have put forth as their "plan" for ensuring access to health care, etc. Again, outside research is recommended in order to discuss this issue in depth.

Answer 1

'Medicare for all' is a broad concept and every person has a different opinion about this statement. It is an popular idea among the Democrats, Republicans as well as American people. The concept entails an expansion of health insurance that is regulated and at least partially financed by the government. Some democrats thinks that it will create a single health care for all US residents while other wants to make Medicare an option for more number of Americans without necessarily eliminating all other private insurance programs. Some benefits of Medicare for all is that it will increase the health coverage dramatically and uninsurance would be eradicated to a certain level. Another benefit could be that in competition with Medicare, private insurers will offer more benefits to its holders that Medicare does not include which will ultimetly benefit the common people. It is estimated that 27.9 million nonelderly individuals in America do not have any health insurace. So the concept of Medicare for all will definitely lower this number. One key potential benefit of this system is that it would put away some of those overhead costs

But one thing we have to take a look at that if the access to the universality is increased it will also lift the cost factor. If we talk about the very first plan that I mentioned of creating a single health acre plan for everyone, it will cost something around $4 trillion a year and almost 30-40 trillion in the next decade. But a slow Medicare expansion can reduce the cost to half. In the year 2018, 700 billion US dollar were spended to provide Medicare benefits to around 60 million American citizens.

Some amendments in the policy can substantially make the cost bearable to the government like a 32% payroll tax, a 25% income surf tax, 42% value added tax, an adjusted gross income above the standard deduction and a combination of other approaches. Even taking out non core medical expenditure like dental and vision can potentially cut the expenditure in half.