32 trillion reasons to reject Ocasio-Cortez "Over the last week, we've seen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the young woman who defeated incumbent Democrat Representative Crowley, on TV outlining her socialist fantasies.
"A new report ought to force Miss Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Sanders to explain how they will pay for Medicare for all. According to this report, it will be super-expensive:
. . . The study confirms what we've known for years, unless you are a liberal Democrat looking for a talking point. In other words, doubling all federal individual and corporate income taxes would not be enough.
"But don't expect Senator Sanders, or most in the media, to explain how he is going to pay for all of this.
"Just another reason to go out and vote this November. "
"Sen. Bernie Sanders' 'Medicare for all' plan would boost government health spending by $32.6 trillion over 10 years, requiring historic tax hikes..."
"... according to the analysis by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia. Doubling federal individual and corporate income tax receipts would not cover the full cost, the study said" (Bloomberg).
"If every major country on earth can guarantee health care to all, and achieve better health outcomes, while spending substantially less per capita than we do, it is absurd for anyone to suggest that the United States cannot do the same," Sanders said in a statement. "This grossly misleading and biased report is the Koch brothers response to the growing support in our country for a 'Medicare for all' program." From Althouse.
Think Tank: Medicare For All Has $32-Trillion Federal Price Tag; Would increase annual federal spending on health care by $2.5 trillion
. . . "That assumption—that Medicare for All would mean all Americans enjoying the much lower prices Medicare commands in buying health care services—is key to the slight advantage the Sanders plan has over the current trajectory. That goes away, the paper finds, if for example we assume that payments will be made at the current average market rate—the mean of all of the private and public health care prices in the market today. If we use that number, then the ten-year cost of Medicare for All rises to $38 trillion, well-outstripping status quo projections.
"Other key assumptions—all of which Blahous explicitly outlines—keep the cost of Medicare for All lower than what it would likely actually be. For example, the Sanders plan assumes that the government could successfully substitute all brand-name drugs with generics—failing to do so would make "actual savings… less than assumed under these projections." The estimate of the amount of savings that would accrue from reduced administrative costs is similarly termed "aggressive" by Blahous, and would likely be far less significant if the Medicare-using population quintupled.
"In other words: Medicare for All would likely be more expense than the status quo, a cost that would be borne by taxpayers in one way or another, rather than by individual consumers.
" 'There should be a robust public discussion," Blahous concludes, "of whether these outcomes are desirable and practicable before M4A's enactment is seriously considered."