"Bernie Sanders'" Medicare for All "Could Cost Billions, Study Says

WASHINGTON – Senator Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for All" plan would increase public health spending by $ 32.6 trillion over 10 years, according to a study by a university libertarian politics center.

Vermont's latest independent plan would require historic tax hikes as the government replaces what employers and consumers are now paying for health care, according to the published analysis Monday by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University in Virginia. This would achieve significant savings on administration and drug costs, but increasing demand for care would result in increased spending, according to the analysis.

Sanders' plan relies on Medicare, the popular insurance program for the elderly. All residents of the United States would be covered without copays or deductibles for medical services. The insurance industry would be relegated to a minor role.

"Adopting something like" Medicare for all "would be a transformative change in the size of the federal government," said Charles Blahous, author of the study. Blahous was a senior economic adviser to President George W. Bush and a public administrator of social security and health insurance during the Obama administration.

Responding to the study, Sanders targeted the Mercatus Center, which receives funding from the conservative Koch brothers. Koch Industries' CEO, Charles Koch, sits on the board of directors of the center.

"If every great country on earth can guarantee health care for all, and achieve better health outcomes, while spending much less per capita than us, it is absurd to think that the United States can not do similarly "Sanders said in a statement. "This grossly misleading and biased report is the response of the Koch brothers to growing support in our country for a" Medicare for all "program."

Sanders' office did not do cost analysis, said a spokesman. However, Mercatus 'estimates are within the range of other cost projections for Sanders' 2016 plan.

Sanders staff found an error in an initial version of the Mercatus report, which had a long-term care program that was included in the 2016 proposal, but not in the current program. Blahous has corrected it, reducing its estimate of about $ 3 trillion over 10 years. Blahous says that the report is his own work, not that of the Koch brothers.

Also called "single payer" over the years, "Medicare for all" reflects a long-standing Liberal desire for a government system that covers all Americans.

The idea received broad support from Sanders in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries. In the run-up to the 2020 elections, Democrats are discussing whether the single payer should be a "litmus test" for national candidates.

The Mercatus analysis estimated the cost over 10 years of "Medicare for all", from 2022 to 2031, after an initial set-up. Its results are similar to those of several independent studies of Sanders' 2016 plan. These studies estimated increases in federal spending over 10 years ranging from $ 24.7 trillion to $ 34.7 trillion.

Kenneth Thorpe, professor of health policy at Emory University in Atlanta, who was previously a senior health policy advisor in the Clinton administration, wrote one of these studies and said stated that the Mercatus analysis reinforced them.

"It shows that if you go in that direction, it's going to cost the federal government $ 2.5 billion to $ 3 billion a year in spending," Thorpe said. "Even if people do not pay premiums, the tax hikes will be huge and there will be a lot of people who will pay more taxes than saving on premiums.

The Mercatus study challenges one of the key features of the plan, namely that hospitals and doctors would accept a payment based on lower health insurance rates for all their patients.

The study found that the plan would achieve substantial savings through lower prescription costs – $ 846 billion over 10 years – since the government would deal directly with drug manufacturers. The savings achieved through streamlined administration would be even greater, at nearly $ 1.6 trillion.

But other provisions would tend to drive up expenses, including coverage of nearly 30 million uninsured people, no deductibles or copay, and better benefits, including dental care, vision and hearing.

After taking into account current government funding for health care, the study estimated that doubling all federal personal and corporate income taxes would not fully cover additional costs.