Let me start this by fully disclosing that I am an insurance broker who works in the group health insurance field. If the United States gets Medicare for All, I will be unemployed. I run a small business with one other person, so it’s not like I’m rolling in the cash and will have a multi-million dollar exit strategy. I have been working in some area of the healthcare/insurance field for fourteen years. I say this to be clear that I do have a level of expertise in this, and that I also have a stake in the outcome of this. Literally, I will need to retrain and look for a new career under socialized medicine (not looking for tears, folks, just stating the facts).
Now, here are more facts. The United states needs to move to Medicare for All. Just like we need to move away from coal and go to green energy, we need to move away from private health insurance and move to socialized medicine. Financially, one of the biggest cost drivers today is that we play defense and not offense when it comes to health care. If we have annual comprehensive checkups for everyone in this country (everyone, not just every citizen), we would reduce our overall spend. It’s about ROI, and over the course of a three to five year span, there is provable return on comprehensive preventive care. If we can catch a cancer in stage one or two instead of four we can save not just a life but a lot of money. If we can find undiagnosed diabetics and get them on proper diet and medication, we can stop future high-cost claims. This trend is true with cholesterol, heart disease, etc. Even if we were to ignore the moral reasons why we should be providing comprehensive health insurance to everyone, financially, we’re wrong not to do it. We have this data. Insurance companies have this data. The government has this data. There’s a reason that preventative care is a zero dollar cost under PPACA (aka Obamacare). It saves money.
Don’t let any of this “Medicare for those who want it” talk fool you. The last thing we need is a larger pool open only to the sickest people. That will keep the healthiest people on group health insurance, make the carriers more profitable, make Medicare less cost effective, cripple Medicare, and “prove” that Medicare for all wouldn’t work. Only by having a truly integrated pool of those currently insured and healthy and those currently uninsured and in need or services will we see the actual fair and just returns of the system. Medicare has a much lower admin cost than private insurance carriers, and if we fully empowered Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical manufacturers, we could drive down those prices much, much more. (Ten years ago, Rxs made up 10% - 15% of medical spend and is currently over 30%. In ten more years, it is likely to make up 50% of our medical costs.)
The only reasons anyone opposes this is money. I don’t mean it’s going to cost too much. It’s not. The amount that we pay out of our paychecks and for out of pocket expenses to see a doctor will disappear, and in turn, we’ll pay a higher tax. Does the money come out of your left pocket or your right? It’s the same money. Maybe we don’t even pay as much as per Elizabeth’s Warren proposal which puts in a 6% wealth tax and increase the income tax on the highest earners (unless you make millions of dollars annually, this isn’t you).
I look forward to voting myself out of a job at the next election. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t strongly believe it was best for all of us. Congress needs to start serving the people who have elected them instead of the corporations who feed them money. Please educate yourself. Please ask questions. Please look into the sources of things you hear. Please vote. It matters. This is still our country if we want it.
andulkaphoto
prguitarman
titsay
stormborns
jbbartram-illu
jacobvanloon
blakekathryn
