Bernie Sanders introduced a socialize medicine bill, with 16 Democratic Senators as cosponsors – having signed their intent to help advance the bill into law.
The “Medicare for All Act of 2017” would replace Obamacare – with its network of public and private insurance marketplaces – with a purely government operated universal coverage plan. Bernie famously denounced consumer choice saying, “You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different sneakers,” when describing his single plan, single payer, system.
Senators Harris, Booker, Gillibrand, and Warren were the most vocal supporters of the legislation as it was introduced. And as co-sponsors, they have pledged to do all they can do advance the bill into law. However, their pledge may end up backfiring on them, as Senator Sanders is still working out ways in which the incredibly expensive socialized healthcare plan can be sustainably funded.
In fact, Bernie’s entire bill is vague in nearly all aspects.
The policy is very vague in almost all its aspects, “Mr. Sanders did not say how he would pay for his bill,” noted one concerned congressional aide. Sources close to Sanders say that they are working on presenting a list of possible financing schemes in hopes to generate even more support for the bill.
In the recent past, Vermont, California, Colorado, and New Jersey all attempted to pass state-level single payer healthcare systems into law. All this suggests that the tax increase necessary to run a single payer system is far too vast for citizens to support, even in deep blue states.
In fact, liberal groups are already lining up against Sander’s plan. The liberal think tank, the Urban Institute issued the following statement;
“National health expenditures would increase by $6.6 trillion between 2017 and 2026, while federal expenditures would increase by $32 trillion over that period. Sanders’s revenue proposals, intended to finance all health and non-health spending he proposed, would raise $15.3 trillion from 2017 to 2026—thus, the proposal taxes are much too low to fully finance his health plan.”
Resent research from the Kaiser Family Foundation concluded that, “Support for single-payer drops about 20% when people who initially said they supported the proposal are told it would give the government too much control or require Americans to pay higher taxes.” Such reforms seem to be extremely attractive at first, but there high and unreal costs and destruction of consumer choice that such a plan necessarily entails scares off many initial supporters.
Even avowed liberal economist Paul Krugman dinged Sander’s plan, albeit in a much more conciliatory tone, “A commitment to universal health coverage—bringing in the people currently falling through Obamacare’s cracks—should definitely be a litmus test … But single-payer, while it has many virtues, isn’t the only way to get there; it would be much harder politically than its advocates acknowledge; and there are more important priorities.”