Fixes that Fail:  Federal Healthcare

CLAIM: Federal healthcare (Medicare-for-All) saves money

FACT: This is magical thinking, a whole new level of self-deception. Charles Blahous of Mercatus Center has done a careful detailed cost analysis of Medicare-for-All, which will cost $32.6 trillion over ten years. That amount of new spending is equal to GDPs of the U.S. and China, combined!

Rather than saving money, Medicare-for-All will raise U.S. spending on healthcare to nearly $7 trillion per year. To cover this expense every American will have to pay twice the amount of taxes they pay now. Yes, Medicare-for-All will double your tax bill.

CLAIM: Federal healthcare will provide for all our medical needs

FACT:  We already have a single payer system in the U.S. called the Veterans Administration health system. According to their own internal audit in 2015, “306, 000 veterans may have died” waiting for needed care. Single payer creates what is called, “death by queueing.”

FACT:  Federal healthcare systems use rationing to reduce spending. How does medical rationing produce “better care”?  Government medical rationing limits access to care and does not provide enough facilities to provide care: too few operating rooms and not enough burn units.  But, there is something worse.

FACT:  In single payer systems such as Medicare-for-All, the federal government, not the patient, makes life-and-death decisions. Read about the British babies that their system removed from life support against the parents’ wishes.