Koch-backed study finds 'Medicare for All' would save U.S. trillions

[Bladewire]

"An estimated cost of $32.6 trillion over 10 years is less than the US would spend over the next 10 years under the current system."

Koch-backed study finds 'Medicare for All' would save U.S. trillions

A single-payer Medicare for All system would reduce the amount the U.S. spends on health care by more than $2 trillion, a Koch brothers-funded study released Monday found.

Research by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University — a libertarian think tank backed by the Koch brothers — projected that the Medicare for All plan championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) would cost the government $32.6 trillion over 10 years. The highly critical report found that even doubling all federal individual and corporate income taxes would not cover the costs of Sanders’ Medicare for All plan.

The study did conclude, however, that Medicare for All would result in significant savings for the government because of lower prescription drug costs, saving $846 billion over the next decade. Streamlined administrative costs under the plan would save another $1.6 trillion, the researchers at the Mercatus Center found.

When we talk about a Medicare for All system, it’s important to discuss the costs in the context of what the U.S. already spends on health care. As of 2016, national health expenditures — which includes federal spending, state Medicaid programs, and private employer health care spending — totaled $3.3 trillion per year, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

That means that over the next decade, the U.S. is projected to spend more than $33 trillion, plus inflation, on health care services without any changes to our current health care system, significantly more than Mercatus’s estimated $32.6 trillion cost to the federal government over the next ten years.

Sanders’ proposed single-payer plan would be free at the point of service, and would not include any cost-sharing — that is, no co-pays or premiums. Under his plan, taxes would replace those often high costs, which currently are shouldered by patients.

Research from March of this year found that the present system has left 15.5 percent of adults between 19 and 64 without health insurance, while more than a quarter of lower-income families are uninsured. Monday’s study concluded that not only would Medicare for All provide insurance for the millions of Americans currently without coverage, but it would also save the the United States $2.054 trillion over the next decade.

In a comment to Fox News, Sanders took exception to the report’s conclusion Medicare for All would lead to a drastic increase in taxes, calling the study “grossly misleading and biased.” He noted, too, that that the center is funded by the Koch brothers, who known for their fierce advocacy of libertarian policies.

[dyna mo]

Let's do it Americans!

[crockett]

Saw that and had a laugh.. If Democrats were smart they would fucking run with that making shit loads of ads saying "even Koch Brothers strong Republican supporters say we will save money"..

[onwebcam]

"The highly critical report found that even doubling all federal individual and corporate income taxes would not cover the costs of Sanders’ Medicare for All plan."

Nothing will work without totally restructuring the health care system itself.. It's built on inflated insurance billing "costs".. Until this is changed everyone is just shooting blanks.