Medicare For All Saves Money And Lives

By Cliff Montgomery – Feb. 29th, 2020Yesterday, the American Sparkdiscussed a study on the benefits of a Medicare-for-All system that wasrecently released by The Lancet, one the world’s top medical journals.The report states that such a system would create savings for U.S.citizens “equivalent to more than US$450 billion annually (based on thevalue of the US$ in 2017).”Perhapsunderstandably, the report quickly became a favorite talking point ofU.S. Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on the campaigntrail.Thusothers saw a need to offer their two cents on the report published byThe Lancet. A week ago, an article in the Washington Post worked to putits Jeff Bezos-financed spin on the matter.ThePost pointed out that in final costs, the Lancet study promises “a newsystem that would cost about $3 trillion a year, instead of the $3.5trillion that is being spent now.”Thearticle adds that the Lancet report estimated “that to fully fundMedicare-for-all, the federal government would have to bring in anadditional $773 billion a year relative to current revenue levels.”TheLancet study finds “this could be paid for, in part, by a 10 percentpayroll tax that would bring in $436 billion annually,” states the Post.But “given that current employer contributions to health care work outto about 12 percent of payrolls,” the Post points out “this would stillbe about $100 billion less than what employers currently pay.”ThePost adds that “remaining funding could be paid via a 5 percent tax onhousehold income, yielding $375 billion a year.” But “the elimination ofemployee contributions to existing health insurance premiums” meansthat “the average household could expect to save well over $2,000 a year— and have no co-pays or deductibles to worry about.”Butthe Post thinks it detects a problem with all this. It states thatother research groups have claimed the annual cost of a national healthcare system for the U.S. would be higher than the Lancet study’s $3trillion estimate. The Post article points out the estimates of “thelibertarian Mercatus Center ($3.8 trillion per year) and the morecentrist-oriented Urban Institute ($4.2 trillion per year) and RANDCorporation ($3.9 trillion).”A word to the wise: When U.S. corporate reporters use the word “libertarian” to describe a person or group, they mean extreme right-wing – and when they say, “centrist-oriented,” they mean near-conservative. It’s a cute and somewhat misleading way of hiding the proven biases of these entities.TheLancet is different. It has no political ax to grind. For almost 200years, the Lancet has dedicated itself solely to publishing sound andsober medical reports. Its expertise is in medicine, not political spin.ThePost then proclaims that “all of these estimates — [the ones publishedin The Lancet] included — are built on various assumptions,” which allpretend to know “how costs and payments and patient behaviors would workin the real world with a Medicare-for-all plan in place.”Sothe Washington Post assumes the cherished American fantasy that anational health care system has never been put into practice in the realworld. ‘Gosh, who knows what might happen if some country were to giveit a try?’ they almost childishly suggest.But national health care systems have existed for years, in every economically developed country in the world – with the singular exception of the United States. Thus the economic and social effects of such a system are well documented, and their merits and demerits are beyond doubt.As far back as 2009, the American Sparkbrought to light a major comparison of the cost of health care amongmember countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD). The results were enlightening.“TheUnited States spends more money on health care than any other countryin the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). TheOECD consists of 30 democracies, most of which are considered the mosteconomically advanced countries in the world,” declared a 2007 studyreleased by the Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan researchgroup that compiles studies on important issues for all members of theU.S. Congress.“Accordingto OECD data, the United States spent $6,102 per capita on health carein 2004 — more than double the OECD average and 19.9% more thanLuxembourg, the second-highest spending country,” added the 2007 CRSreport.“In2004, 15.3% of the U.S. economy was devoted to health care, comparedwith 8.9% in the average OECD country and 11.6% in second-placedSwitzerland,” stated the CRS study.One last thing. Americans also spend far more for their health insurance than most other democracies.“Spendingon health administration and insurance cost $465 per person in theUnited States in 2004, which was seven times that of the OECD median,”declared the study.But has all that spending produced outstanding health benefits for U.S. citizens? Not at all.“Researchcomparing the quality of care has not found the United States to besuperior overall. Nor does the U.S. population have substantially betteraccess to health care resources, even putting aside the issue of theuninsured,” stated the CRS study.Sincemember OECD countries appear to have maintained the same health caresystems in the last decade or so, there’s little reason to believe muchhas changed.Infact, the most recent (2019) OECD health comparison report points outthat “since 2009, average health spending as a share of GDP has remainedrelatively stable across the OECD at around 8.8%,” adding that “growthin health spending has remained in line with overall economic growthsince the economic crisis.”And U.S. health care costs continue to soar in comparison to other OECD countries.“At17.1%, the United States spent the highest share of GDP on health in2017, while Turkey allocated around 4.2% of its GDP in the same year,”added the 2019 OECD study.Sowhy is cost still an issue for a U.S. national health care system? Wesuspect the answer may rest on a perennial truth: It is very hard todiscuss facts with people who earn their paychecks denying those facts.