Medicare for All would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study
Economist says Canadian-style, single-payer health plan would reap huge savings from reduced paperwork and from negotiated drug prices, enough to pay for quality coverage for all at less cost to families and businesses
Upgrading the nations Medicare program and expanding it to cover people of all ages would yield more than a half-trillion dollars in efficiency savings in its first year of operation, enough to pay for high-quality, comprehensive health benefits for all residents of the United States at a lower cost to most individuals, families and businesses.
Thats the chief finding of a new fiscal study by Gerald Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. There would even be money left over to help pay down the national debt, he said.
Friedman says his analysis shows that a nonprofit single-payer system based on the principles of the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, H.R. 676, introduced by Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and co-sponsored by 45 other lawmakers, would save an estimated $592 billion in 2014. That would be more than enough to cover all 44 million people the government estimates will be uninsured in that year and to upgrade benefits for everyone else.
No other plan can achieve this magnitude of savings on health care, Friedman said.
His findings were released this morning [Wednesday, July 31, 11 a.m. EDT] at a congressional briefing in the Cannon House Office Building hosted by Public Citizen and Physicians for a National Health Program, followed by a 1 p.m. news conference with Rep. Conyers and others in observance of Medicares 48th anniversary at the House Triangle near the Capitol steps. A copy of Friedmans full report, with tables and charts, is available here.
Friedman said the savings would come from slashing the administrative waste associated with todays private health insurance industry ($476 billion) and using the new, public systems bargaining muscle to negotiate pharmaceutical drug prices down to European levels ($116 billion).
These savings would be more than enough to fund $343 billion in improvements to our health system, including the achievement of truly universal coverage, improved benefits, and the elimination of premiums, co-payments and deductibles, which are major barriers to people seeking care, he said.
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Economist says Canadian-style, single-payer health plan would reap huge savings from reduced paperwork and from negotiated drug prices, enough to pay for quality coverage for all at less cost to families and businesses
Upgrading the nations Medicare program and expanding it to cover people of all ages would yield more than a half-trillion dollars in efficiency savings in its first year of operation, enough to pay for high-quality, comprehensive health benefits for all residents of the United States at a lower cost to most individuals, families and businesses.
Thats the chief finding of a new fiscal study by Gerald Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. There would even be money left over to help pay down the national debt, he said.
Friedman says his analysis shows that a nonprofit single-payer system based on the principles of the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, H.R. 676, introduced by Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and co-sponsored by 45 other lawmakers, would save an estimated $592 billion in 2014. That would be more than enough to cover all 44 million people the government estimates will be uninsured in that year and to upgrade benefits for everyone else.
No other plan can achieve this magnitude of savings on health care, Friedman said.
His findings were released this morning [Wednesday, July 31, 11 a.m. EDT] at a congressional briefing in the Cannon House Office Building hosted by Public Citizen and Physicians for a National Health Program, followed by a 1 p.m. news conference with Rep. Conyers and others in observance of Medicares 48th anniversary at the House Triangle near the Capitol steps. A copy of Friedmans full report, with tables and charts, is available here.
Friedman said the savings would come from slashing the administrative waste associated with todays private health insurance industry ($476 billion) and using the new, public systems bargaining muscle to negotiate pharmaceutical drug prices down to European levels ($116 billion).
These savings would be more than enough to fund $343 billion in improvements to our health system, including the achievement of truly universal coverage, improved benefits, and the elimination of premiums, co-payments and deductibles, which are major barriers to people seeking care, he said.
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Myself, I like to avoid such childish behavior.
