We’re hearing more and more about so-called “Medicare for All”. What it amounts to is socialized medicine that will, under the guise of “everyone gets free health care”, completely ruin America’s health care system.
It’s been called the “evolution of Obamacare”.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar made the following comments to Maria Bartiromo of Fox News:
“The so-called Medicare-for-all in any of its forms is Medicare for none. What it would do is either eliminate directly or completely undermine the private health insurance system in this country. That’s over 140 million Americans are getting insurance from their private employers, and you know, when some of the same individuals sold you on Obamacare and said you could keep your insurance plan if you like it, this time they don’t even make that promise.
This time it will undermine private insurance. It will hurt our seniors because what it will do, it will drive doctors and hospitals out of the insurance system. It will hurt the promise we made to our seniors for quality access to care.”
Azar said the “core” of Medicare-for-all is forcing private insurers to adopt what Medicare pays doctors and hospitals:
“So it would compel doctors and hospitals to accept in these plans the lower Medicare reimbursement rates. What does that mean? It means they would have a lower cost basis in these Medicare for all plans than private insurance. And that’s what would drive them out of the marketplace. You wouldn’t be able to compete with socialist price controls, meaning if you have your insurance through your employer, it would either go away immediately or it would eventually go away. It’s just that simple.”
Azar recommended “price transparency” as a way of getting more people health care at lower costs:
“The most important thing we can do is what president trump demanded in the state of the union which is transparency of prices from hospitals, from drug companies, from insurance companies, from everybody.
“You have a right as a patient to know what something will cost before you go get the service. You never go to a store and have the price concealed from you. In every aspect of health care it’s concealed from you. That’s at the core of making a system where we restore the patient as the consumer and driving choice.”
I’m an old guy—one of those “seniors” of which Azar speaks. A year ago March I had a hip replaced. I’ve had a job since I was 15 years old. I’ve paid into the system for over 50 years, and now I’m reaping the benefits of it.
I’ll be the first to tell you Medicare is a mixed blessing, barely adequate at times. Only by the courtesy of doctors, hospitals, and clinics accepting and agreeing to what Medicare pays is health care available to seniors. Try to get dental care under Medicare.
It will be the same for all of us under “Medicare for All.”
A friend of mine lives in Canada, where they have “public health care”. At that time he said a hip replacement was at least 180 days out just for an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon, and probably more waiting after that to actually have the surgery. Then you have to drive or fly to the hospital that does the procedure. That’s why so many Canadians come to America to get “life changing” health care like cancer treatment, heart surgery, etc. (and hip replacements).
Socialism in any form– government or health care– is a bad idea, it’s non-sustainable without heavy taxation that prohibits free enterprise, and is in fact the death of Capitalism.
Capitalism is the life-blood of Freedom.
THE RIGHT RENDITION 