A vast majority — 70 percent — of Americans in a new poll supports "Medicare for all," also known as a single-payer health-care system.
The Reuters–Ipsos survey found 85 percent of Democrats said they support the policy along with 52 percent of Republicans.
Medicare for all has been in the headlines after a study by the libertarian-leaning Mercatus Center at George Mason University found it would lead to $32.6 trillion increase in federal spending over a 10-year period.
The study’s author, Charles Blahous, wrote in The Wall Street Journal earlier this month that even doubling taxes would not cover the bill for a single-payer health-care system.
The policy’s proponents, however, point to a note in the study showing that health-care costs would also decrease by $2 trillion by 2031 if it became law.
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7 comments:
Anything that comes from left-wing Reuters must be viewed with suspicion.
Exactly how far on the fringe does one have to be to consider Reuters left wing?
We've nationalized medical care for government employees, veterans, old people, and poor people. May as well extend it to the rest of us like every other Western country has managed to do.
@A-G: I agree with your main point. Most Western countries have some sort of publicly-funded hospital system. At least you won't be bankrupted by a visit to the emergency room.
As for single-payer models, as far as I know, only the UK and Canada have 100-percent socialized medicine (where ALL medicine is provided by the Government, full stop). Most other Western countries have a hybrid of public hospitals, along with private hospitals and medical providers, as well as private medical insurance for those who can afford it or choose to carry it. In this way, waiting lists for elective procedures can be bypassed, thus relieving pressure on the public system. New Zealand and France are two examples of such a hybrid.
However, as I said in a previous thread, there is no use in Americans even attempting to have this kind of reasoned discussion unless the extortion and racketeering in the present system is prosecuted and eliminated. Unless that is done, then the Mercatus Institute's projections of a budget blowout are accurate.
Can the U.S. afford some version of a single-payer or hybrid system? Maybe. However, it cannot afford to support the present criminal rackets with such a system. Bust up the rackets first, then we can talk.
The UK has a very small private medical services market. As far as I know Canada is the only developed country that has a 100% socialized medical system. As for cost, I don't see how it can be done. The only reason that Europe is able to afford their lavish system of social welfare is because they have largely abdicated their responsibility in national defrense and are content to be a military protectorate of the United States. The United States is the de-facto defender of the free world. As long as this remains the case I don't see where the money is going to come from. Even if we doubled taxes, which I don't think is a politically viable course of action, we cannot balance the existing budget. When you throw in all of the fun things we have promised in the future, but have no clue where the money is coming from, the United States is effectively bankrupt.
And, if you are a Canadian of means with a sick family member with a serious problem, you come to the States to get it taken care of.
Some years ago I was in a National Health Service hospital in London as a patient. There must have been fifty other patients in the same dilapidated room. I was lucky to get out of there alive.
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