SANDERS: “Medicare for All will lead to a $2 TRILLION REDUCTION in national health expenditures over 10 years.” — July 30 tweet.
THE FACTS: Sanders’ vision of El Dorado in his tweet and a YouTube video is being widely echoed by supporters of a government-run national health system. But Sanders mischaracterizes a study from a libertarian policy institute that found his legislation would actually lead to a massive boost in federal spending and taxation.
The study from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia also concluded that “Medicare for all” is unlikely to produce a dividend for U.S. society in the form of lower total health care spending. To get that result would require paying hospitals and doctors much less than they get now and risk putting some out of business.
The study found that if hospitals and doctors were willing to accept Medicare-based payments of 40 percent less for patients who currently have private insurance, then projected U.S. health care spending would decline by about 3 percent from 2022 to 2031, or $2.05 trillion.
That’s the number Sanders is celebrating.
But the study also said if medical providers continue to be paid about the same as now, U.S. health care spending would increase by $3.25 trillion over 10 years under “Medicare for all.” It works out to about 5 percent more.- READ MORE
[divider][/divider]The leftist site Vox published a piece on Tuesday that comprehensively delineated the staggering amount of money the socialist policies of politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez espouse.
The Mercatus Center estimated that Sanders’s Medicare-for-all plan would cost the government $32 trillion between now and 2028. The liberal Urban Institute estimates that Sanders’ single-payer health plan would add $32 trillion in federal costs over the same period.
Next: the socialist idea of guaranteeing jobs paying $15 an hour for anyone who wants one. Riedl cites the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which estimated the cost could run $6.8 trillion over the next decade.
Infrastructure and student loans? Noting that Senate Democrats have promised $1 trillion for new infrastructure, and House Democrats want to pay of the entire $1.4 trillion in student loan debt, Riedl writes that would cost $42.5 trillion on top of the $12.4 trillion baseline deficit.- READ MORE
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