Bernie Sanders debuts Medicare For All Act of 2017

[Born To Slay 10,996]

Under Sanders' proposal, Americans would receive a "Universal Medicare card" that would be a ticket to a comprehensive health care services, including hospital stays, doctor visits, substance abuse treatment, dental, vision and reproductive care -- including abortion.

However, consumers may have to pay up to $250 out-of-pocket for prescription drugs, with incentives to use generic medications. Sanders, who's been vocal about lowering drug prices, would allow the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies.

Long-term care, which Sanders had included in the version he unveiled during his presidential campaign last year, will not be covered. It will be addressed in separate legislation, an adviser to Sanders told CNN. 

The bill calls for the elimination of premiums for private health insurance, deductibles and co-pays. However, most Americans and businesses will pay what Sanders says is a much smaller share of their income to fund the program.

read more here: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/13/politics/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all-plan-details/index.html

Also, Bernie and other cosponsors including senators such as Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Kamela Harris held a large event to debut the bill. You can watch that here:

  

 

[Born To Slay 10,996]

I recommend watching the full video. It was very moving.

[tthen 4,621]

Congress will almost immediately reject the bill, but it's the first step to a larger plan.

[Sailor 3,321]

Ya'll messed up big time by not voting for him.

[Bleachella 2,932]

35 minutes ago, Sailor said:

Ya'll messed up big time by not voting for him.

Hillary was- and always was- our best choice. I will stand by this wholeheartedly. 

 

On topic though, this isn't going to get passed whatsoever, but it's a step forward at least. With the way it's looking though, with Rep. majority in all of congress, it won't get anywhere anytime soon. 

[President Trump 3,508]

I guess the money to fund it is just going to come from the magic money bank that Sanders must believe exists. 

[sarahb 17,185]

I look forward to the day you guys no longer need to go bankrupt after leaving a hospital 

[Luc 4,776]

15 minutes ago, President Trump said:

I guess the money to fund it is just going to come from the magic money bank that Sanders must believe exists. 

The US has an incredibly inefficient, bureaucratic and expensive healthcare system that gives a lot of money to the pharmaceutics industry and the rich. I think that a public healthcare system might not be that much more expensive, because it'd simplify the system A LOT and give consumers/hospitals more leverage when buying expensive drugs for example.

The UK has a cheap healthcare system (NHS) that is state-owned. I think the other coutnries on that list have the same.

[Emvee 8,825]

The point isn't necessarily to get this passed. Even if it did, Trump would veto it. The point is to get the American people talking about it as one concise, well-planned out and funded (taxation instead of premiums and deductibles, obviously) program. Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in the country and he is the one to do the job. The more people talk about it, the more it becomes a no-brainer for people to understand and accept as the only logical approach to healthcare. 

Much like how Same-sex marriage was a debated over and over. It was a high profile bill over and over. It finally passed when there was a democratic majority and a democratic president. 

[Morphine Prince 109,645]

Sad that things like this get nowhere in this country. 

Continue going bankrupt after you have to be in a hospital for days. Continue to split pills because you can't afford your regular prescription. 

Even with insurance healthcare can be very costly in this country. At least with insurance drug prices come down a lot. 

For those without insurance... it's horrible. Medicaid helps a lot for some situations. 

[Bebe 17,289]

6 hours ago, President Trump said:

I guess the money to fund it is just going to come from the magic money bank that Sanders must believe exists. 

In the long run it's actually likely to be less expensive than health care in the U.S is now  

Under the Sander plan:

- Tax increases would replace health insurance premiums, which many Americans already feel are too high.

- A single insurance payer would eliminate a significant amount of administrative waste in the healthcare system (hospital billing becomes a lot simpler when you can just send all bills to the government and know they're covered). At the moment American doctors spend lots of money dealing with insurers because there are thousands of them, each negotiating their own rate with every hospital and doctor. An appendectomy, for example, can cost anywhere from $1,529 to $186,955, depending on how good of a deal an insurer can get from a hospital.

That doesn’t happen in a single-payer system like the one Sanders proposes. Instead of dealing with dozens of insurers that set hundreds of prices, doctors only need to send bills to the federal government.

- The government holds large bargaining power over medical prices (representing all consumers) the overall price of health care costs under a government-run system would  be lower than it is under the private-insurance system.

Since Bernie Sanders is a self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, who ran against the "millionaire, billionaire class" it also seems unlikely that he would aim to raise taxes on the working class in order to make up for the costs of premiums and wage deductions that Americans currently have to pay for to get health care.

It's likely that he'd seek a heavier tax burden from the rich to pay for it than from the working class. So in addition to shifting health care costs from individuals to the greater system, the Sanders plan would almost definitely mean shifting health care costs from the poor to the rich. And by expanding the coverage and thereby lowering out-of-pocket costs for the sick, this plan would also increase the amount that payments from healthy people subsidize the care of the sick.

Sanders, and his spokesperson, have both talked about releasing a set of financing options and a number of revenue-raising proposals within a few weeks - so we'll see then how this all shape up.

 

It's hard to argue that the current system is working perfectly. The United States spends far more per-capita on health care than any similar country, and the outcomes it gets don't live up to the costs. The United States has the highest health industry spending of any OECD country, but only the 27th highest life expectancy.

The U.S needs a universal healthcare plan... The system now is just not good enough.

Is this the plan to do it? It has it's problems, not even Sanders himself would deny that. He said himself “The truth is, embarrassingly, that on this enormously important issue, there has not been the kind of research and study that we need." Sanders' plan is perhaps more like a wish-list of what the most expansive health care proposal could be, and a starting point for future discussions over the Democratic base's favorite policy. 

[President Trump 3,508]

8 hours ago, Luc said:

The US has an incredibly inefficient, bureaucratic and expensive healthcare system that gives a lot of money to the pharmaceutics industry and the rich. I think that a public healthcare system might not be that much more expensive, because it'd simplify the system A LOT and give consumers/hospitals more leverage when buying expensive drugs for example.

The UK has a cheap healthcare system (NHS) that is state-owned. I think the other coutnries on that list have the same.

The US has a very flawed health care system but so are all of the others. They each have their own problems. Universality, quality, and affordability are impossible to attain all at once. Only two can be sustained at the same time. The current Medicare system is operating in the negative already. I'm not sure how expanding Medicare universally is going to fix the financial aspect. 

[Luc 4,776]

3 hours ago, President Trump said:

The US has a very flawed health care system but so are all of the others. They each have their own problems. Universality, quality, and affordability are impossible to attain all at once. Only two can be sustained at the same time. The current Medicare system is operating in the negative already. I'm not sure how expanding Medicare universally is going to fix the financial aspect. 

Then how come many European countries (which have a lot more elderly as % of the population by the way) manage to keep healthcare costs so cheap with high quality care that's affordable/free for everyone?

The problem of the US healthcare system (besides that it's morally wrong to ask so much money for saving someone's life) is that it's horribly inefficient. You do less with more money. That's because it's too complex. Just have one system that applies to everyone, destroy bureaucratic and make the market for doctors/dentists more open (let more people study dentistry and medicine). It will cause a hike in government expenses in the beginning, but if done correctly and if it's not sabotaged by Republicans, it can eventually be cheaper.

[Whispering 18,865]

Passing the biggest tax increase in US history is going to be a tough sell to the US taxpayers. This is a start of a conversation, but people saying they support Medicare for all is one thing. Getting people to support paying for it is another.  

[President Trump 3,508]

6 hours ago, Luc said:

Then how come many European countries (which have a lot more elderly as % of the population by the way) manage to keep healthcare costs so cheap with high quality care that's affordable/free for everyone?

The problem of the US healthcare system (besides that it's morally wrong to ask so much money for saving someone's life) is that it's horribly inefficient. You do less with more money. That's because it's too complex. Just have one system that applies to everyone, destroy bureaucratic and make the market for doctors/dentists more open (let more people study dentistry and medicine). It will cause a hike in government expenses in the beginning, but if done correctly and if it's not sabotaged by Republicans, it can eventually be cheaper.

The main issue is that "Medicare For All" just has some fundamental problems. There's very little evidence Medicare has improved health outcomes for people; reason being that most doctors reject new Medicare patients because the reimbursement rate is not high enough for doctors to take new patients. Medicare is also already $58 trillion dollars in debt, and expanding coverage is estimated to add $14 trillion to the debt in the next decade alone. Government programs typically always have waste, fraud, and abuse, so this number is sure to skyrocket even higher. Also, removing the incentive from doctors to work or even to become a doctor in a specialized field, is almost guaranteed to happen with global expansion, unless the burden on the taxpayer is so high that this is accounted for. I agree that the American healthcare system is ridiculous, but making something a right doesn't just make it appear.