Economists Attack/Defend Single Payer Affordability Plan

Presidential candidate U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders unabashedly proposes a “Medicare For All” single-payer system in his campaign platform, a publicly funded and privately delivered comprehensive healthcare coverage program for all. The attacks about its affordability have been relentless.

Economists, even liberal ones are screaming, at least it seems to me, that our country cannot afford to cover every American citizen. They call it “fantasy” and “magical thinking”. They ask, “Where will the money come from?” “Will taxes have to be increased?”

Economist Paul Krugman, in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Op-Ed, February 20th, called the entire Sanders platform, including “Medicare For All”, as “Voodoo from the Left” and said “Let’s leave magical thinking to the Republicans.” Can you imagine such economists, so concerned about our nation’s deficits and debts, making the same arguments about defense and military spending? It can make a head spin.

A counter argument was written by Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein in the Philadelphia Inquirer on February 5th. They estimated that Americans already pay $2.1 trillion in taxes to fund Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Affairs and the Center for Disease Control and the Department of Health and Human Services. They write, according to the Department, that the taxpayer share of US healthcare is already at 45% of the cost. Excluded from that figure are the federal coverage for public employees (including members of Congress) and tax subsidies for private employer-paid plans that benefit mainly well-off families. As Woolhandler and Himmelstein point out that when you take into account all of the above mentioned programs, the public already pays for about 2/3rds of the nation’s total healthcare bill.

In a February 14th Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article (“UMass economist sees rosy picture in Sanders economics”), University of Massachusetts at Amherst professors studied the same platform, which Krugman called too costly. Professor Gerald Friedman compiled the analysis and concluded that the platform (which also includes infrastructure repairs, free public college tuition and an increase in the minimum wage by 2020), is money well spent.

Friedman also provided an economic analysis of a Pennsylvania single payer system. He reported that such a PA health plan would extend coverage to 11% residents without insurance and would improve coverage for those with inadequate coverage. It would cover approximately 96% of total healthcare spending and save over $17 billion or $1,000 + per resident.

We at HealthCare 4 All PA, take this all very seriously. Even with the Affordable Care Act, there remain 29 million uninsured and many others who don’t seek medical care due to high deductibles and co-pays.

Therefore we must continue to organize our efforts for a universal, comprehensive plan for all.

Theresa Chalich is an active member of the southwest chapter of HealthCare 4 All PA. She has been an advocate and organizer for the single payer system for decades.

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