Why Bernie Sanders’ ‘Medicare for All’ plan doesn’t work

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There is no such thing as ‘free’ and when it comes to Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan, YOU will be paying for it. Sanders has been proposing a socialized health care system for years that would create a single-payer system, essentially by expanding a government run program, like Medicare, to all Americans. That would mean a government program like Medicare would replace all private health insurance, including employer-sponsored health insurance.

The Heritage Foundation has the commentary:

Government officials cannot control the demand for medical services; they can only control the supply of medical goods and services. In practice, this means that government officials must determine what kind of care patients get, how they get it, under what circumstances they get it, and how those services will be “priced.” (They don’t negotiate prices; they fix them.)

There is nothing “simple” about any of this. The Medicare program, with its tens of thousands of pages of rules and regulations and guidelines, demonstrates that painful fact daily to any Medicare patient struggling with a Medicare claims denial, or any doctor or any other medical professional wrestling with Medicare paperwork. Meanwhile, forget personal freedom.

Single-payer systems eliminate the choice of medical goods and services provided by the marketplace, while adding new costs that would be paid for by the government through tax increases. Under Sanders’ plan, families with a combined income of $250,000 would a face a 40 percent tax increase. This is simply outrageous. The best way to provide better, affordable coverage for more Americans is to increase choices by promoting competition in the marketplace. This would drive down costs and spark innovation in finding new cures and treatments for patients. Click here to see what a real healthcare reform plan should include in order to help ALL Americans get the proper, affordable care that they need.