Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan is building his US Senate campaign on Medicare for All, promising health care coverage for all Americans \u201ccradle-to-grave.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Minnesota, Democratic Senate nominee Peggy Flanagan has likewise made Medicare for All<\/a> a central plank of her progressive platform.<\/p>\n In New York, more than 100 state lawmakers have co-sponsored legislation to establish a statewide single-payer system.<\/p>\n Single-payer health care is back on the political agenda, pushed by Democratic Socialists<\/a> and their leftist allies as the answer to Americans\u2019 frustrations with private medical insurers.<\/p>\n But while excoriating insurance companies may be good politics, forcing everyone into a government insurance monopoly would be disastrous policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s insurance market has flaws, granted \u2014 but at least Americans aren\u2019t trapped.<\/p>\n Employers can move their workers to a different insurer; those who buy their own coverage can compare competing plans and switch during open enrollment.<\/p>\n Even Medicare beneficiaries \u2014 whose coverage is financed by the federal government \u2014 still enjoy real choices.<\/p>\n They can enroll in traditional Medicare or choose among competing Medicare Advantage plans run by private insurers, and many can also shop among competing Part D prescription-drug plans.<\/p>\n Choice and competition matter, and even one of America\u2019s largest government health programs recognizes that.<\/p>\n Medicare for All would eliminate all those choices by effectively outlawing private insurance<\/a>.<\/p>\n Competing insurers would no longer negotiate payments and prices with providers \u2014 leaving Washington to become the nation\u2019s single payer for health care<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Medicare for All bill Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced last year would require the federal government to establish a national health budget.<\/p>\n From that amount, Washington would set payment rates for physicians, hospitals and other care providers, with federal bureaucrats deciding what they may be paid for every service they deliver.<\/p>\n The sums Washington would have to raise and spend on such an endeavor would be staggering: roughly $32 trillion over a decade, according to independent estimates from the left-leaning Urban Institute and the libertarian Mercatus Center based on previous versions of Sanders\u2019 plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n Not even doubling all projected federal individual and corporate income taxes would be enough to cover the tab, Mercatus concluded.<\/p>\n Single-payer systems abroad show that even enormous government health budgets don\u2019t eliminate scarcity.<\/p>\n The British government spent about $380 billion in public money on health care last year, while Canada is projected to spend roughly $204 billion.<\/p>\n