Medicare For All: Surest Way To Bankrupt America

Democrats, egged on by the party's rising socialist wing, are recycling a free health care idea with a shiny new label.  They are advocating "Medicare for All" with the lure of no co-pays, no deductibles and no-cost sharing.  Free healthcare for everyone.  It's political seduction.

A similar idea was first trotted out in 2016 by former presidential candidate Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist. The 77-year old independent won over swooning young people with his Utopian idea of free healthcare.  But the scheme faded along with Sanders' presidential aspirations.

Then 29-year-old first-term Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez burst onto the political scene in January, resuscitating the concept with a catchy twist, "Medicare for All."  When the idea fueled flattering media coverage, many Democratic presidential candidates leaped on the bandwagon.

Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is a fervent disciple of a single-payer system.  Under her plan, all healthcare financing is provided by one entity, in this case the federal government.  Everyone receives coverage, regardless of income, occupation or health status.

With single-payer, about 156.1 million people covered by employer health insurance would be forced to give up their plans.  Private insurance firms would cease operations leaving every American solely dependent on the federal government for primary health coverage.  There would be no other choice.

Despite the allure of a government freebie, healthcare would not magically become free.  People may not pay the doctor, however, Americans will be on the hook for a steep bill for healthcare in the form of higher taxes and budget deficits.  The tab for the plan worries economists and financial experts.

Bloomberg News, a liberal media voice, unveiled an analysis of "Medicare for All" prepared by the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia.  Assuming the program was launched in 2022, the price tag for the first ten years ranged from $24.7 trillion to $34.7 trillion.

All those zeroes are difficult to grasp without some perspective.  For instance, the total federal spending for providing Medicare coverage in fiscal year 2018 was $712 billion.  Expanding the plan to cover all Americans would append an estimated $3.7 trillion annually to the cost of the program.

The government can barely afford its existing healthcare obligations.  The latest Medicare Trustees report released in 2017 calculated that the Part A Trust Fund, which covers payments for hospital care, will be exhausted in 2026.  That's three years earlier than the previous year's estimate. 

Consider in fiscal year 2018 total federal government spending stood at $4.1 trillion. Adding another $3.7 trillion would increase the nation's debt while triggering catastrophic tax hikes. America's debt has already crept past $22 trillion, double the amount at the end of 2008.  More debt is not free.

In the last fiscal year, taxpayers ponied up $364 billion in interest payments for the nation's ballooning debt.  That represented 8.3 percent of the federal government's total budget.  With interest rates rising, each new dollar of debt will be more costly to finance, hiking future interest payments.

Democrats' solution is to raise taxes on billionaires.  That always polls well with voters.  However, even if the Internal Revenue Service confiscated the current entire wealth of American billionaires--$2.39 trillion-- the figure would not even cover one year's worth of costs for "Medicare for All."

The economics of "Medicare for All" have already discouraged a several states from enacting their own ambitious single-payer healthcare programs. Last month North Carolina deep-sixed its plan after the costs were estimated at $101 billion a year.

Even that liberal bastion of free, California, pulled the plug on single-payer legislation even after it was approved in the state senate because questions cropped up about the source of funding $400 billion in annual costs.  Vermont also abandoned a copycat plan over the bloated expenditure.

For the sake of argument, let's assume "Medicare for All" becomes a reality.  The plan will exacerbate a problem no proponent ever talks about while plugging the virtues of Medicare, a program originally designed to cover seniors 65-years old and up.

Medicare coverage is no panacea.  It pays for substantially less services than private insurance plans offered by companies to their employees.  For example, it will not bear the expense for long-term care, most dental care, eye exams for prescription glasses, hospice care or routine foot care.

Ocasio-Cortez counters her plan will tack on vision and dental care under "Medicare for All." A grandiose gesture but Medicare reimburses doctors anywhere from five-to-40 percent less than private insurers for the same services. As a result, thousands of doctors no longer accept Medicare.

It is inconceivable dentists and ophthalmologists would agree to reduced reimbursement schedules after never having to take such a haircut for fees.  Physicians have operated under the Medicare burden for years and they are bailing.  Why would these specialists accept Medicare patients?

In 2013, an annual report by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an independent congressional agency, found that nearly one-third (28%) of its beneficiaries had trouble finding a primary care physician willing to treat patients with Medicare coverage.

Every year more doctors are hanging out signs in their lobbies that read: "Not Accepting New Medicare Patients." According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 9,539 doctors quit serving patients with Medicare in 2012 because of lower payments for fees.

If millions of Americans are added to the rolls of Medicare, there is the looming threat more doctors will follow suit.  What good will Medicare coverage be if your primary care physician no longer accepts the plan?  "Medicare for All" advocates appear unconcerned about this prospect.

Even if doctors are coerced into taking patients with Medicare, there will be an insufficient number of primary care physicians to handle the anticipated increase in office visits.   According to national projections, there will be a shortage of 200,000 primary care physicians by 2025.

Before Americans fall in love with "free" healthcare, they would be advised study the consequences of such a plan. However, don't expect politicians to enlighten the populace.  They believe they can dupe naive American voters by just repeating the word "free" over-and-over-and-over.

Socialism: Make America Venezuela

A shocking new poll by the non-partisan Gallup organization should vex all Americans.  In a nationwide survey, the firm reported that Democrats are more positive about socialism than capitalism. While the results are astounding, the findings help explain the party's leftward surge.

The research, which included a sample of 1,505 adults aged 18 and older, signals a sharp turn in attitudes about socialism. Fully 57 percent of self-identified Democrats and independents who lean Democratic hold a positive view of a system once considered anathema to most Americans.

By comparison, 48 percent of Democrats and leaners approve of capitalism.  Looking at the demographics, older Americans from both parties have a dim view of socialism.  Young people, aged 18-29, are the most ardent supporters with a majority (55%) approving of socialism. 

For decades, Americans associated socialism with Marxist Communism, a Utopian theory of a collectivist society characterized by the equal distribution of wealth, property housing and other goods.  While the theory captivates the naive, in actual practice socialism has a record of utter failure.

But many who should know better, including politicians, Hollywood glitterati and economists, now are openly embracing socialism.  Perhaps that has swayed Democrats' opinions on the allure of a thoroughly discredited system.  Fortunately, their views do not reflect the majority of Americans.

In the Gallup poll, about 37 percent of all Americans have a rosy view of socialism.  By an overwhelming majority, nearly 70 percent of Republicans favor capitalism.  Only 13 percent of Republicans and those who lean Republican are in favor of socialism. 

Those who believe socialism will make America great need to look to Venezuela, once one of the world's richest countries now wallowing in despair. The South American nation is on the brink of collapse after jettisoning capitalism two decades ago, replacing it with socialism.

The country, with the largest proven oil reserves in the world, has squandered its wealth by heavily spending on government subsidies for residents, including 'free' health care. Experts believe the nation's inflation rate may hit one million percent by year's end.  (One million is not a typo.)

The Venezuelan Central Bank has stopped issuing economic data in an effort to hide the country's chronic decline.  Before it halted the practice, the bank's statistics showed that in a single year (2015) the per capita income plunged from $15,929 to $6,042.  People are suffering in extreme poverty.

Venezuela's currency is in shambles, tumbling to an all time low.  At the end of July, country's currency, the bolivar, was practically worthless. It took 115,000 bolivars to equal one U.S. dollar.  Venezuelans lug pallets full of currency to the grocery store just to buy essentials.

As a result of hyperinflation, there are dire food and medical shortages.  The country ran out of toilet paper and was forced to dispatch army troops to a paper manufacturing company occupied by angry residents.  Recurring electricity blackouts and growing thug violence are a common occurrence.

Food riots erupt with alarming regularity.  Hospitals have no running water.  Thousands of Venezuelans are fleeing the country, escaping into neighboring Columbia.  In response, the government has cracked down on dissent, jailing opponents and ratcheting up propaganda.

Dunderhead Hollywood nabobs like Sean Penn, Oliver Stone and Michael Moore once pointed to Venezuela as a shining example of the benefits of socialism.  They have been strangely silent as Venezuela plunges into economic and societal oblivion.  The media has been mum too. 

In the face of his nation's crisis, President Nicolas Maduro is continuing the practice of his mentor Hugo Chavez, looting the private sector, seizing companies and taking over farms, while fattening his personal fortune at the expense of his poverty-stricken people. This is what socialism looks like.

Democrat Bernie Sanders, a self-avowed Democratic Socialist who enchants young people with his message of free college and free health care, has been the standard bearer for socialist policies.  Now Democrats candidates for elective office are openly endorsing the same ideals.

Those Americans who shill for socialism should be exposed as charlatans.  They are peddling an economic and social solution that ruins the lives of people and bankrupts countries.  The only equality socialism guarantees is shared misery.  That's reason enough to soundly reject socialism.