Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Bernie Sanders' New Favorite Medicare for All Study Has Major Problems

No primary candidate is more closely associated with Medicare for All than the current front-runner and likely nominee Sen. Bernie Sanders.

He responded by citing a study "That just came out of Yale University, published in Lancet. magazine, one of the prestigious medical journals in the world." The study, co-written by a former unpaid Sanders adviser, purports to show that Sanders' Medicare for All plan would save $450 billion a year, and 68,000 lives.

Study assumes, for example, that the Sanders plan could pay Medicare rates across the board.

Study Sanders cites also lowballs the likely increase in utilization that would come from eliminating copayments and other cost-sharing mechanisms, as Sanders' Medicare for All plan calls for.

Beyond the clear evidence from health policy research, it is worth thinking about this claim if it were in reverse: Supporters of Sanders' Medicare for All plan sometimes portray copayments, premiums, and other forms of cost-sharing as obstacles to accessing health care services, which is presumably why the Sanders plan eliminates them.

There are other problems as well, most notably that the study simply doesn't account for about $4 trillion in expected long-term care spending that would be part of the bill under Sanders' Medicare for All plan.

Eventually, Warren released a second plan that called for a delayed implementation of full-fledged Medicare for All, which many read as a sign that she wasn't serious about the idea, and had only backed it in hopes of improving her appeal to Sanders voters.

https://reason.com/2020/02/26/bernie-sanders-new-favorite-medicare-for-all-study-has-major-problems/

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