“Medicare for All,” the unfortunate slogan for single-payer health care, necessarily requires the end of both Medicare and Medicaid; and, the end of buying health insurance policies (plans) for almost all Americans.
Best of all, it also means no American will ever again become homeless or go bankrupt because of inability to pay medical bills.
Because health insurance is finally eliminated, this acrimonious subject of Labor-Management contract talks is also eliminated. This reform results in significant cost savings for both employer and employee. And it also ends the necessity that workers stay in crappy jobs because they need the (often just as crappy) job-provided health insurance coverage.
With Medicare gone, what happens to the Medicare Trust Fund?
Obviously, it has to go, but without it, how is the newly created “Medicare for All” funding to be budgeted? The answer to these questions requires an understanding of how federal trust funds actually work; and, how all four parts of Medicare are funded.
With the Medicare Trust Fund gone, the Medicare payroll tax can be eliminated. That’s because this special kind of income tax on American workers is no longer required to fund Medicare Part A, the hospital insurance coverage that kicks in when Americans reach age 65. Also gone are the insurance premiums to pay for Med Parts B, C and D along with all the other insurance premiums needed to buy supplemental health insurance for costs not covered by Medicare itself.
Enacting single payer will drastically change the structure of American health care. But the politicians as shown by — or, perhaps because of — their willful use of the misleading and deceptive slogan “Medicare for All” have utterly failed to explain how single-payer health care will affect the work-life of some 20 million Americans, or how it will improve the overall quality of American life.
Paul M. Craig
Northampton