A New Congressional Budget Office Study Shows That Medicare for All Would Save Hundreds of Billions

[concretebluetwo]

reposting to GD

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Source: Jacobinmag.com

"Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an estimate of the cost of implementing a single-payer health insurance program in the United States. The CBO’s report is more exhaustive than any other recent study on the subject and concludes that replacing our current system with a single-payer system would insure every American while reducing overall health spending in the country.

Modeling the cost of a single-payer program is relatively straightforward. You begin with the status quo health care system and then make educated guesses about the following questions:

How many more units of health care services will be demanded and supplied when price barriers are removed?
How much more efficient will health insurance administration be after enrollment and payment systems are radically simplified?
How much money will be saved by reducing the payment rates for health care providers and drug companies?
The CBO answered these questions for four different single-payer designs and found that a single-payer system would save $42 billion to $743 billion in 2030 alone."

Read more: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/12/medicare-for-all-singler-payer-health-insurance-cbo-/

[JonLP24]

1. Jacobin does excellent reporting

[beastie boy]

2. Not Medicare for all, a single payer system, for gawd's sake! Jacobin can't even read what they are

reporting on!

The CBO study which Jacobin falsely passes for an M4A study is clearly titled Working Paper SeriesCongressional Budget OfficeWashington, D.C.How CBO Analyzes the Costs of Proposals forSingle-Payer Health Care SystemsThat Are Based on Medicare’s Fee-for-Service Program (https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2020-12/56811-Single-Payer.pdf)

Single payer, not Medicare for All. What's there to not grasp? M4A is a specific brand of a single payer variety which has its specific quarks and is associated with one specific political figure. No one EVER came up with a study of M4A that shows savings of hundreds of billions of dollars.

But that doesn't stop Jacobin from peddling their bait and switch crap.

On edit: the above link is a bit broken up. Here's the link to CBO's summary of the paper in question: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56811

[concretebluetwo]

3. Thank you for link.

eom

[beastie boy]

5. BTW, according to CBO, the trade-off for saving billions would be, and I quote:

"The increase in demand would exceed the increase in supply, resulting in greater unmet demand than the amount under current law, CBO projects.Those effects on overall access to care and unmet demand would occur simultaneously because people would use more care and would have used even more if it were supplied. The increase in unmet demand would correspond to increased congestion in the health care system—including delays and forgone care—particularly under scenarios with lower cost sharing and lower payment rates."

This is the achilles heel of any single payer system: prospective clients and patients having to live with delays and forgone care. It is unclear who exactrly would be affected the most by these. There are nations where these delays are severe enough to render the whole system useless for those who need urgent care the most.

[JonLP24]

6. Unless the injury is an emergency there is typically a time period between appointments

I don't think that is a huge concern or much different than it is the way now. Sometimes people don't even seek care because of the costs.

[beastie boy]

7. The basis of CBO's estimates is the current system:

From the summary: "CBO’s projections of national health expenditures under current law are a key basis for the estimates." and "Those effects on overall access to care and unmet demand would occur simultaneously because people would use more care and would have used even more if it were supplied."

The delays and forgone care, compared to the current system, is estimated to grow based on simultaneous increases in overall access and unmet demand, which are projected in the study.

[Delarage]

8. It would be a good reason

To recruit more young people to be healthcare providers. Somehow Cuba always seems to have enough....even enough to send to disasters all over the world (and to treat the 9-11 first responders who couldn't get care here).

[beastie boy]

9. It would indeed. And Cuba has a comparatively outstanding health care system. The question is,

even if enough young people in the US would humble themselves to emulating an otherwise backward third world country, would it work on a scale massively larger than Cuba? Countries like China, Russia and India don't exactly inspire confidence.

[Delarage]

22. Medical school is expensive

If we want this to work well, we will have to subsidize this part of it so that more qualified students don't give up on the dream for fear of not being able to finish.

[lapucelle]

4. Welcome to DU!

[Hortensis]

10. Jacobin's an extremely biased, deceptive source. Here are some good ones:

For an honest, nonpartisan, apolitical discussion, here's the Kaiser Foundation's discussion of a MfA type program, though.

CBO’s Report On Single-Payer Health Care Holds More Questions Than Answers
https://khn.org/news/cbos-report-on-single-payer-health-care-holds-more-questions-than-answers/

And here is Kaiser's comprehensive discussion of ALL proposed approached to UHC, including some version of MfA:

Policies to Achieve Near-Universal Health Insurance Coverage
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56666

It's critical to realize, though, that any attempts to evaluate ANY "MfA" program are extremely theoretical because NONE EXISTS and wouldn't for several years, perhaps a decade, IF REPUBLICANS WEREN'T ABLE TO KEEP IT FROM BEING CREATED, PASSED IN SOME VARIATION OF COMPLETENESS, AND ENACTED OVER FOUR OR FIVE CHANGES IN THE MAKEUP OF CONGRESS AND TWO PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. (!!!)

The CBO does not speculate on if and how much of a "MfA" plan might be passed and survive to final enactment and at what point the ACA, with its by then near-universal, or universal, coverage, would be dismantled, just theoretically assumes it would all be possible in the form speculated on.

Btw, at this point Democrats intend to add the single payer option plus several other expansions of benefits to to the ACA. Over the dead body of Mitch McConnell and his donor class, of course. But since the ACA is the crowning achievement of most congressional Democrats' careers, and trashing it instead of finishing it would be almost insanely irresponsible, to the point of being as immoral as the Republicans, destroying it would probably also be over their dead bodies. Disappointing as not destroying the Obama administration's national healthcare system may be to some, people should expect them to provide a sop by calling some provisions added to the ACA "MfA"-like. (Biden already is.)

[JonLP24]

11. It has a bias but they still do good reporting

Washington Post & MSNBC has an establishment bias. They all have biases.

[Hortensis]

14. Not all biases are equal, much less reliability. Anyway the comparison should be to

journals that are very reliable and do their best to eliminate bias. NOT to look for excuses to soak up disinformation and get more deluded and less anchored to reality every year. Equating Jacobin with the WaPo is not valid, but reading an award-winning investigative newspaper and an ideological socialist journal, and researching conflicts in information for truth, would work well.

Now, ProPublica is very highly regarded for integrity and its focus on investigation into social problems, which I'd imagine you'd appreciate. Here's an article they published on MfA:

Medicare-for-All Is Not Medicare, and Not Really for All. So What Does It Actually Mean?
https://www.propublica.org/article/medicare-for-all-is-not-medicare-and-not-really-for-all-so-what-does-it-actually-mean

[JonLP24]

15. I think Pro Publica does great reporting

There are a lot of news sites that have left wing biases. Slate, Salon, Mother Jones, etc. Jacobin is just another one.

[Hortensis]

16. No, Jacobin is not analogous to those others. It's normally

FACTUALLY and INFERENTIALLY dishonest, sometimes very, and people should be asking themselves why, instead of just applying Jacobin's unguent to their brains. Isn't there a more honest socialist journal available?

[JonLP24]

17. I think their accuracy is fine

The Jacobin site is like a moderate journal compared to The People's Party. Have you heard of them? The People's Party is trying to build their brand by attacking progressives in the Democratic Party including the DSA.

As far as news from a progressive perspective I'll stick with Jacobin as well as other sources.

[Hortensis]

19. Okay. It's your head.

[Ron Green]

12. One risk pool is a health care system.

Multiple risk pools is an investment scheme. We have enough investment schemes in this country; we need a health care system.

[lindysalsagal]

13. Our economy requires universal health care, minimum income, infrastructure, and warming remediation

It won't be a viable economy without addressing those issues competently. They will drown us all if we don't get serious and take responsibility. Capitalism might have worked to some degree, but, it no longer does.

[HeartachesNhangovers]

18. Of course it would be less expensive, partly because all of the

thousands and thousands of people who currently have solid middle-class jobs working for medical providers and medical insurance companies and employers who administer insurance benefits would be out of a job. The CBO report doesn't seem to address these job losses at all - except to consider them "cost savings".

[librechik]

21. There will be plenty for corporate insurance to provide; Luxury hospitals,

concierge care, broader coverage than the no doubt bare bones government provisions. Things will balance out, because those you mention can find jobs with the government clinics which will open. And btw Corporations not know that healthcare is a human right. We will do fine without them.

[librechik]

20. heartbreaking. Did I mention how much I hate Republicans?

Stupid stupid stupid people