Urban Institute response to attacks on their analysis of the Sanders Single Payer plan

[ismnotwasm]

4. K&R

And this is what I keep saying right here

Our estimates include reasonable increases in the use of services (and therefore health care spending) based on actuarial standards and the health economics literature (Buettgens 2011). In addition, we incorporate an assumption that not all the increased demand for health care would be met under the Sanders plan, at least in the short run, because of constraints in the supply of health care providers. The supply constraints implicit in our estimates are consistent with those experienced by enrollees in the current-law Medicaid program. Because of Medicaid’s historically low payment rates to providers relative to private insurers and the Medicare program, empirical analyses have demonstrated that Medicaid beneficiaries use less care, particularly for specialists, than they would without such supply constraints. Although increasing the supply of physicians in the short run is challenging, changes to work hours, the use of physician extenders (such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants), and the hiring of more foreign-trained physicians can help. Moreover, the federal government could consider further subsidizing medical education to increase the supply of needed physicians over time; however, we have not estimated the cost of doing so.