"How will you pay for it?" is not the hard question with Medicare For All [View all]

[Recursion]

Already the press is chasing its tail on that. That's the easy question: you pay for it with taxes. At that level realistically you'd probably need a VAT like every other country uses to pay for health care, but however you pay for it, you raise enough taxes to meet the outlays. That's the "easy" question.

Here's the harder question: do you require doctors and hospitals to accept it, and (this is essentially the same question) do you forbid private insurers from duplicating it?

Furthermore, if doctors and hospitals are required to accept it, are they allowed to bill more than the Medicare reimbursement rate?

These questions may sound wonky but they're so absolutely foundational to what this plan actually means that I don't see the point of releasing it without answers.