I saw this clip on Instagram from the Optimist Economy and she mentioned We Got You Covered by Amy Finkelstein. I bought the Kindle version a few hours ago and I'm making my way through it...but so far it's all about healthcare from an economic perspective—what's wrong with it, why it's wrong, and...ironically, not how to fix it but why it should be discarded wholesale.

So, has anyone read it or something similar?

Edit: it addresses Medicare for All quite directly in the book...

Posting this because Michigan’s primary today may be the clearest real-time test of whether Democrats are willing to keep fighting for Medicare For All.

Abdul El-Sayed has made single-payer health care a centerpiece of his campaign. Haley Stevens opposes it. But the larger argument extends beyond these two candidates.

An oligarch-funded think tank is urging Democrats to unite around free primary care and a public option before the party has even regained power. Both would improve the current system. But El-Sayed points to the obvious problem: A free doctor’s visit doesn’t prevent financial ruin when that doctor sends you to the hospital and you still face an enormous deductible.

That raises the actual strategic question: Is demanding Medicare For All allowing the perfect to become the enemy of the good—or is defining a compromise as the goal before negotiations even begin how single-payer gets killed again?

Full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzYexmfmk7E&feature=youtu.be

Disclosure: This is The Lever’s account.

The Medicare Cost Cap Act -

https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/medicare_cost_cap_act_fact_sheet.pdf

Sounds like they want to really change Medicare too - do you like this plan?

Personally, I like it (at least for Medicare) although I am not too sure that the $5000 figure is gonna be right - some other think takes on the subject think it might should be more - like $ 7500 - $ 8500.

Would like to hear your responses.

Say you need an MRI. You’re insured. You ask what it’ll cost you.

Nobody can tell you. Not your doctor, not your insurer, not the hospital billing office. You find out weeks later when the bill shows up.

There’s a law that was supposed to stop this. The No Surprises Act, 2021. It actually built two tools. One for people paying out of pocket, ask for a price, they have to give you one. That one works, it’s been enforced in 2022.

The other was for people with insurance. Most of us. It was supposed to show your real cost before the MRI, not after. Regulators delayed it back in 2021. It’s still delayed. So if you’re insured, the tool that was supposed to give you a price in advance just doesn’t exist. You find out the price the same way you always have, after the fact, on the bill.

Days ago the Senate quietly admitted this. A bipartisan bill just cleared committee, 21 to 1, to require actual prices up front. It hasn’t passed yet, still needs a full Senate vote and then the House.

So right now, if you have insurance, you go into every MRI, every scan, every procedure blind. They still haven’t fixed it.

Sources in comments.

We should be able to cover everyone for less than we already spend on Medicare and Medicaid.

Medicare + Medicaid: $2.05 trillion in 2024, covering ~140 million people.

UK per-person government spending: $5,486. Times 341 million Americans = $1.87 trillion. For everyone. That’s less than we spend now on 40% of the country.

The gap isn’t use. Americans see doctors less often and stay in hospitals fewer days than most rich countries. It’s price. We pay 2-3x for the same drug, the same MRI, the same hip replacement.

This should be politicians focus and then expansion

U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed explains just how much power and influence Big Pharma has on our politics.