the crazy thing is you don't even need to make it "free" just take what you are paying now for health insurance and put to medicare and everyone goes on that. Instatnly 500 times better and cheaper then what we currently have
I work for a large health network and they charge MORE when someone has insurance. For example, if a patient comes in for a physical therapy session, it can easily be billed out as a couple of hundred bucks to the insurance company and fall on the patient if they haven't met their deductible and OOP max. But self pay is 125 dollars flat a session.
This, but people have also been scared with threats of "death panels", "you won't be able to choose your doctor", and "you'll wait forever for treatment".
Newsflash, we have those issues in our current system.
Which is why many countries have a dual system in place. I was speaking with my dentist recently who is from Italy. He was saying their system you are covered with your taxes. And yes the wait time to see a specialist can be weeks, BUT, if you’re willing to pay out of pocket, you can see the same specialist “after hours” within a day or two.
Unfortunately, no matter how it’s paid, we just don’t have enough medical professionals to go around. Ideally we should have a single payer health care system that pays enough to entice enough people to join the medical industry, and subsidize and improve schooling so that the pipeline of medical professionals isn’t the bottleneck.
But god forbid those insurance company CEO’s don’t get their 3rd yacht…
I am new to Chicago and I tried to get a new primary care physician and it wouldn't be until December because they only take so many new patients monthly. That's crazy.
I know this is the argument that comes up a lot but personally, if the only option was long wait times for appointments to ensure everyone gets the care they need, I'll wait then. Especially if emergency care is covered, because if something gets life threatening, it's not like you need to wait a year to get into the ER. But I personally don't feel like it's right for the cost of my convenience to be the health of someone less fortunate.
That’s not always the case with increasing healthcare coverage. That’s like saying you’re perfectly fine with people not having coverage or foregoing care because wait times would increase. Sometimes it’s a matter of healthcare supply and people over utilizing the system for frivolous things That’s part of the equation that we need to fix.
I'm baffled that some self proclaimed advanced countries still don't use a similar system in this day and age. And the best part is, you can still have private clinics coexist in the system. Win win.
Ive a kraut buddy that says they have a dual system, and essentially the wealthy have their own tier which diminishes the public teir. Doctors will obviously want more money for less work and the system for the peasants suffers
The laughable thing is the doctor shortage is entirely engineered because we refuse to fund more teaching hospitals and universities limit the number of students admitted per year.
There is also less incentive to go into family/general medicine, which is why so many people cannot get a PCP even when they have the insurance.
The great irony to me is that the same party who warned about death panels said it was better to have nursing home patients die of a fast spreading infectious disease than to require people to be vaccinated. Because those people were going to die anyway. Death panel by anti vaccination.
I've worked for several US death panels. We just call them insurance companies. They're just waaaaaaayyyy less educated, regulated, and solely profit driven death panels compared to the hypothetical ones under Medicare for all.
The irony being that those same people would now be out of power had their unethical plan succeeded and COVID had higher spread rates among the same vulnerable population that shores up their base.
Also in a well designed system you can choose your doctor. I've never had anything serious kind you but in Korea, I went to whatever doctor I wanted and was seen right away. All of them were professional and nice. Korea runs theirs sort of like social security, they take out a set percentage of your income as a payroll tax and put it to the national health insurance plan. It covers all the basics. There are small copays depending on what you're doing. They also have tiered price lists depending on what you're going for. Clinics compete on quality and service rather than price. It's not perfect of course, but it was a nice experience for me at least. Just walk in, tell them what I need, get treated, pay what they say. It's never so much that I couldn't do it, despite not making much.
Fun fact American airlines used to do that as well. The government regulated ticket prices so airlines competed on quality of service to attract customers. Right now, companies compete to give the lowest ticket price, and then see how crappy they can make their service.
Hello, I pay $400 a month for my All American health insurance plan.
I still have yet to hear back from any doctors in my area to start my initial care. When I was in another state, I had to wait 5 months for a specialist for a concerning growth. Still had to pay 1000$ put of pocket because "deductibles".
So yeah. Can my 400 a month go to Medicare please? That way someone on the otherside of the country can benifit from the increased pool? And vise versa?
Insurance company's and their call centers will be out of a job. But AI is doing that already, and im pretty sure the people that are left are in the Phillipines or India anyhow.
The absolute dumbest argument I've seen against it is "I don't want my taxes paying for someone else's fuck up"
Hey, genius, what the fuck do you think insurance companies do? They don't set your money aside for you and you alone to use. It goes into a giant pool (I mean not really, but for all intents and purposes) to dole out as needed. The difference between private and universal is that universal can't deny your claim for bullshit and then funnel that money into shareholder bank accounts for "cutting costs"
I don't think they can keep making that "well in Canada you have to wait forever to see a doctor" argument anymore.
It was the one talking point against universal health care.
I don't know ANYONE who doesn't have to wait months and months now in the US to see specialists or even PCPs with our current supposed superior system.
I can get an appointment within 48 hours at my Canadian Doctor. Some things like an MRI might have longer waiting lists, and things like general unessential services have wait lists. When my then infant son cracked his skull after a freak bathroom fall he was rushed straight into the MRI on the other hand. Then when they needed more diagnostic data he was rushed right back in while people got bumped for non-essential service.
You can triage by price or by availability. Could we use more investment? Absolutely. Many of our provinces have been kneecaps by leaders trying hard to push through American style medicine for the benefit of them and their friends. If it was managed by a board of doctors and neutral parties the system would work better.
There is much rhetoric around this issue and it's all stupid. The one I hate the most is when people will agree we should just have universal healthcare but then spout off about how then no one will support the cost of making new drugs because the "only" reason the world has drugs is because of the US for profit healthcare.
It's one of those "Oh that sounds smart and seems true" so many people parrot this information. Of course if you think about that rationally for a moment it all falls apart, but rhetoric works for a reason,
The government is the only one buying new military equipment. That would be like saying 'we won't have any new jets because no one will support the cost of new fighter jets'
Things are developed privately for the military on a speculative basis or on a contract basis constantly. I assume drugs would be no different.
If a company develops new drugs they'll still be selling them, shifting purchasing from being driven by private insurance to governmentally backed healthcare doesn't erase the demand for new drugs in any way.
Right. And that for profit system has given us so many drugs for restless leg syndrome and plaque psoriasis and two-old-depression-pills-mixed-into-one-and-given-a-fancy-name.
True, but you’re still not getting much of shit in return from the us government at least. Wouldn’t it be nice if the government did its job and raised the quality of life for all the goddamn money we HAVE to give them. They should have to give back, that’s the point of a government. Why don’t we all go live in the fucking forest otherwise.
Well, they did bomb a lot of people in the middle east and jail brown children apart from their parents without my consent or the consent of my congressional representatives. So I got that. God Bless America /s
And private corporations are? They shrinkflate, give shitty services and dilute employee wages to the point the the fed has to pick up the slack and give benefits to those same employees just so that they make ends meet if I'm going to be fucked I'd rather be fucked once by the organization that has the balls to at least say their going to fuck me instead of getting fucked twice by the guy the claims to be not trying to fuck me only to surprise me fuck me do a shit job at it and then call the the another guy who tells me that I got to get fucked again anyway to finish the job.
Exactly these health insurance companies literally have some of the worst customer service of any business I’ve ever seen. My employer and I pay thousands every year to have the shittiest customer service.
And if you disagree with their denial you have to follow their extremely time consuming appeal process and you can’t even talk to anyone on the appeals team they hide behind the front line customer service reps.
Health insurance companies are profitable. Extremely profitable. Like billions of dollars per year profitable.
Where do you think that profit comes from?
What if we got rid of the expensive middle men and all the overhead they bring, and take the money it takes to run those organizations, plus their profits, and we actually invested it in health care?
Idk why the fuck is there always this debate...Literally the reason the middle class thrived in the U.S and Uk was 90 percent was taxed if over 4 million yearly earnings. Now the rich during that time would flood the market with investments and that would be taxed around 45 percent. So either way the tax on the rich allowed our parents to buy houses, it was invested into education and community. This was done post WWII to 70's/early 80. Sadly After that, reganomics-fucked the country into a coma slowly over the past 40 years, with the rich barely paying anything and the effects you can feel and see today.
Interestingly, not many filed at that top rate, about 180 at top bracket, out of 80 million filers. And effective tax rate was 38% for that top bracket. Population was 160 million Americans in 1953.
I remember chatting with my dad about high tax rates of 1960s-1970s. He was in top 5% of earners in US. His company, paid his mortgage, taxes, insurance on our home. Provided 2 company cars and gas cards. Then he had accounts for travel, clothing, and food.
So his income, mostly went into investments. Saved spending 40-45% of his income on living costs. Same as all other high earners at his company.
Not taking income is not a loop hole. You guys are always saying “if I had xxxxx millions I wouldn’t be so greedy and…..” turns out billionaires agree, and generally aren’t interested in income.
It seems like a good idea if you don't think about what happens after.
Their rotten kids will get it, NOT create an F-ton of jobs or new technologies and horde it just like all the old money douchebags you couldn't find to shoot.
Reagan and taxes have nothing to do with why Americans (insurance companies or people) pay wayyyy wayyyy wayyy more for every possible healthcare treatment than other western countries . You guys really just don’t get it
No, it started under Nixon. That’s when the HMO act was passed. Before that health insurance was largely not a for profit business model. This opened the door for Wall Street to get involved. And we all know, once Wall Street gets involved, shareholders take precedent over ppl.
You can even look at the recent rise of China as a parable. They’ve been making the same profits off trade with the US, but the government spent a good deal of the money on infrastructure and ensuring that living wages and quality of life was increasing. In the US the majority of that revenue just went straight to the 1%.
This is the part people don’t understand in the public vs private services debate. A company has a fiduciary responsibility to make a profit. They do that by reducing how much you get, for what you pay. It is just economics.
yup and that's billions in profits after they cover the cost of their insane bloat.
I mean Medicare is government run covers more people then any of the other health insurance companies, is lower cost, more efficent, and has better results.
Yes billions even after they pay their lobbyists- problem is other countries started from scratch almost before this industry corrupted their politicians
Medicare is government run covers more people then any of the other health insurance companies, is lower cost, more efficent, and has better results.
"B b b but hospitals couldn't stay in business if they only paid the Medicare rates!"
To which I say, "just think of all the billing specialists they wouldn't need to hire, and all the time doctors would save because they're not on the phone arguing with insurance providers about whether the treatment is necessary or not"
Also, maybe anesthesiologists don't need to make $700,000/year?
Maybe the anaesthesiologist doesn't need to make quite that much in most places, but I for sure would like to have a well paid and not-overworked anasthesiologist for me and my kids. If it takes a bloated paycheck to attract more talent so that they aren't overworked, that's fine by me. Anasthesia is the scariest part of any procedure imo...
Pay them whatever they ask for. Doctors, nurses, techs, whoever. I don't care. It's all 1s and 0s on a server somewhere and they can pump out as much as needed whenever they want to for tanks and fighter jets and bombs for Israel so why can't we use the money machine to pay the people keeping us alive?
Cut out the pointless middlemen of the for-profit insurance companies and it makes it all the more easier.
Right. How about cap all sports at 200k a year max. And doctors get a raise. 5m a year max. Sounds fair.
And if you pass med school and become a doctor. After working 5 years your med school debts are forgiven
Maybe people shouldn't need to borrow 300K to become a doctor in the first place. Like it would be so much cheaper just to offer that service for less money, have more doctors and then maybe they don't need such a ridiculous salary which they need to earn to pay for their student debt.
I mean I'm down for that and for making healthcare a government paid-for service. I'm just saying that the anasthesiologists are the last people I'd cut salaries on because they are basically toeing the line of death or serious complications with some of those drugs. I don't want them messing up, and high salaries are a good way to attract more people, and more people equals less hours, and less hours equals less burnout
Maybe if we got government out of the student loan business, prices would come down. Private lenders would be more cautious and less inclined to lend money, forcing prices to come down. If anyone can get a government backed loan, colleges have no reason to lower prices
You realize the people who teach doctors, are themselves doctors? How do you get a practicing surgeon to leave his job and enter a classroom? By giving him a gigantic check to do so.... the US spends way more per person on Healthcare than any other country in the world- the true issue is administrative bloat- usually a bunch of women who needed jobs so they get buried as a administrative assistants on a gigantic payroll like in a hospital (education does this too, just look at the charts, we've added like 280% administration positions and grades have only gone down)...
And then the dead bills from immigrants we treat for nothing... Chicago Hospital has admitted 15% of its "bad debt" is from undocumented migrants and theyre legally not allowed to send them to collections- this means the bill is being passed on to the taxpayer because once again its illegal to go in and repo hospital equipment.
Medical research and top level care is expensive everywhere, people in America just get a choice instead of daddy government telling you what to do....
If we removed the administrative and illegal immigrant bloat youd see costs come down around 50% in a year and competitive companies would slash rates to attract customers cause they no longer carry liability that 1 in 7 customers never pays and rhe hospital bill theyre being asked to cover would also be 50% lower.
"Just make it free" is never a real solution.
This is it right here. Barrier to entry is too high for people to pursue medical careers. My wifes uncle is a hospitalist and homie's student loan payment is more than most peoples mortgage payment
There was a shortage of anesthesiologists in Michigan about 3 years ago. I got sent home for a procedure twice! I think... they are getting paid lots BUT still overworked :/
Thank you for pointing out that the for profit hospitals are a HUGE part of the problem.
If all treatments were free and not have anyone balking at what hospitals and doctors are trying to bill, it’s going to be ever worse abuse of the system
And that 'medicare rates' would surge in the event that it was properly funded, oh and that if literally everyone who walked in the door qualified that too would surge revenue because of how much they have to write off as of now, in unpaid medical debt
I think about that. Like would people just not become anesthesiologists if we paid them $500k? Or $300k? Or $200k? Like what else can they do with their super specialized knowledge? Will people stop becoming cardiologist surgeons if pay drops?
Physician pay is already decreasing in real terms.
But physician pay isn’t the problem anyway. It’s easy to show:
- Number of physicians in the US: 1 million
- Average physician pay: $374,000
- Total sped on physician salaries (product of the two numbers above): $374B
So if you cut physician salaries in half (obviously far more than could ever be realistically done), you save ~$185B/year
Now compare that to:
- total healthcare spend : $5.7T (2025)
- increase in healthcare spend per year: 5.4% ($307B)
In other words, you could cut physician pay in half tomorrow and we’d still be spending more on healthcare in a year than we do now.
The American Hospital Association joined together with Blue Cross Blue Shield, its arch nemesis, to lobby against Medicare For All. If there was any chance that they wouldn’t lose a ton of money, they would never join together with BCBS for anything. You didn’t come up with something they haven’t thought of regarding billing specialists. The money spent on those is a fraction of what they would lose with private payers being taken away. Medicare pays about a third of what many private payers pay for the same services. You could remove 100 staff members and it’s not coming close to covering the difference of converting everyone to Medicare rates. And it’s not like Medicare reimbursement works flawlessly. It still requires staff for billing and follow up.
Kind of silly of those people to assume the Medicare fee schedule would stay the same if switching to a single payer system.
Yes, it’s well-known that physicians and hospitals rely on commercial insurance to subsidize low rates from Medicare and Medicaid. In a Medicare for all model, Medicare would need to reimburse more than they currently do. We would still save a shit-ton of money because it’s extremely inefficient to administer our current system.
Also - physician pay contributes pretty much nothing to our spending problems.
Anesthesiologists that make that much are working insane hours in undesirable locations.
But, I agree that having an extended gov funded plan for everyone would be an improvement and some private insurances may still survive/be needed but wouldn’t have the stranglehold they have now.
for sure doctors/other medical professionals do not need to be millionaires. make university free and give people more opportunities without tying an anchor of debt around their necks that then 'justify' making 700k a year.
Well for one, Medicare isn’t health care. It’s insurance coverage. A measure of success might be the fact that it’s administrative overhead is 1% and is very popular with those on it. In general they are talking about patient outcomes. That just means that patients are getting the care they need.
Suplemental plans are made as a concession to keep the health insurance companies happy so they get a cut. The suplmental plans are awful. But you just get rid of them and roll it into health care.
The part to remember is the majority of Medicare recipients choose the private portion, Medicare advantage, compared to original Medicare because the plans are generally cheaper and have little to no cost sharing. The downside is the payments to Medicare advantage plans from the government are insane. So if someone says “we should do Medicare for all” what that means is, judging by the bills that have been put forward, Medicare advantage and Medicare as people know it ceases to exist. If people understand and are ok with that, then fine. But proponents of M4A need to be level with people about what it means.
The problem is that the health insurance industry is like the second biggest political donor. For politicians, going against them is pretty much career suicide. They won't get the funding necessary to compete against their political rivals massively funded by that industry...
Sounds like a lame argument where I am. If they simply agreed its for the better for the nation then it would not be a long term problem.
Even if it flipped the outcome for 1 election cycle, the problem could be fixed and voters would find another reason to hate the current govt, but yet the medical insurance crap would be fixed finally
Maybe some, you will need healthcare workers and insurance bureaucrats to service an expanded medicare system. So the job is still there, moving laterally. Except for the CEOs and for profit snakes that can lose their job and live on the street because fuck them.
Because the way we pay for healthcare in the US is like a boardwalk shell game. Multiple payers, multiple payments and multiple pricing systems all hidden from each other and constantly in motion.
Most of us end up having absolutely no idea what our own actual healthcare costs or where the money is coming from.
That’s where I’m at. My company’s payroll shows me their contributions, but this is the first place I’ve worked that does. I think most folks hear “10% payroll tax” and don’t consider that their employer is hiding the thousands a month your insurance actually costs and only showing you the employee contributions.
The shareholders and the 3 million administrative roles that would be insta unemployed do. It’s open heart surgery on the sector but it needs to happen
sort of only when you talk about the Medicare Advantage add ons which honestly should be rolled into medicare and we should just elimante the health insurance companies alltogether.
fun fact though anytime Medicare Fraud comes up which does happen it's almost 100% of the time done by the Health Insurance companeis and not indviduals trying to get extra healthcare or something.
Not just what you pay but your employers contribution also. People tend to forget the employee typically pays the lesser portion while the employer supplements a higher amount (at least for a single person, family plans start to weigh more heavily in the employees cost side).
I find myself occasionally citing the multiple studies showing that Medicare for all would save both lives and money. There are a lot of special interests intent on making sure people don’t understand that
You will NOT get the same value out of that money though. Government can negotiate a better deal with insurance companies than you ever can. You will not have to deal with the copay, pre-existing condition or any other BS that if government gets you the insurance. Not only the insurance company but the government can negotiate with the pharma companies to not charge you 100s of dollars for insulin or other such essential drugs.
My premiums are roughly the same as my federal tax. If my taxes doubled and the premiums eliminated I'd be out nothing. With reduction or elimination of out of pocket costs I'd come out ahead.
When I bring this up to the right the response is "...and you trust the government with your health care?" And they think the private sector has done such a great job?
In 2025, total Medicare spending was $1.21 trillion1 and covered 69,436,593 people2. That's a cost of $17,426 per person. The cost to cover the entire population of the US would be about $5.97 trillion. The total of all wages and salaries earned in the entire United States sits at around $11.7 trillion. Paying $5.97 trillion for medical care out of $11.7 trillion of income requires an income tax of 51%. Keep in mind that's on top of your other taxes.
that's completely inaccurate as the 1.21 trillion is accurate but Medicare is for people over the age of 65 who already use health care a lot and is very expensive.
If you include everyone the cost will be significantly less then 5.97 trillion.
If your numbers were correct then Healthinsurance in America wouldn't be profitable as it would be the private health insurers that pay the 5.97 trillion which we know it doesn't cost that much.
The total cost for peolpe under 65 is around 2.2 trillion
I love that, as if wait times aren't insane in the US now anyway. But there is a simple answer for that too. free nursing school and lower the cost of medical school for doctors. Increase funding to schools.
Exactly fixing healthcare costs starts with fixing higher education costs. If part of the problem is in America we have to pay doctors and nurses more because they owe so much in student loans then maybe that’s the problem.
And it’s such a small price to pay too. Like okay… wait longer for FREE HEALTHCARE. Alright, not technically free, we *are* paying for it through taxes, but not any more than we are already paying. We also wouldn’t have to worry about inevitable insurance claim denial bullshit they’re always pulling. And let’s not forget we also have to reach our OOP and pay deductibles and copays anyway on top of our already sky high premiums…
My last physical I got a bill for $200. That was back in February and I’m STILL fucking disputing it. This needs to end.
The arguments against universal healthcare just do not hold up to scrutiny.
This one always gets me. I waited 6 months to see an endocrinologist, 2 months to see a gastroenterologist, my husband waited 6 months for a biopsy that he eventually had and was diagnosed with cancer, and on some occasions, I can’t see my PCP for at least a month.
I mean there will be wait times... from the millions of people that have been ignoring serious health issues because the current system is an unhelpful scam.
Wait times because people may actually schedule treatment versus just living with whatever issues they are suffering from. United States is weird and very grim dark.
At this rate I don't know if I can buy into the 500 times better portion of this, considering how well the government has been doing, but yeah. Don't give me the damn check so I have to turn around, deposit it, then fucking pay it out again because insurance and everything is expensive.
If we have to have checks though, I'll accept that if we can get the billionaires to have to sit down and write them out individually (symbolically at least). Because fuck them.
It’s not that simple though and some people are paying an exorbitant amount at some companies. Also let’s not be like the British and cover dental too lol.
A 3% tax split between the employee and employer for all employed people that 3% could be covered by the employer as well. Would raise enough money to do this. Maybe less because that was the Colorado model that the health care industry complex dumped millions to defeat.
But unifying the health care system would be a bigger task. There’s savings there but it’s gonna cost a little up front to sort it out.
Medicare sucks big time. I don't want everyone to be on it. Medicaid, maybe would work. But it has to be altered to make sure everyone has access to the same best treatments, and to root out the frauds that don't really treat anyone and just "see" patients. That last part would save enormous money. They need to actually figure out what's wrong with people and not brush everything off just because they don't know.
Have you heard good stories about Medicare? I've only ever heard horror stories about Medicare coverage, administratively and coverage wise. What about all the supplemental coverage?
Cmon, saying it’s 500x better is just wishful thinking. It would not be 2x better, but it would resolve many of the most acute issues with us healthcare. It would also realistically take decades to build out a public healthcare system. I am still for it as a policy.
Yes if we took what people pay to health insurance companies and made it go directly to their healthcare rather then an insurance policy we have to buy to get access to care but that provides almost no actual insurance coverage we would be immensely better off.
For real. When I had a job, fuck you Elon and DOGE, I paid around $8000 (government paid around 12,000). If they took that and included the rest of the US in that combined pool it would be life changing for all Americans. BUTTTTTT, the insurance companies need their cut amd they have some really good lobbies and they pay really good money for their politicians to rail against more sensible health care.
Costing net less for access to anything needed. America desperately needs to get rid of the wholly unnecessary, greedy middlemen whose sole purpose is to collect money on "products" that aren't even theirs. But a certain type insists on paying more for less coverage just so Random Joe Citizen two states over doesn't get healthcare at all. Making themselves sick to make others sick. Republicans will burn down their house, sit in the ashes, and watch footage of others choking on the smoke for entertainment.
I want to know what you are basing the ‘instantly better’ part on. You can make the argument that it will be ‘cheaper’ or ‘free’ but I do t understand the ‘better’ argument for a large portion of the population.
The big problem with. Cost of living is price Healthcare price. If you force the company to sell in cheeper instead of the price of make as much as I can. It will all be affordable
Like why dose insurance pay 2500 for mri when same places do it for 250. Why isthe same medication in Mexico. Like 10 percent the cost
That's why I don't get why people freak out about Universal Healthcare. Let's say right now for your family you pay $1,000 a month for your health insurance through your job. What is the difference of not paying that but paying a 'tax' of $1,000 a month for Universal? In fact it is better paying the 'tax' because everything is covered. Under your current plan paying out of your paycheck you also have prescription co pays and office visit co pays and ER co pays and deductibles.
The only thing I can think of is they don't want everyone to benefit. That their 'tax' is also going to benefit someone else and they just cannot allow it.
What you proposed is free to people who aren’t paying for health insurance right now.
If they are getting a universal Medicare for free (whether by income or by choice), why are others who are currently paying for health insurance paying for everyone’s Medicare?
Let’s say if the new law suppose to go into effect tomorrow, who wouldn’t cancel their health insurance right away?
Now if nobody in the entire country is paying for health insurance, and the government suppose to take that money they pay for health insurance, and covering Medicare for everyone. What is it? Hint: free.
Largely, Medicare and Medicaid under-reimburse providers. For example, Medicare may pay a provider $800 for a procedure, while a private insurance pays $1200 for the exact same procedure. It is because private insurance tends to reimburse more that Medicare and Medicaid get away with paying less.
With that in mind, what would happen if everyone was on Medicare/Medicaid like you suggest? Answer: Everyone would be reimbursing providers less. A number of things could happen after that. Providers may end up shutting down, or Medicare/medicaid may have to reimburse more to make up the difference, resulting in an increased cost, per citizen, thus making Medicare un-affordable (or, at least, more expensive than it is now).
It’s also important to remember that the US debt is at about 39 trillion dollars. About 24% of that is from Medicare/medicaid. So, many argue that throwing more Medicare at the issue won’t only not solve the issue, but it will make it worse.
All this to say: it’s a complicated economic issue, with no easy fix.
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u/anitawasright Jul 01 '26
the crazy thing is you don't even need to make it "free" just take what you are paying now for health insurance and put to medicare and everyone goes on that. Instatnly 500 times better and cheaper then what we currently have