Kaiser: "Analysis: A Health Care Overhaul Could Kill 2 Million Jobs, And That's OK"

[CousinIT]

https://khn.org/news/analysis-a-health-care-overhaul-could-kill-2-million-jobs-and-thats-ok/

As calls for radical health reform grow louder, many on the right, in the center and in the health care industry are arguing that proposals like “Medicare for All” would cause economic ruin, decimating a sector that represents nearly 20% of our economy.

While exploring a presidential run, former Starbucks chief Howard Schultz called Medicare for All “not American,” adding, “What industry are we going to abolish next — the coffee industry?” He said that it would “wipe out the insurance industry.”

A fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute wrote that it would “carpet bomb the industry.” David Wichmann, the chief executive of UnitedHealth Group, warned that it “would surely have a severe impact on the economy and jobs.”

...

Though it will be economically painful, the point is to streamline for patients a Kafka-esque health care system that makes money for industry through irrational practices. After all, shouldn’t the primary goal of a health care system be delivering efficient care at a reasonable price, not rewarding shareholders or buttressing the economy?

...

The expense of paying for employees’ health care has depressed wages and entrepreneurship, he said. He described a textile manufacturer that moved more than 1,000 jobs out of the country because it couldn’t afford to pay for insurance for its workers. Such decisions have become common in recent years.

“Yes, these are painful transitions,” said Baicker, who is now the dean of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. “But the answer is not to freeze the sectors where we are for all time. When agriculture improved and became more productive, no one said everyone had to stay farmers.”

[global1]

1. Medicare For All Won't Decimate The Insurance Industry.....

I'm on Medicare right now. Medicare basically covers 80% of costs I incur. Medicare provides basic care and a Medicare for All plan would provide basic healthcare for all Americans - large numbers of those American's which right now have no healthcare.

To pick up the other 20% of costs I have to have a supplemental plan which I have chosen Humana to serve me. I would assume that the same would be applied to a Medicare for All plan and that insurance companies would still serve the same purpose of providing supplemental insurance where the Medicare for All plan doesn't cover.

What I do see happening is that a Medicare for All plan would clear up one area of hassle for all providers of healthcare and all recipients of healthcare. That is all the unnecessary paperwork needed to be completed in dealing with multiple insurance providers. Currently - as a provider I have to submit paperwork to multiple insurance providers - all which have their own methods and forms.

Under a Medicare for All plan - there would be one set of forms or paperwork I'd have to deal with. This consolidation of paperwork would streamline the process. Here is where some of the jobs would be lost. All those insurance companies that currently have to have employees that service all that paper work would not be needed in the numbers that are currently needed.

Also - I could never figure out why employers would want to have to deal with health insurance as a perk for their employees. In companies that I have worked with in my career - that task has always been a problem for the company. Every year as healthcare costs go up for an employer - the HR departments would have to search for a new plan that would be cheaper and hopefully offer the same benefit package. I always thought that any company having to deal with this problem year after year - would like to be able to alleviate that problem by having their employees be covered under a Medicare for All health plan. Then the monies that the company would have to maintain to manage employer based health insurance could be used for other benefits for their employees or even higher wages.

All in all - consolidation of paperwork; not having to deal with the employer based problems of providing health insurance for their employees and I think another benefit - healthier employees overall - would outweigh any effects on the health insurance industry and loss of jobs. I think it would make the health insurance companies more efficient and streamlined and it would maximize their profits as well.

IMHO - some people just don't like change and that is why they are negative to a Medicare for All plan.

What we Americans have always learned as we undergo changes is that the majority of the times we face change - we come out on the other side with a better situation than we had when we went into the change. The same thing will happen for Medicare for All. We should face that challenge with a positive attitude and we'll all be better off for it - the American People; the Providers (medical professionals) and the insurance industry.

[area51]

2. I believe the Medicare for All proposals

have plans for transition for insurance industry employees whose jobs will be disrupted.

[Goodheart]

3. I've got an idea how to employ those displaced insurance industry workers

Let's rehire them to just sit there and do nothing, because what they're doing PRESENTLY is worse for America than that would be.

The notion that we should keep people around doing unproductive/destructive things is fucking insane. The productivity gains America would enjoy elsewhere would mean more jobs elsewhere. Transition into the now. Progress marches on.

[superpatriotman]

4. Thoughts and prayers

From the carriage, typewriter and telephone booth industries

Progress hurts sometimes

[msongs]

5. thoughts and prayers for the buggy whip industry nt

[NickB79]

6. Cars will kill buggy whip jobs! Petroleum will kill whale oil jobs!

Won't someone think of the economy?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. If a basic standard of living didn't depend on employment, this would be a different

conversation.

[Gothmog]

8. Medicare for All's jobs problem

Link to tweet

Initial research from University of Massachusetts economists who have consulted with multiple 2020 campaigns has estimated that 1.8 million health care jobs nationwide would no longer be needed if Medicare for All became law, upending health insurance companies and thousands of middle class workers whose jobs largely deal with them, including insurance brokers, medical billing workers and other administrative employees. One widely cited study published in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that administration accounted for nearly a third of the U.S.’ health care expenses.

Even if a bigger government expansion into health care left doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals’ jobs intact, it would still cause a restructuring of a sprawling system that employs millions of middle-class Americans.

University of Massachusetts researchers who analyzed the 2017 version of Sanders’ Medicare for All bill estimated that nationwide more than 800,000 people who work for private health insurance companies and a further 1 million who handle administrative work for health care providers would see their jobs evaporate.

The workers generally earn middle-class wages, according to the November 2018 study forecasting the economic ramifications of Sanders’ plan. The median annual income of a worker employed in the health insurance industry is nearly $55,000; for office and administrative jobs at health care service sites, it’s about $35,000, researchers said.

“The savings don’t come out of the sky,” said Pollin. “The main way we save money is through administrative simplicity. That means layoffs. There’s just no way around it.”