Medicare for All Costs Too Much, Pelosi Adviser Assures Health Insurance Executives

[appalachiablue]

Source: Newsweek

1:00 PM.

A top aide to Democratic leader and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi rebuffed a single-payer, Medicare for All approach to health care reform to insurance company executives, a slide presentation leaked to The Intercept revealed. Wendell Primus, Pelosi's senior health policy and budget adviser, wrote the presentation--titled "Moving Forward on Health: A Difficult Terrain"--which was presented to Blue Cross Blue Shield executives less than a month after Democrats took back control of the House of Representatives, flipping 40 seats in the 2018 midterm elections.

The presentation outlines proposed steps for lowering spending growth for private insurers, particularly targeting high drug prices, while arguing for a restoration and expansion of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. On one slide, titled "Universal Coverage," the presentation specifically rebuffed a single-payer approach to universal coverage, under which the government, rather than private insurance companies, would cover medical services, eliminating employer-based health care.

The presentation raised five objections to a single-payer approach: 1 ."Cost" 2. "Creates winners and losers" 3. "Stakeholders are against" 4. "Monies are needed for other priorities" 5. "Implementation challenges"

Two of the five objections to a single-payer program focus on costs. But while a single-payer Medicare for All plan would shift the burden from employers and individuals to the government, a study by the libertarian Mercatus Center found that the Medicare for All plan proposed by Bernie Sanders could insure 30 million more Americans and still save $2 trillion in aggregate health care spending over the next 10 years.

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/nancy-pelosi-medicare-all-single-payer-health-insurance-affordable-care-act-1318788

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We don't discuss private meetings, if there was such a meeting," a Blue Cross Blue Shield representative told The Intercept. "We're not going to barter lower prescription drug costs for inaction in the rest of the health care industry," Pelosi spokesperson Henry Connelly told The Intercept. "The presentation was a broad look at the health care environment and some of House Democrats' legislative priorities over the next two years in a period of GOP control of the Senate and White House."

Pelosi's office was contacted by Newsweek with additional questions; updates will be posted.

Medicare for All has become a key issue for 2020 presidential Democratic candidates: Sen. Bernie Sanders advocates a universal expansion of the Medicare program to cover all, and lessening of the private insurance industry; Sens. Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris have supported more incremental "Medicare for All" measures- such as a Medicare buy-in or the "public option."

The Intercept, Nancy Pelosi Medicare For All?
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/05/nancy-pelosi-medicare-for-all/?fbclidIwAR2t7rzqdi_SZ1UdA6N6m5HA3dvkaB3ukhGfxVBKfM18c5s6R-Ni_Efjsko

[pecosbob]

1. The only pig at the trough that doesn't actually contribute to healthcare outcomes is the insurers

Do away with the health care insurance industry and suddenly health care is thirty percent cheaper...it's not rocket science.

[Raster]

32. No shit!!! It seems like every discussion about the high potential healthcare costs...

...of Medicare for everyone DOES NOT TAKE the parasitical private health insurers out of the equation.

[area51]

2. The Dems need to stand behind

Medicare for All. Too many people are dying each year in our current system (see sigline).

[tclambert]

3. Medicare for all is way cheaper than private insurance supplemented by emergency room visits

for non-emergencies for people without health insurance, plus the cost of all the extra dead people who die due to lack of insurance or inadequate insurance.

[Puppyjive]

4. I won't vote for anyone who doesn't want medicare for all

I pay $360 a month for insurance. Medicare premiums are $135.50 for those who have paid into the system. I would hand over much more over to medicare if I could. I do not want my employer deciding my fate and I don't like being tied to a job because of my benefits. I don't want to deal with health care administration. I want to go to a dr and let the dr decide what I need. I want the healthy to subsidize the sick. I do not want my healthcare dollars supporting greedy executives who do nothing but take, take, take. Tired of the greed and lawmakers who have zero vision. I will not vote for anyone who doesn't promote health care for all. Let this be a message from many. I see it from both sides. Put up or shut up .

[Magoo48]

14. I'm 70; I have a Medicare subliminal handled by an insurance co.

for reasons which piss me off. I too will not support any dem candidates in the primary who don’t support healthcare for all, at once, healthcare at least as good as mine and our so called “leaders” whose healthcare I help pay for. Considering where the public stands on healthcare for all, it’s time for a giant step forward.

[zentrum]

5. Dems need to step up. Single-payer

...MFA brings us into the 21st century of civikized countries. Come on!

[pnwmom]

6. I don't why anyone here believes anything that the Intercept, Glenn Greenwald's baby, reports on.

Newsweek, fine. But I'd rather not see any Intercept links here.

[GulfCoast66]

7. Medicare for all is the hill we will die on if we go down that road.

Expanding and using the now popular ACA is the only viable way to Universal Healthcare.

The first step is to legally mandate that healthcare insurance be nonprofit. Which it has been before and in some cases still is. Ironically, this article deals with Blue Cross which was non profit when my parents were young.

The main reason the ACA is our way forward is because it keeps our employers in the game. And it would be relatively easy(compared to getting the ACA) to eliminate the games employers play with keeping employees under a certain hour limit to avoid healthcare. You employ them, you pay their insurance.

Try to take the employer out of the game and we lose the House. 50 percent of Americans get their insurance from their employer. And since the ACA it has pretty strict mandates it is good healthcare. No way in hell these folks will vote for a party who wants to take their insurance away for something ‘better’.

Fortunately, the French faced all these issues and kind of show us the way. They have perhaps the best healthcare in the world and it is nothing like Medicare for all.

[Hotler]

21. If you take the employer out of the game....

employees are no longer chained to a shitty job with a shitty employer just to have health insurance for them and their family.

[GulfCoast66]

24. Or, better yet, make every employer pay for every employee

And raise taxes in a progressive for the government under the ACA to provide insurance for those who are self employed or unemployable.

The one fact never heard from Medicare for all proponents is how much money will have to be collected by the federal government to pay for it. We read tons of articles about how much it will save. Just my employer...they provide good healthcare for over 70,000 people here in Florida. At around 5k per person. Even if we reduce cost by 30-40%, what mechanism is going to provide that level of funding to the federal government? And that is just one company.

I say use the ACA to get a system like France.

But we all need to realize that in the end our goal is the same, affordable Universal Healthcare as a right. Not a privilege. When we debate the method of achieving that we are debating among allies, not enemies.

I get concerned with all the post I am seeing alluding to the fact that real democrats support Medicare for all. And if you don’t you somehow aren’t a good democrat. Especially since up till now Medicare for all has been more a rallying cry than a spelled out policy.

[Freddie]

31. I agree with an incremental approach

Too many people have a good employer plan and pay very little for it. A Medicare buy-in that employers can offer and can eventually morph into single payer is the least disruptive way to go. Work towards employers paying a % tax (a match on salary like FICA and Medicare now) should be the goal.

[YOHABLO]

8. " If there was such a meeting " ?

[No Vested Interest]

9. The ony way Medicare for All could be realistically implemented in the USA would be to

gradually lower the age for eligibility a few years at a time over a long period of years.

In other words, lower the eligible year to 64, or 62, or even 60 in the first few years. When the system successfully absorbs that number, consider lowering the age again in to high-50's, etc.

[Sherman A1]

10. I agree that it will need to be phased in

I would believe a system of Medicare as it is now done for seniors with the supplements being private insurance might be an optional path. It would be a hybrid plan, but nothing to which we are unaccustomed now and there’s a lot of jobs in the insurance industry that are to be considered.

[Magoo48]

11. Phasing in gives the insurance industry time to dig their corrupt fingers into new flesh.

The American people owe the bloated health insurance industry nothing. Status quo politics at the “top” continues to spotlight the need for progressive reform in of our leadership.

[ouija]

12. Simple

If the insurance companies are against single payer Medicaid for All that’s all I need to know.

[Sherman A1]

13. And what do you tell the people working in those jobs?

Sorry, you are just SOL? Your house payment isn’t important, your kids aren’t important, just go get another job doing something else? Oh, wait AI and the competition from others in your industry in similar circumstances have already taken a huge percentage of the jobs you might qualify to do, so just kindly go starve.

[Magoo48]

15. Whose unprotected health needs do you trade for their job security?

[Sherman A1]

20. Whose jobs do you trade

for your preferred system. The guy with the disabled daughter next door who works in medical billing? The customer service rep with a couple of kids in college? The person in the company mail room who is barely making enough to make ends meet. The folks in the IT department. There is a lot more at stake than just the stereotypical Insurance CompanyGreedy CEO.

All I am suggesting is that we look at a phase in or a hybrid system. I want everyone covered just as much as anyone else, but there are lots of factors and people's livelihoods in play on both sides of the equation.

[Cold War Spook]

16. And make all electric utilities go back to coal so the miners can get back their jobs.

We've already screwed the blacksmiths by using cars.

[Auggie]

18. Exactly -- industry evolves. It's a cornerstone of capitalism.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

22. A whole bureaucracy will need to be created to administer single-payer.

Maybe call it a monopoly government non-profit insurance company. I imagine it would be staffed from insurance companies.

The insurance company workers who are in marketing, advertising, corporate boards, they might be SOL.

Any insurance company employees who have all their 401k invested in their company's stock should look at diversifying, quickly.

[Magoo48]

36. I was thinking along these lines myself.

The redistribution of labor will be arduous, but specifically skilled workers are available if there’s a paradigm shift. Sadly, specialists involved in the more disreputable and odious aspects of vulture insurance which you referred to may need to retool a bit.

[GulfCoast66]

25. So make insurance companies nonprofit.

It can and has been done.

Hospitals as well. The best hospital chain in my area is nonprofit. Private, but nonprofit.

[at140]

26. Sounds like a sensible and practical approach

You are a wise owl !!

[Apollyonus]

38. Actuallly

It would be more cost effective to start from 1-21 and then 21-35 and so on. Younger people have lower health care expenses.

[No Vested Interest]

44. I doubt that cost-effectiveness is the point of having Medicare for all.

The reason for Medicare for seniors now and for a larger share of the population in the future is to protect against bank-breaking costs of medical care.

[Apollyonus]

45. The cost is important

for the Federal budget. Adding 0-21 will not cost all that much and will show people the progress. It will help shape the public opinion towards MFA and other age groups can be added more rapidly.

[No Vested Interest]

48. Which other programs currently provide health care to children (by insurance or other means)?

[Apollyonus]

49. Employer provided insurance

where people get it free or pay some to get. Poor children are covered by Medicaid -- but many have no health insurance at all.

[Cold War Spook]

17. My wife and I and 1/3 of the people are on one payer.

I am 100% service connected disabled so 100% of all my medical is covered by the VA. My wife is on Medicare and her supplemental is CHAMPVA. Because of eye problems he ophthalmologist is covered. All she pays for is dental.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

23. VA is a good model for a single-payer system. Unless Trump dissolves it.

All we need to do is expand VA business model to all citizens, civilian, non-disabled, etc.

[at140]

28. My father-in-law who served in WWII was on VA care for decades.

and they failed to diagnose his cancer until it was too late, and he passed away at age 82 4 weeks after VA finally discovered his cancer which by then had spread to every organ in his abdomen.

And my wife used to drive him to the VA hospital in Portland, OR, and the wait to see a doctor was always excruciatingly long. It was usually a whole day spent just for an office visit with the doctor.

I hope I never end up in a system like that. I am now on Medicare-Advantage plan through Humana,
and I like this system. I can get appointments with doctor quickly and see the doctor within 30 minutes of my appointment time. I get any diagnostic test needed quickly. Ditto with medications. Although I am fortunate in that I do not need many medications, but when I need them Humana insurance covers most of the cost. I pay only Medicare part B but not part D.

[Cold War Spook]

35. My Mother was not diagnosed with cancer under Blue Cross of MA.

I bet I can find some one not diagnosed under every health plan. You want to blame some one, blame Congress which refuses to fund VA healthcare with enough money. Also VA and Medicare plans included Humana have good doctors and bad doctors. I imagine you have a choice of doctors same as I have under the VA. I know there have been some horror stories about the VA, it depends on where you live. I have been under VA since 1995 and never had a problem. I know there are places in the country I would not want to use VA.

[at140]

39. Of course individual doctor is the key to health

My wife's family beef about VA was more about the lapse of time to obtain an appointment,
and then excruciating wait at the VA hospital many hours past the appointment time.

I know caver is very sneaky and there may be no symptoms at all until it has reached stage 4.

[Cold War Spook]

40. Veterans have had Choice Plus for some years.

If you can't get an appointment for 30 days or within 40 miles you can a non-VA doctor. It is being changed now to shorter days and shorter miles. One problem is, Congress didn't realize that with 2-3 wars being fought at one time, more disabilities. Of course they knew, they just don't care. It is so much easier to send them to war then fix them up.

[GlennRuss]

19. This is what's wrong with democrats today.

And politicians in general. They're going to dangle something critical we need in front of us to get us to the polls, but behind closed doors they ensure their donors it'll never happen.

Then we accuse bernie sanders of being a Russian agent just because he's brave enough to call these people out.

[R B Garr]

27. Yet Bernie is not brave enough to simply discuss the costs

in his own state that make single payer prohibitive. He needs calling out, too.

Your quote: “this is what’s wrong with democrats today”.

[GlennRuss]

33. Ok

If bernie is telling insurers behind closed doors that it's all a shtick, then yes he needs to be called out too. Anyone doing this should be called out

[R B Garr]

42. If he is blaming Democrats for something he can't get

done in his own state, then that is the story to pursue.

[CentralMass]

34. It being cost prohibitive can be argued. It was never implemented.

https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2017/sep/20/sean-duffy/vermont-single-payer-was-scrapped-because-it-was-g/

A policy study from Cornell University.

http://www.cornellpolicyreview.com/rise-fall-vermonts-single-payer-plan/

[R B Garr]

43. LOL, no excuses. The man's own words that he was forced

to answer in a debate. Vermont newspapers. We know why Vermont doesn’t have single payer, so why blame Democrats for something he didn’t get done .

[CentralMass]

46. Excuses ? There were no excuses in either link.

[R B Garr]

47. All excuses, even in the titles. Keep in mind the subthread

you are posting in was yet another smear on Democrats for not implementing and being accountable for what Sanders can’t get done in his own state.

I already gave two examples of where this info you seem to think has just been unearthed in your links can be easily found. Monetary excuses that exempt Sanders from success but not others are the point.

This subthread was about those double standards.

[Magoo48]

37. Are you suggesting that there is nothing at all wrong, questionable, noteworthy, or flawed

with democrats? Just human here, not saints, stuff’s wrong. Pointing out what’s wrong from time to time is manure for the garden.

[R B Garr]

41. Insert Bernie's name in all your queries.

Thanks

[area51]

30. Welcome to DU.

This page may answer some of the questions on Medicare for All upthread.