Ouch: Sanders's healthcare plan claims pharmaceutical spending will be negative

[Recursion]

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/28/10858644/bernie-sanders-kenneth-thorpe-single-payer

Sanders assumes $324 billion more per year in prescription drug savings than Thorpe does. Thorpe argues that this is wildly implausible. "In 2014 private health plans paid a TOTAL of $132 billion on prescription drugs and nationally we spent $305 billion," he writes in an email. "With their savings drug spending nationally would be negative." (Emphasis mine.) The Sanders camp revised the number down to $241 billion when I pointed this out.

...

When I pointed out that the yearly savings numbers they were presenting on prescription drugs were literally impossible, the Sanders camp revised the number to $241 billion — huge and arguably implausible but not larger than total annual spending on prescription drugs. A follow-up email also revised down the assumed administrative savings from 16 percent to 13 percent and the savings on utilization up from $216 billion to a whopping $660 billion.

This isn't a plan, it's a piece of demagogic hackery. We need actual solutions.

In particular the last sentence is very damning: the Sanders campaign is now claiming almost nobody who is currently skipping medical treatments will start seeing doctors if their plan passes.

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. So Sanders Campaign must makes the numbers up.

This reminds me of Vermont's attempt that ended in failure because it proved to be ruinously expensive.

This is going to be expensive, and if Americans are going to approve it, they deserve to be told the full cost, not given fantasy numbers and then handed a bill later, if it is even enacted.

[PatrickforO]

2. Hmm. Might be a mistake to go all myopic on the 'detailed' plans of presidential

candidates. Where the rubber WILL meet the road is when Bernie is elected and we state a million person march on DC for single payer, and Congress does it.

Then we'll be able to count the beans.

Of course, we'll all be under a LOT less economic stress then than we are now, because we won't have to WORRY about going bankrupt of we get sick.

Cool, eh?

So, Recursion, please don't miss the point. You don't REALLY think we're better off now than if we all had single payer? Really?

[Recursion]

3. I really don't. I think its costs would jeopardize the rest of the safety net

I think we don't have the political will to make doctors and hospitals make 50% less than they do now, while treating more people, and because of that costs would skyrocket (any attempt to limit them would be attacked as "cutting Medicare&quot and would eventually crowd out all other social spending.

[PatrickforO]

6. So...how come the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Holland, Denmark,

Sweden, Norway, Finland...you know, the REST of the industrialized world, CAN afford it?

Just wondering, because I'm thinking that's my main issue. I want single payer because I'm sick of my shitty, rationed HMO healthcare package that my employer and I pay a whopping 18.5% of my gross for. My HMO cares more about cutting costs than it ever has about me. But I pay them thousands of dollars a year. And, I'm PROFOUNDLY dissatisfied.

Right now, what we have is a giant corporate welfare program for insurance companies while we do the BOHICA thing with double digit premium increases every year, higher copays and shittier service.

Sorry, but I want single payer. Now.

One last thing - I chose to go into public service because I wanted to make a difference. If I go see a doctor I sure as HELL don't want one that got into it to get rich. Because that means s/he doesn't give a shit about me, just money. The Brits have it right. Their med school is much cheaper than ours and the last two years are covered by the British NHS. People in Britain don't go into medicine to get rich. They go into it to make a difference.

Just out of curiosity, when Democrats have been for single payer for a century now, why is it suddenly 'pie in the sky' 'unicorn' fodder? Is it because Bernie is running against the establishment?

So, how's that establishment been working for all of us? Is it fair? Is it equitable? Can young families make it? Do our children have a chance to live better lives than we did? Are you more economically secure than your parents were?

If the answer to those questions is 'no,' Recursion, then why are you backing the establishment's play?

[Recursion]

11. Well, first off, most of them don't use single payer

Secondly, they have the will to say

1. Doctors can make about $100,000, and not much more
2. People should pay a 15% income tax and 20% VAT

We don't.

[aspirant]

16. Which do use single payer?

[Recursion]

17. None of those listed do, though the UK for all practical purposes could be called Single Payer

Worldwide it's really just Canada that has it.

[Cali_Democrat]

10. "Bernie is elected and we state a million person march on DC for single payer, and Congress does it"

You're kidding right?

That's your plan to get single payer?

Don't we at least need to analyze the proposed plan to see if it adds up? Right now what Bernie presented isn't adding up.

[Nanjeanne]

4. Not that I'm saying there's any bias

(I'll just repost what I posted in the other thread from a few minutes ago about this):

But . . .

From Thorpe's bio on Emory website.

In addition to holding a number of faculty positions, Thorpe was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 1993 to 1995. In this capacity, he coordinated all financial estimates and program impacts of President Clinton’s health care reform proposals for the White House.

He is also a Co-Chair of Partnership for the Future of Medicine. I took a quick look around at that site. Seems on the anniversary of Medicare they did a few roundtables on was to make it better because, doncha know, it's unsustainable. But funny I didn't see anything about raising the cap which makes it solvent for many many years. Nope - I saw:

In fact, Wakefield said HHS has set a goal of moving 50 percent of all fee-for-service Medicare payments to alternative payment models by 2018, a focus that will help providers move from a system that is paying for quantity to one that will pay for quality. To achieve this goal, HHS is working with private insurance companies, including Medicare Advantage plans, to find innovative ideas to ensure seniors receive quality health care at a lower cost. Some insurers have begun launching Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries. In fact, Medicare Advantage’s focus on prevention and care coordination has influenced coordinated care models like ACOs.


That's right folks. Just give more of your money to private insurance companies for Medicare Advantage programs and they'll make it all better.

And on the Advisory Board for Partnership - why that would be Douglas Holtz-Eakin who is also President of The American Action Forum. Who are they? Well right there on their website it says:
is a 21st century center-right policy institute providing actionable research and analysis to solve America’s most pressing policy challenges


Don't have time tonight to keep searching out additional bio's, etc. But I just love research! You find out all kinds of interesting things to help form your own opinions on what someone is saying.

So I think I'll skip Dr. Thorpe's analysis - but thanks for posting!

[Recursion]

5. So you think pharmaceutical spending can be negative?

Weird. I can't see how that would work, personally.

[Hoyt]

7. There are lots of inaccuracies like that. It's a simple process to get expenditures for drugs

nationally to prevent releasing implausible savings. I don't think Sanders cares because his supporters won't ask any questions.

But, not to focus on just Sanders, Trump said he too could save $300 Billion on drugs. Guess they use the same economists, or ones who are just trying to get the boss elected.

[Thinkingabout]

8. I have not read a verifiable Sanders plan numbers and have not seen

A verifiable tax number. Putting these two issues aside seeing a pathway to get Sanders Medicare for all through Congress is the largest problem. I also have not seen effort in the Sanders campaign to get down ticket candidate funding, getting Democrats elected will provide a pathway to getting this passed.

[Cali_Democrat]

9. There was never any plan....

There is no plan.

Bernie needs to withdraw this alleged "plan" and present something real.

[tarheelsunc]

12. Could you imagine what the reaction here would be if this were Clinton?

The Sanders campaign obviously just made up a bunch of random numbers and called it a "plan". They got called out and what do they do? Plug in another random number. His supporters for the most part don't care how unrealistic and unworkable what he proposes is so when the fake numbers get called out, they are silent. If Clinton ever just made stuff up like this, you'd NEVER hear the end of it. The double standards on this site lately are ridiculous.

[frazzled]

13. Well, I do believe they'd say

she was a liar. And that's exactly what this ill-thought-out, fake policy plan is, from what I can tell--a lie. Everything promised is hyperbolized to lure in naive voters and/or indisputably impossible to legislate.

It's one thing to dispute costs and savings, but to claim you'd have negative spending on pharmaceuticals is, well, unprofessional and, someone upthread said it--demagogic.

[pnwmom]

14. The worst part is that he's helping to discredit the ACA every day. And if he's the nominee

voters will face a choice between the Rethug, who says we can give everyone health insurance with health savings accounts and buying across state lines -- but not spending a dime more in taxes. Vs. Sanders, who says we need to spend more, but THIS time we'll get a program better than the inadequate ACA.

Voters ALWAYS will choose the unproven "free" program over the unproven costly one.

[ucrdem]

15. Funny how that works isn't it.