Economist Gerald Friedman calculates savings resulting from ‘Medicare for All"

[think]

University of Massachusetts economist Gerald Friedman calculates savings resulting from ‘Medicare for All’

By DAVE EISENSTADTER - Monday, January 18, 2016

AMHERST — Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for all” plan, unveiled Sunday hours before the televised Democratic debate in South Carolina, got a seal of approval from University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Gerald Friedman, who has argued for such a plan for decades.

Friedman wrote a 2013 paper for the non-profit organization Physicians for a National Health Program stating that such a plan would both save money and lead to higher-quality care.

Familiar with this work, Sanders’ campaign asked Friedman to run numbers on the candidate’s plan. The result was that Friedman found that a family of four making $50,000 in annual wages would pay $466 more in taxes but would save $4,955 annually from elimination of health insurance premiums and $1,318 in deductibles, making for a total savings of $5,807 under Sanders’ proposal.

Friedman also wrote that employers would save money. An employer now pays $12,591 for the average employee’s family plan, according to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation. That would be reduced to $3,100 in the form of a 6.2 percent income-based health premium, saving employers $9,491 per employee, Friedman wrote.

“In every other country in the world, they have something like what Sanders is talking about — Medicare for all — so I see no reason why we can’t do it,” Friedman said Monday....

Read more:
http://www.gazettenet.com/home/20605974-95/university-of-massachusetts-economist-gerald-friedman-calculates-savings-resulting-from-medicare-for

[uponit7771]

1. 2.2% of 50 is 1,100 and then 6.4% added on cause the employer is NOT going to pay that

... and they'll pass it down to the employee like they've been doing for the last 10 years.

No one in their right mind believes they wont, they have an established history of it and there's no penalty under Sanders plan for suppression of wages or just cut other benefits.

Also, Sanders doesn't outline HOW he's going to get the doctors, hospital GROUPS and medication providers to just accept less which is the lion share of the 1.7 trilllion in US cost of HCI.

The admin cost would save 200 billion from employee based HCI... that leaves 1.5 trillion in cost left which is the aforementioned take up.

Friedman also takes the AVG.. (its in the article) which is disingenuous at best instead of taking the median at around 53,000... The avg includes people who make 23 million in salary where as the median takes what MOST Americans make yearly which is around 53,000.

There are no employers spending ~13,000$ of their fully burdened cost on HCI for the MAJORITY of employees.. that's crazy on its face.... and we know damn well that's not true... they past those cost down to employee via suppressed wages or higher deductibles.... that's been fully documented multiple times over the last 10 years.

Sanders isn't going after the doctors, hospital groups and medication cost...

That's where his plan falls apart...

Making the administration of HC cost in the US public is only a sliver of cost

[Fawke Em]

3. You keep saying this, but if employers are passing down their portion of

payroll taxes to employees, then the IRS would be involved.

I don't think you know what you're talking about.

[uponit7771]

5. You're correct, I'll amend that part... they can't directly just not pay the tax BUT they can

... just cut salary or keep them from growing and that has been the sneakiest way employers have passed HCI cost

[daleanime]

7. I'm sure that they will fight us every step of the way....

so I guess that means we should just give up?


Not going to happen.

[Nanjeanne]

10. Why would any company cut salary when their % will be significantly less than what they are paying

Just doesn't make sense. Their % under Sanders' plan is less than what employers are currently paying as their share of healthcare. So they save money.

And two more health policy experts also destroy Thorpe's arguments. Posted link here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511090653

[uponit7771]

13. Its cheaper for the avg not the median, most employers for the median wage don't spend

... 13,000 on HC for their employers.

Most households don't make 134p91u4n billion an hour so the avg HCI cost should NOT be factored in to how much HCI cost for the median income

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

9. That's mode, not median

mean, median, mode

[november3rd]

2. Numbers?

I haven't seen the numbers on Hillary's and Trump's plans.

[uponit7771]

6. Hillary is going to work with the ACA and Trump is promising HCI across state lines which will

... give more competition.

That's not a bad idea seeing it's states that allow for the HCIs to increase premiums.

Take that out of the states control and there's less of an incintive

[in_cog_ni_to]

4. Rec & kickin' for the TRUTH...which is hard to come by from the HRH crowd.

PEACE
LOVE
BERNIE

[daleanime]

8. K&R....

[Ron Green]

11. If it weren't for the candidacy of Bernie Sanders,

this discussion of truly universal health care and the concept of a single-payer system would be lost in the noise of other distractions.

Questions like "How's he gonna pay for it" and "employers will do this or that" are not as useful as is the emergence of the discussion beyond the oligarchs' ability to suppress it.

[mhatrw]

12. So "raising taxes" can actually SAVE us all big bucks? Perish the Republicans! nt