I read some pretty unrealistic assumptions about MFA here.

[wasupaloopa]

One is that if employers do not have to pay for employee health insurance that money saved will be passed onto the employee.

Two what MFA will look like.

Three MFA means free health care.

Reality, employers will increase net income by not paying for insurance.

Congress and the SCOTUS will decide what MFA will be just as the ACA was.

Employees will still have to pay for healthcare. Medicare is not free.

Another problem is MFA is talked about from a patient perspective as if the providers of health care will just go along with what ever is decided without any input.

[mopinko]

1. i wish candidate would dump the mfa label.

medicare is a crappy system. sorry, it just is.
and those of us that are seniors know it. it has been picked at and poked at and trimmed around the edges since day one.
i dont think it is a good idea to remind people what the bureaucracy will do over time.

[Mike 03]

2. Why is medicare bad?

I was worried it would be when my father was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, but he got into the Mayo clinic, insurance paid for a bone marrow transplant, most (I can't say for sure if all) medications and chemo, and hospice and then home care. He never complained, nor has my mother.

Just curious what is wrong with it?

EDIT: My mom just had a hip replacement and she's getting physical therapy now. Not one word of complaints.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Medicare isn't bad; overall it's a good thing. But it doesn't cover everything,

and you can still be stuck with high out-of-pocket costs if you don't buy a Medicare supplement. I think the point is that even if Medicare as it currently exists were universal, there would still be gaps, copays, and circumstances where we would still pay out of pocket.

[Mike 03]

6. Thanks for the clarification.

I'm not wedded to MFA, and I don't know if it can ever get passed. But just from my perspective, Medicare has treated my parents really well.

The most important thing is to beat Trump. If some of the candidates want to walk back MFA I'm okay with that.

[wasupaloopa]

14. Most likely it was supplemental insurance that

paid most of the costs, not Medicare.

[mopinko]

21. without a supplemental, it is worthless, imho.

and even then, it can be hard to keep your doctor. havent found an affordable supplemental where i can keep my 2 most important docs.

[George II]

8. The "Medicare for All" term is a misnomer. It is very different from the existing Medicare.....

Using that name is preying on the fact that people will think they're the same.

[elocs]

9. I retired at age 62, poor and under the federal 100% poverty level.

So here in Wisconsin I qualified for BadgerCare, our Medicare for adults without children. It paid for everything except a small drug copay.
When I was about to turn 65, here comes Medicare which I had paid into for decades while I worked.
Well surprise, surprise because I was going to have $135/month taken out of my small SS check to pay for part B and then there were the copays and deductibles.
Fortunately I found a Medicare Advantage plan with a private insurance company. No monthly premiums, everything gets paid for (like the $5000 bill for a clinic visit and tests last month), plus I have vision and dental coverage. I also get $200/quarter to pay for over the counter healthcare items. What Medicare doesn't pay, Medicaid picks up the rest.

How would MFA ever be better for me than what I have? Plus, I understand that MFA would do away with Medicaid.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

11. It's been trimmed around the edges because it's a ridiculous idea to segregate healthy insurance..

... pools from sick and elderly insurance pools. It’s unsustainable.

It’s just mind boggling that people want to fight to keep their healthy bodies covered their entire working lives under a for profit system. A system that extracts profit while they are young and lays them off on the government when they need care the most.

Insurance companies don’t create a product or innovate. They just take your money and extract profit by making insurance unaffordable to use or by denying claims. And when you get old they say have a nice life.

Insurance companies have zero incentive to keep costs low. In fact, they benefit from higher prices year to year because their cut also increases. All they have to do is manage costs for the year and then raise premiums.

Enough of this ridiculousness.

[wasupaloopa]

15. You said nothing about MFA.

There is profit motive to Medicare also. Hospitals and providers make a profit. Medical supply companies make a profit. Medicare supplemental ins cos make a profit. Health care is not free to anyone.

[OilemFirchen]

19. And, in most cases, Medicare is provided through a private insurance company or HMO.

Many of them offer additional services, at no cost, for qualified individuals.

My sense is that the MfA cheerleaders have never had to deal with Medicare - especially when coverage expires (after a protracted nursing care stay, for example). At that point, Medicaid acquires virtually all of a recipients assets, then shunts them off to a substandard care facility which accepts Medicaid. That's even with supplemental insurance.

I'll say it again: Whoever coined the term is a bleeding idiot.

[elocs]

3. The sad thing is candidates who support MFA holding out the possibility of it really becoming law

anytime soon, giving people false hope.
Because MFA will not become law anytime soon, if ever, and none of them seem to have a plan B. It's MFA or nothing.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Nothing is free. There is no such thing as "free" health care.

The only question is where the money comes from, and the truth is that consumers will pay for it no matter how it's structured. In countries that have something like MFA, taxes pay for it; those countries have higher income taxes and VATs. And contrary to some assumptions, not everything is covered; there are copays and exclusions just as with our existing Medicare. In most places private insurance still exists to fill in the gap. I would prefer to pay more tax than contribute to the bloated salaries of the CEOs of private for-profit insurance companies, and a single-payer, government-subsidized system would eliminate the profit motive. But we shouldn't kid ourselves that there is any such thing as a free health care system. It doesn't exist anywhere in the world.

[Mike 03]

7. THIS.

I agree, let's pay for it with higher taxes.

I'm not sure where that idea came from that we want or expect free health care. I fully expect to pay for it, as you say, one way or the other.

[riverine]

10. Right now workers pay for all of Medicare through Medicare payroll taxes

paid on all income up to $132,000 per year. It is a regressive tax in its current form.

Total US healthcare expenditures = $10,800 per person ($3.5 trillion).

With 160 million employees paying all that $3.5 trillion that would be about $20,000 per employee in costs (generously cutting off about 6% in insurance overhead.

MFA will cost $20,000 per employee given today's tax structure.

(remember the portion the EMPLOYER pays is part of the employee compensation package)

[wasupaloopa]

17. Payroll taxes only cover part A hospital bed day costs

Part B provider costs, part D and supplemental is paid for by the insured.

[wasupaloopa]

18. You are wrong on all counts. That is the problem.

What employers pay for health ins is not part of salary. It is a benefit offered to keep good employees. Taking away a benefit will not increase you pay.

Medicare is not all paid by payroll deductions.

Medicare deductions are a fixed percentage if salary not regressive.

[riverine]

20. I didn't say "taking away a benefit would increase pay"

I don't believe that for a second. Employers would pocket those premiums.

I said it is "part of the overall employee compensation package" - which is true.

When a company hires an accountant for example:

salary $55,000
401k match $4000
health benefits accrued $5000
vacation-PTO $2000
overhead $1000

total cost of employee $67,000

That is how it is done in the real world.

[mopinko]

22. the medicare portion is not capped.

[George II]

12. Even today's medicare isn't/wasn't free. Those who worked anytime after the mid-60s....

...when it was first implemented paid into Medicare all that time via payroll taxes. Even after retirement, those on Medicare pay roughly $130 per month.

[wasupaloopa]

16. In some states Medicare and Medicaid is administered by CMS a

for profit company.

[Thekaspervote]

13. Nothing is free... it seems this is the assumption

[thesquanderer]

23. "if employers do not have to pay for...insurance that money saved will be passed onto the employee"

You call that an unrealistic assumption, but that was (I believe) the only substantive change that was made in Sanders' "tweak" of his MFA plan... that union members who had negotiated cetain healty care benefits which would become moot under MFA would have to have any related corporate savings redirected back to the union members.

from https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/22/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all-fact-check-1472482

Under Sanders’ new plan, companies with union-negotiated health care coverage would have to renegotiate their workers’ contracts. The National Labor Relations Board would oversee and enforce the negotiations once Medicare for All becomes law. Any resulting health care savings from the single-payer system would be required to be returned to workers in the form of higher wages or more generous benefits.