Health Care Reform:
The impact of the Affordable Care Act side-by-side with
the impact of Improved Medicare for All
Health Care with the March 2010 Law: Help over 30 million people,
but at a cost in higher taxes and higher health insurance costs, as seen below.
Maintain complexity. Add more complexity. Pay more. Leave out over 20 million people.
— compared to —
Improved Medicare for All:
Establish simplicity. Get more. Pay less. Cover everyone.
| March 2010 Law Affordable Care Act of 2010 Expansion of government and keeping the “middlemen”: thousands of payers; thousands of plans |
Improved Medicare for All via single-payer health care Less government and use of a single public agency to have medical bills paid via “single-payer”: one health insurance payer; one health insurance plan |
U.S. Health Care Spending (national health expenditures) |
|
Increase costs by over $300 billion due to the financial impact of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 over the first ten years, not including all costs |
Cut costs by over $400 billion/year due to improved efficiency … that’s $4,000 billion ($4 trillion) over ten years |
Benefits |
|
Partial benefits — Variations in benefits among thousands of plans among over 1300 health insurance companies — Millions uninsured, not going to the doctor (as seen in a low number of physician visits per person) … resulting in continuing the unnecessary deaths due to preventable diseases |
Get more: Full benefits See the health care services that we’ll get. Cover everyone for our entire lives with all medically-necessary care. — providing peace of mind — helping our life expectancy. |
Premiums and Major Medical Bills |
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Higher Premiums — caused by new regulations on health insurance companies. — causing continuing hardships. Two examples of health insurance premiums from the state of New York after the implemented stiffer health insurance company regulations, which is what the law of March 2010 law will do. A family policy in New York can be purchased for premiums that are over $3,000 per month. See the regulations web page for the source. |
Pay less: no premiums; no major bills due to the excellent efficiency via citizens (who can) paying into one national fund, like traditional Medicare, that pays medical bills. Little or no additional costs. Pay much less, such as: no deductibles; no co-pays; no major bills. The savings per person from the efficiency is far greater than what most people will experience, such as a few percent increase in the Medicare payroll tax. |
Taxes and Size of Government |
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Higher taxes from more government more government agencies; more regulators; more government programs, including “cost-sharing assistance” (subsidies) to help pay the high premiums; expansion of Medicaid |
Lower taxes from less government fewer government agencies, fewer government programs, fewer regulators |
Bureaucracy |
|
More bureaucracy influenced by corporate lobbyists |
Public agency with less bureaucracy influenced by us, the public |
Choices and Intrusions |
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Choices mandated by the government — citizens purchase of health insurance plans or be automatic enrolled; pay or be fined by IRS; pay fine or face possible jail time — automatic enrollment of citizens into onto Medicaid and onto “estate recovery”, a process in which the government takes property/money when patients die |
Choices of lifestyle & health care such as choices of profession, employer, job, leave of absence, early retirement, physicians and medical facilities |
Jobs |
|
Fewer jobs including the impact of medical tourism |
More jobs from both manufacturing and services businesses that will be more globally competitive at their United States locations as a result of lower labor costs, which result from drastically lower U.S. health care costs |
|
Information and Explanations about an improved Medicare for All
How does this work? We pool our money together into one place with much less government and no use of health insurance companies for medically-necessary care. Risk of hardships from medical bills is as low as it can be: risk is spread among over 313,000,000 people. One public (insurance) agency, the single-payer, collects our money and promptly pays the medical claims for us. There are very little or no additional costs; prescription drugs are negotiated to a lower cost; no one receives a major medical bill.
Benefits. Improved Medicare for All covers everyone with one health insurance plan that provides all medically-necessary care: Primary care; inpatient care; outpatient care; emergency care; prescription drugs; durable medical equipment; hearing services, long term care; palliative care; podiatric care; mental health services; dentistry; eye care; chiropractic care; substance abuse treatment. The efficiency of one agency and one plan saves over $400 billion/year. Go here for a list of all types of the benefits, not just the medical coverage.
Cost. Most Americans will mainly or only experience the proposed small increase of a few percent in the Medicare tax out of our paychecks. Like the law signed March 2010, super-rich persons will pay more.
— See tax
— See costs and savings— The state of New York implemented stiff regulations on health insurance companies; the law signed March 2010 will do that also. In Allegany (pdf) County, one of the poorest counties of New York (NY) state, a family could get insurance for between $2,882 per month and $4,768 per month (from NY website) in the fall of 2009 for partial coverage and added costs. By February 2010 those costs for a family in that county had risen to a minimum of over $3,000 per month. Such huge costs are a result of the regulations
— The improved Medicare for All health care payroll cost ($49-$198 above) is the primary cost: no major medical bills, little or no co-pays, no deductibles.Quality care due to receiving all medically-necessary care our entire lives from happier, more satisfied, health care professionals. We get affordable care from efficiency: no premiums to health insurance companies; no major medical bills. Huge savings for millions of Americans, for American businesses and for governmental units.
Taxes. Improved Medicare for All will replace current health care entitlement programs at the federal, state and local levels. Significant savings at all levels will result.
Bureaucracy. The public agency must be set up as truly public, not impacted by the day-to-day debating and decision-making of the politicians. Accountable to the people, not politicians.
Choices. With an improved Medicare for All we won’t need to choose a health insurance plan. Instead, we will be able to choose our profession, our employer and our job … or change of jobs … with health care automatically provided via the public agency, the “single-payer”. We will select physicians and medical facilities. We’ll be able to take reduced hours or leave of absence or early retirement … if our job situation allows it … to care for a sick or dying relative.
Jobs. The U.S. health care jobs are leaving the country as Americans leave to get good care at a decent price in other countries … and a vacation along with it. It’s called medical tourism An incredibly high 750,000 Americans did that in 2007, and the number is skyrocketing. In addition, many jobs are in danger due to companies trying to control costs. The U.S. is the only free-market country with out-of-control health care costs, dramatically impacting U.S. companies’ ability to compete.
Peace of Mind or Hardships. Americans have experienced a long list of hardships for decades. It’s time to get rid our unnecessary administrative costs within our three types of bureaucracy. We need an single-payer health care, improved Medicare for All. Please read the testimonials of Americans who live and work in other free-market countries.
Other free-market countries have had national health insurance and its benefits for years. Those countries’ citizens, on average, pay 40% of what Americans pay; they have more physician visits each year; they have more elderly; they live longer; and they do far better at minimizing deaths under age 75 due to preventable causes, compared to an unnecessary death in the U.S. every five to six minutes. No wonder such an overwhelming percentage of Canadians favor public solutions for health care.
Additional Information
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Additional References for additional information and sources
- The USA compared to Six countries; how we will get more, pay less, and cover everyone.
- Benefits as defined in H.R. 676: all medically-necessary care
- Health care spending among 30 countries
- Insurance rates in state of New York and Allegany (pdf) County from adding regulations onto health insurance company plans
- Poll of Canadians August 2009 86% in favor of public solutions
- Education section of this website
- The best health care system will be in the United States with Improved Medicare for All.
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