One other nugget from Jonathan Lipow’s e-book Public Coverage for Progressives.
I’ve posted 3 times now on Lipow’s e-book (right here, right here, and right here). One factor I like lots about Jonathan is that though he’s a progressive, he’s additionally an economist. And he doesn’t depart his economics on the coverage door.
Right here’s an attention-grabbing perception about Medicare for All as an answer to well being care spending.
He writes:
One trace that Medicare is a part of the issue and never the answer is that no American beneath the age of 65 is on Medicare, and the US spends solely reasonably extra per individual on healthcare for these folks than different OECD international locations. In the meantime, all Individuals above the age of 65 are on Medicare, [DRH note: not quite true. My wife and I are on Medicare Part A but not on the rest of Medicare. As a federal retiree, I retained my employer-provided health insurance] and America’s healthcare spending per individual for this group far exceeds that [of] different OECD international locations. Formally, that doesn’t show something, however the place there may be smoke there simply may be a fireplace–and Medicare is shrouded by an enormous plume of dense smoke.
Later he factors out:
The primary change that the “Medicare for All” proposal would make to conventional Medicare is to remove all co-pays, deductibles, and premiums. That might convert Medicare right into a program similar to the extravagant “all bills paid” FFS [fee for service] insurance coverage coverage studied within the RAND experiment. Recall that the experiment discovered that “free FFS” insurance coverage ran up payments by 30%, whereas attaining solely negligible advantages by way of well being. Would one thing comparable occur if we adopted “Medicare for All?”
