Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff, Lauren vogelbam here. In the American presidential race, Senator Bernie Sanders was the first candidate to float the idea of Medicare for All, a massive expansion of the popular government funded health program to cover all Americans, not just those
sixty five years of age and older. While hailed by Sanders progressive supporters, the proposal failed to gain traction with mainstream Democratic voters and was ridiculed as a wildly expensive and even socialist idea by Republican critics. The crowded field of Democratic presidential hopefuls has now swelled to twelve official candidates, including Sanders, and Medicare for All is now being embraced
by a larger swath of politicians and voters alike. According to recent polls, fifty percent of Americans, including of Republicans, now support the creation of some kind of national health plan, and Sanders is no longer the only congress person trying
to pass comprehensive Medicare for all legislation. In February of twenty nineteen, Representative Promelagia Paul, a Democrat in Washington State, and progressive colleagues in the U. S. House of Representatives released their own Medicare for All Act of twenty nineteen,
which goes even farther than Sanders original seventeen bill. Not only would the Giapaul proposal do away entirely with private health insurance and require absolutely no premiums or co pays of any kind, it would significantly extend Medicare to cover
comprehensive dental, vision and long term care. Giapaul wrote in a statement, our bill will cover everyone, not just those who are fortunate enough to have employer sponsored insurance, not just children, not just seniors, not just those who are healthy. It's time to ensure that healthcare is a right and not a privilege, guaranteed to every single person in our country. It is time for Medicare for All. Let's break down
what that might entail. First, some history. Medicare was created in nineteen sixty five as a safety net health insurance program for older Americans. All Americans over sixty five years of age qualify for Medicare health coverage regardless of pre existing conditions, and Medicare covers a significant portion of the costs of doctor's office visits. Treatments and surgeries, plus prescription medications.
Although Medicare recipients also pay annual premiums and out of pocket costs, Medicare for All proposals, like gypaulse would make three monumental changes to the current Medicare system. First, there would be absolutely no age limit. Every American from newborns to centenarians would be covered by the same government funded health insurance. Second, private health insurance carriers would be barred
from offering plans to compete with Medicare for All. Third, patients would pay absolutely nothing, no premiums, deductibles, co pays, or coinsurance for all covered health care services, which under the Jipol bill include just about everything under the sun, including expensive long term care insurance to cover nursing homestays. All of this potential lee spells doom for the one
point to twillion dollar private health insurance industry. We spoke with one Care and Politz, who studies healthcare reform and private health insurance for the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that analyzes major health care issues fasic America and beyond. She jokes that Medicare for All would even put her out of business. Pault said, the Medicare for All proposals that have been discussed are very comprehensive.
Would cover everything you're used to having covered in private health insurance today, plus dental, vision, hearing, long term care, nursing, home care. You would get this red, white and blue Medicare for All card show that when you go to the doctor and you'd get taken care of. Simple. Okay. So that's the basics of what Medicare for All could be. What wouldn't it be. Medicare for All is not socialized
medicine like the United Kingdom's National Health Service. Under that system, the government is not only the soul insurer, but it also runs most of the medical clinics and hospitals. That's not the case under any of the proposed Medicare for All plans, which more closely resemble Canada's healthcare system, also
called Medicare. Doctors and hospitals would remain private businesses, but all insurance coverage and therefore all reimbursements paid to doctors and hospitals would be provided through Medicare A. Canada's healthcare system, by the way, doesn't cover vision, dental, prescription, drugs or long term care. Those are covered by private insurance, which brings us to an important question. The important question who would be paying for all this? Medicare for All is
also what's known as a single payer healthcare system. Technically, the single payer will be the federal government. But where will the government get its money? New taxes, of course, not only income taxes, but also payroll taxes, corporate taxes, excise taxes, et cetera. In Medicare alone cost American taxpayers five and nineties seven billion dollars, or nearly five teen
percent of the entire four trillion dollar federal budget. The projected cost of Sanders seventeen Medicare for All bill, which did not include expensive add ons like long term care, is thirty two trillion dollars over ten years. So, although it's important to note the costs could even out over the long term, in the short term that's about six times what Medicare currently costs US per year. As Paul
It said, quote, that's a lot of money. Right now, the federal government and states together are paying almost half of the nation's healthcare bill. But if we stop paying premiums and deductibles and co pays, there would have to be a new way to raise revenue. When Americans learned that the switch to Medicare for all would almost certainly mean higher income taxes, support for the national healthcare concept
drops by. But while the exorbitant cost of Medicare for all is a favorite talking point of its critics, the numbers are deceiving. Americans will certainly pay more in taxes under such a plan, but they will pay absolutely nothing in premiums and other out of pocket healthcare costs. Paul said, American households and the government combined are currently spending three point five trillion dollars a year on healthcare, more than
any other country on the planet. When you multiply that out by ten years, it's thirty five trillion dollars greater than the cost of Sanders Medicare for all proposal by a full three trillion. So a switch to a single payer system could actually save money overall, but money aside. Would Medicare for all mean worse healthcare. There's no doubt that a massive overhaul of the U S healthcare system
like Medicare for all would be hugely disruptive. Most private insurers would go out of business, pharmaceutical companies would lose profits as drug prices were capped, and since Medicare typically reimburses doctors and hospitals at lower rates than private insurers, there would be wins and losses for private medical practices. That said, there's no indication that switching to a Medicare for All system would result in fewer covered treat mints.
Jiapaul's proposal promises the opposite, and neither should the new insurance concept result in long ways for life saving procedures and medications. Paul It said, we don't currently have that in Medicare. You don't see senior citizens queuing up for doctor's appointments and prescriptions. It's all quick and easy. The key question is what will those payment rates be for doctors and hospitals. The Giapaul bill doesn't really say. That's
still a key question to be addressed and debated. Currently, a growing number of doctors don't accept Medicare patients because of the low reimbursement rates and large amount of paperwork required for reimbursement. The Medicare for All Act of twenty nineteen does allow doctors and patients to opt out of the single payer system and simply pay in cash for medical services, and giapaulse Plan is only one type of
universal health coverage being proposed in Congress. Other versions include keeping the current system but adding a public option based on Medicare, as well as allowing older people not yet eligible for Medicare to buy into the system. All of that is a primer for now. We will keep you updated as developments occur. Today's episode was written by Day Bruise and produced by Tyler Clang for iHeartMedia and How
Stuff Works. For more on this and lots of other expansive topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com.