Should we expand Medicare to create a single-payer, comprehensive healthcare system in the United States?
Bill Summary
This bill provides all individuals residing in the United States and U.S. territories with free health care that includes all medically necessary care. Only public or nonprofit institutions may participate, and health insurers may not sell health insurance that duplicates the benefits provided under this bill. Sponsor: Rep. Conyers, John, Jr. [D-MI-13]
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Opponents say
• Single-payer systems are problematic. They lack competition among payers, which reduces physicians’ control over standards of care and reimbursement. They also require a government to impose strict central planning, which means that doctors and patients are no longer in control of a patient's treatment -- Washington bureaucrats are.
• The Congressional Budget Office projects that premiums for a public option will be higher than premiums for private insurance, unless a public option can free itself of Medicare’s pricing power.
• The Congressional Budget Office projects that premiums for a public option will be higher than premiums for private insurance, unless a public option can free itself of Medicare’s pricing power.
Proponents say
• Every other free market country in the world provides healthcare for its people with a largely or exclusively non-profit method of financing their health care. The best non-profit method has been 1 fund, 1 plan, 1 payer, because it is simplest and most efficient. This bill models a tried and tested approach.
• According to a fiscal study by Gerald Friedman, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, upgrading the nation’s Medicare program and expanding its coverage will yield over a half-trillion dollars in efficiency savings in its first year of operation alone.
• According to a fiscal study by Gerald Friedman, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, upgrading the nation’s Medicare program and expanding its coverage will yield over a half-trillion dollars in efficiency savings in its first year of operation alone.
- H.R 676 plus Q&A and Explanations
- Bill Sponsor's Page on Health Care
- Friedman analysis of HR 676: Medicare for All would save billions
- A PNHP response to criticisms of single payer, Medicare for All
- What liberals get wrong about single payer
- Still Think A Single-Payer System is Best? Read This First
