New Bernie Sanders healthcare plan is even more absurd than his old one – Washington Examiner

The 2020 Democratic presidential nomination fight has barely gotten started, but Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has already managed to accomplish an incredible feat: He has come up with a new healthcare plan even more absurd than his old one.

Sanders’ new version of the plan, which he brands as “Medicare for all” because it polls better than socialized healthcare, maintains the central structure of the version of the plan that has been estimated to cost a whopping $32 trillion, but then makes promised benefits even more generous. Yet it has been endorsed by several rivals for the Democratic nomination: Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Under the proposal, Sanders would transition the entire population to a new healthcare plan within four years. This is one reason why the term “Medicare for all” is a bit of a misnomer. The legislation doesn’t simply make the current Medicare program available to everybody, but it moves all Medicare beneficiaries out of the current program into the new government-run plan.

His bill would effectively eliminate private insurance. Specifically it would bar the sale of private insurance, either directly to individuals or through employers, that duplicates any of the benefits of the government-run plan. Given that the government plan he envisions would cover such a wide array of benefits, it would leave little room for private coverage. This would mean that nearly 180 million people would be kicked off health plans that they like, or more than half the U.S. population.

Not only does the plan promise to cover benefits including hospital services, doctor visits, prescription drugs, mental heath treatment, and dental and vision care, but it promises to do so without out-of-pocket expenses. That is, the plan promises to eliminate premiums, co-payments, and deductibles.

Providing effectively unlimited health services to every American for free would naturally lead to an explosion in demand for services, but Sanders does not lay out how he expects the healthcare system to meet this new demand without causing significant barriers to access such as excessive wait times and difficulties obtaining appointments in the first place.

Furthermore, one of the arguments in favor of a socialized system is that it allows the government to use its bargaining power to force medical providers to lower costs. But if Sanders were to put too much pressure on providers, it would drive some of them out of the business, exacerbating the access problems. Were he to put too little pressure on them and pay high rates, costs would soar.

While all of this could have been said of previous versions of the Sanders plan, the latest iteration also adds a benefit that would cover home and community-based long-term care services.

Unsurprisingly, Sanders does not offer details on how he would pay for his plan in the legislation itself. All we have is a white paper featuring bullet points, such as calling for “a tax on extreme wealth” and a repeal of “corporate accounting gimmicks.” Yet the previous, less generous, version of his plan was so costly that doubling projected corporate income tax collections would cover just over one-tenth of its cost.

Other ideas would hit the middle class significantly, including an additional 4% payroll tax on employees (exempting the first $29,000 in income for a family of four), and a 7.5% one imposed on employers, which would ultimately get passed on to workers.

Sanders loves to respond to those explaining why his vision is a fantasy by pointing to other countries that have national healthcare systems. And yet what he’s proposing is even more generous. For instance, Canada’s system does not cover dental and vision care, and 60% of prescription drug costs are paid privately. France allows out-of-pocket costs and has three different forms of cost-sharing. There are also out-of-pocket costs in Germany, Japan, and most other systems.

Even putting aside the issue of the filibuster, the whole scheme hinges on the idea that he’ll be able to get 51 votes to support the underlying bill. In reality, he won’t come close. The current bill only has 14 co-sponsors, or 10 if you don’t include presidential candidates afraid of leaving any space to their Left. The 2020 Senate map is no cakewalk for Democrats, and any majority they gain is likely to be slim and dependent on winning seats in more conservative states.

The only silver lining about his proposal is that it is so ridiculous that were he elected, it would have zero chance of ever becoming law.