Buttigieg tells Medicare-for-all proponents to show their cards

[Gothmog]

Against my better instincts, I am slowly beginning to like Mayor Pete.

Link to tweet

Now, I’d like to get more detail on those “cost savings” and the “corporate tax reform” (and why aren’t Democrats promising to raise the capital gains tax rate to equal or nearly equal the rates for salary income, a much bigger revenue-generator?). Buttigieg also promises “additional plans to address issues such as drug pricing, innovation and health equity,” which will need to come with funding mechanisms.

Nevertheless, Buttigieg has a compelling argument: Candidates are obligated to offer bold ideas that are doable. He argues, “Rather than flipping a switch and kicking almost 160 million Americans off their private insurance, including 20 million seniors already choosing private plans within Medicare, my plan lets Americans keep a private plan if they want to.” The latter is a reference to Medicare
Advantage, which would go away under a strictly single-payer system.

The approach favored by Buttigieg, Biden, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and other moderates would be cheaper and allow people to gradually migrate to Medicare (if that is what they want). Moreover, if Democrats want to accomplish anything, it likely will require a Democratic majority in the Senate and use of reconciliation; they would at least need a majority. There is not, as we speak, a majority of Democrats in both houses who support Medicare-for-all.

Part of the problem with this discussion is that the Medicare-for-all advocates are adept at deflecting pesky questions about cost, logistics and political feasibility. They shouldn’t be allowed to skate by on ad hominem attacks (That’s a Republican talking point!) or non sequiturs (Let me tell you how great Medicare-for-all is!) or platitudes (We’re going to fight!).

[George II]

1. That's exactly what I've been saying - all those cost savings are pie-in-the-sky estimates....

....nothing specific on where they're going to come from.

Plus, the "Medicare for All" crowd keeps mixing health care INSURANCE with health care. This plan can "lower" the cost of insurance, but not the cost of doctors, hospitals, laboratories, etc.

Plus, as I've also been saying, private insurance companies are an integral part of the administration of the existing Medicare. Who is going to do all the work of the insurance companies if they're cut out of the picture? Where are all of those workers going to go? Has BS figured in his "costs" the programs needed to retrain them, support them during that retraining, unemployment payments, THEIR healthcare insurance, etc.

There are so many unspecified or vague aspects of Medicare for All that no one knows about yet. It's like any other government program, there will be huge cost overruns or costs that haven't been accounted for yet.

The bottom line is that this plan will wind up costing Americans MORE than what they're paying today.

[Gothmog]

2. Societal savings are not tax revenues and cannot be used to pay for these programs

Such a plan in theory may generate societal savings but such savings would not pay for a program. Governments can only spend tax revenues and/or borrowings. This study does not say how one would pay for such a program in the real world. I note that Prof. Krugman like the concepts of such a plan in theory but notes that taxes will have to be raised a great deal to pay for such a plan
Back in 2016, here is his position Prof. Krugman compares Sanders hoped for health care savings to the GOP tax cuts. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/weakened-at-bernies/?_r=0

On health care: leave on one side the virtual impossibility of achieving single-payer. Beyond the politics, the Sanders “plan” isn’t just lacking in detail; as Ezra Klein notes, it both promises more comprehensive coverage than Medicare or for that matter single-payer systems in other countries, and assumes huge cost savings that are at best unlikely given that kind of generosity. This lets Sanders claim that he could make it work with much lower middle-class taxes than would probably be needed in practice.

To be harsh but accurate: the Sanders health plan looks a little bit like a standard Republican tax-cut plan, which relies on fantasies about huge supply-side effects to make the numbers supposedly add up. Only a little bit: after all, this is a plan seeking to provide health care, not lavish windfalls on the rich — and single-payer really does save money, whereas there’s no evidence that tax cuts deliver growth. Still, it’s not the kind of brave truth-telling the Sanders campaign pitch might have led you to expect.

Today, Prof. Krugman says that such a plan is feasible if you are willing to pay a great deal more in taxes
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/paul-krugman-explains-why-single-payer-health-care-entirely-achievable-us-and-how

If we went to government provision of all insurance, we’d pay more in taxes but less in premiums, and the overall burden of health spending would probably fall, because single-payer systems tend to be cheaper than market-based."

The amount of higher taxes are not quantified in this article by Krugman. To pay for any such plan will require massive tax hikes

Again sanders has utterly failed in his attempts to get Vermont to adopt his magical single payer plan because the state of Vermont cannot use hypothetical societal saving to pay for this plan. Even Krugman admits that much higher taxes are needed

[betsuni]

3. "They shouldn't be allowed to skate by on ad hominem attacks (That's a Republican talking point!)

or non sequiturs (Let me tall you how great Medicare-for-all is!) or platitudes (We're going to fight!).

So true. I see "That's a Republican talking point!" and things about fighting all the time. It's a Logical Fallacies Fest every day.

[GeorgeGist]

4. In the long run Medicare for all is the least expensive option ...

because there would be no profit-grubbing insurance companies to support.