Biden cites delays, cost when asked about Medicare for All veto

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

"Veto question. Let’s flash forward. You’re president. Bernie Sanders is still active in the Senate. He manages to get Medicare for All through the Senate in some compromised version, the Elizabeth Warren version or other version. Nancy Pelosi gets a version of it through the House of Representatives," MSNBC's Lawrence O’Donnell asked the former vice president late Monday. "It comes to your desk. Do you veto it?"

“I would veto anything that delays providing the security and the certainty of health care being available now. If they got that through in by some miracle or there’s an epiphany that occurred and some miracle occurred that said, OK, it’s passed. Then you got to look at the cost,” Biden responded.

(snip)

“Look, my opposition isn’t to the principle that there should be — you should have Medicare. I mean, I — look, everybody — health care should be a right in America. My opposition relates to whether or not, A, it’s doable, two, what the cost is, and what the consequences for the rest of the budget are,” Biden said.

(snip)

Sanders’s plan is estimated to cost $30 trillion over 10 years. The progressive has cited a study from Yale University that found his plan would lower health costs by $450 billion a year.

(snip)

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/486749-biden-cites-delays-cost-when-asked-about-medicare-for-all-veto#bottom-story-socials

There is a video on the link.

[stonecutter357]

1. good let's go Joe !

[Liberty Belle]

2. We can't afford 4 more years of insurers jacking up rates.

My healthcare is $2,000 a month for hubby and me. That is nearly double our mortgage. We CANNOT afford this. We don't qualify for any subsidies. We are 62 and 63 years old. That's for an HMO, not even very good healthcare.

I don't care if they have to slash the military budget or anything else -- this has to be our nation's number one priority.

Our rates went up 50% over last year, and 50% or so the year before that. What happens when our savings runs out? And what about those who don't have any savings? I've talked to many people in their early 60s that this is happening to - their rates are all $ 900 to a thousand dollars a person, per month. Could you afford that? Then double it for two of you?

We're in California, which has huge fines if you don't have healthcare, so we don't even have the option of no healthcare at all.

Biden needs to understand how critical this is and why Bernie's call for a "revolution" not evolution in healthcare resonates with a lot of us.

If nothing else Biden should insist on allowing seniors to take Medicare early, maybe paying a little big between 55 and 65 to buy into it earlier.

But even that is not a total area. In our area there is a shortage of doctors taking Medicare patients because the reimbursement rates are so low.

What we really need is to go back to making hospitals etc. nonprofit, not for profit, and put limits on how much insurers and pharmaceutical companies can jack up rates. This is a CRISIS and I'm more afraid of having my savings wiped out and not having any health insurance than I am of the coronavirus.

[Skidmore]

6. You do realize

that we need to legislate changes in the healthcare system? How about injecting a little realism and recognizing the need for majorities in both houses of Congress? Without them, it becomes government by fiat again and we get whipsawed as a people.

Corona virus could wipe us all out. Easily.

[Hoyt]

3. Biden is right. In the highly unlikely event the hypothetical occurred, he'd likely

require a doable way to fund it.

After taxing the wealthy as much as possible, and funding other needed matters, I suspect Biden would ask people if they are willing to pay 10 to 15% more in taxes (not the artificially low rate Sanders and Warren bandy about). If 70 to 80% say yes, we’d have it. Doubt if they will.

[wyldwolf]

4. The Yale University Study

First, you should know the lead author on this study, Alison Galvani, disclosed in the paper that she’s been an unpaid adviser to Sanders’s Senate office.

Second, a 2019 study from the Urban Institute suggests that single-payer medical plans would actually cost more than current healthcare options — to the tune of $720 billion.

[Uncle Joe]

7. "22 studies agree: 'Medicare for All' saves money"

The evidence abounds: A "Medicare for All" single-payer system would guarantee comprehensive coverage to everyone in America and save money.

Christopher Cai and colleagues at three University of California campuses examined 22 studies on the projected cost impact for single-payer health insurance in the United States and reported their findings in a recent paper in PLOS Medicine. Every single study predicted that it would yield net savings over several years. In fact, it’s the only way to rein in health care spending significantly in the U.S.

All of the studies, regardless of ideological orientation, showed that long-term cost savings were likely. Even the Mercatus Center, a right-wing think tank, recently found about $2 trillion in net savings over 10 years from a single-payer Medicare for All system. Most importantly, everyone in America would have high-quality health care coverage.

Medicare for All is far less costly than our current system largely because it reduces administrative costs. With one public plan negotiating rates with health care providers, billing becomes quite simple. We do away with three-quarters of the estimated $812 billion the U.S. now spends on health care administration.

(snip)

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/484301-22-studies-agree-medicare-for-all-saves-money

[wyldwolf]

10. They obviously left out the studies that differed.

How much would a “Medicare for all” plan, like the kind endorsed by the Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, change health spending in the United States?

Some advocates have said costs would actually be lower because of gains in efficiency and scale, while critics have predicted huge increases.

We asked a handful of economists and think tanks with a range of perspectives to estimate total American health care expenditures in 2019 under such a plan. In all of these estimates, patients and private insurers would spend far less, and the federal government would pay far more.But the overall changes are also important, and they’re larger than they may look. Even the difference between the most expensive estimate and the second-most expensive estimate was larger than the budget of most federal agencies.

Studies:

* Gerald Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, whose estimates were frequently cited by the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign in 2016.

* Charles Blahous, a senior research strategist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and a former trustee of Medicare and Social Security.

* Analysts at the RAND Corporation, a global policy research group that has estimated the effects of several single-payer health care proposals.

*Kenneth E. Thorpe, the chairman of the health policy department at Emory University, who helped Vermont estimate the costs of a single-payer proposal there in 2006.

* Analysts at the Urban Institute, a Washington policy research group that frequently estimates the effects of health policy changes.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/10/upshot/medicare-for-all-bernie-sanders-cost-estimates.html?mtrref=cms.newsweek.com&assetType=REGIWALL&mtrref=www.newsweek.com&assetType=PAYWALL

[msongs]

5. medicare for all who want it. let people choose not bernie lol nt

[showblue22]

8. He did not say he would VETO m4a

He said he would veto a bill that did not help people NOW! Please try to tell the truth.

[William769]

9. That word seems not to be in their vocabulary.

[McKim]

11. Why is there always money for war?

Trillions were wasted on the War on Iraq. How come there’s always money for war, but for benefits for our hardworking taxyers, Health Care is said to be “too expensive”!

[Uncle Joe]

14. War is a Racket by Maj. General, Smedley Darlington Butler

War is a Racket is a book by Maj. General, Smedley Darlington Butler, the most decorated Marine in history, denouncing the military industrial complex. This reenactment video is a compilation of some of his speeches. The two-time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient exposes war profits that benefit the few at the expense of many. Throughout his distinguished career in the Marines, Smedley Darlington Butler demonstrated that true patriotism does not mean blind allegiance to government policies with which one does not agree. To Hell with war.

[wyldwolf]

12. Yale Study: Politifact rates 'mostly false.'

Sanders said a recent study suggested Medicare for All would save $450 billion annually and saves 68,000 lives.

That study does exist. And it cites some evidence. But many of its assumptions are flawed, and experts uniformly told us it overestimates the potential savings. It cherry-picks data in calculating mortality effects.

This statement has some truth, but ignores context that would create a dramatically different impression. We rate it Mostly False.




https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/feb/26/bernie-sanders/research-exaggerates-potential-savings/

[mcar]

13. Joe makes sense