I’ve been listening to Chris Matthews for years now, on MSNBC. There are times I agree with him, but they tend to be few and far between.
However, after the 2nd 2019 Democratic Debate on CNN, I found him unpalatable, mostly because when it comes to healthcare insurance and especially Medicare, he appears to know nothing about the subject.
He has for years now been calling a Medicare for All sort of plan, and even back in 2009 when there was discussion during the PPACA debates about what to include or exclude, he was calling any of this action “government run healthcare”.
Which is FALSE. Government run healthcare would mean the Government OWNED the system and employed and paid all of the people who work in healthcare, directly.
What the Democrats have been trying to do with healthcare since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was make it Universal, so that all people would have an insurance policy so that they could see a doctor when needed and the costs would be (mostly or completely) covered by their insurance policy. Such a system would ensure that no one sat home praying their burning gut was just indigestion and not an ulcer, a dysfunctional gallbladder or cancer of some kind. Such a system would prevent any more American families from going bankrupt because they had a medical emergency or a significant and/or chronic healthcare condition.
But in each iteration of the changes sought by the Democrats — none of them have been like Britain’s National Health System, in which the government directly employs doctors and other medical care providers. Which IS “government run healthcare”.
What the Democrats have done with the PPACA/ACA/Obamacare (can we just stick with one of these names, please?) is the same thing they did with every other upgrade/change to healthcare in America since WWII. They enacted new regulated healthcare insurance Law. Nothing more and nothing less.
Medicare is a Single Payer healthcare insurance plan and it is sponsored by the government, but the payments from Medicare are all paid to privately employed doctors and other healthcare providers. It is not “government run healthcare”.
I wish someone at MSNBC would require Chris to talk to Andy Slavitt the Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid about Medicare and what it is — and how a change to a Medicare for All system would effect the Medicare Trust Fund, after adding lifelong coverage to everyone under the age of 65 (the people 65 and older are all covered by Medicare, except those on alternative systems set up as part of Union negotiations, like the Teachers in some states and Federal employees who participate in a self-funded healthcare plan called FEHB).
Of particular note is the data point that one half of all Medicare expenditures during a calendar year are spent on the last six months of life, and half of that (¼ of all payments) are for the last six WEEKS of life.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicare currently covers about 60 million people aged 65 or older, plus those certified “disabled” via Social Security. In 2017 Medicare paid out $688 Billion dollars on behalf of it’s beneficiaries; this includes Medicare Parts A, B, C and D coverage plus hospice, durable medical equipment, outpatient dialysis, outpatient therapy, ambulance services, lab services, community mental health centers, rural health clinics, Federally qualified health centers (authorized by the ACA) and other Part B services.
So we’re spending a lot to cover 20% of the population (based on current population of about 320 Million). But this is the oldest cohort of the population and the SICKEST part of the population; almost every person aged 65 or older has chronic or long term conditions which require periodic or regular care.
However, if we add the other 240 million +/- people in the country to the Medicare beneficiary Risk Pool; those younger and MUCH healthier beneficiaries may not need more than a single doctor visit each year as a checkup to be sure they haven’t developed some dangerous condition in the past 12 months. Which means the cost PER PERSON for the entire Medicare system will drop drastically.
Truthfully, it’s hard to conceive, but there is the distinct possibility that it would reduce costs so much to add all of us into a single Risk Pool that Medicare not only WOULD NOT COST as much as we currently pay for everyone’s insurance coverage — but it would allow Medicare to increase it’s payment schedule for many (if not all) services!
Because a lot healthier 80% of the beneficiary Risk Pool would be 4 times as many healthy people than sick people in the system from day one. But all of those people would be contributing to the cost of that care — thru FICA taxes and employer contributions (in lieu of providing insurance directly to employees) and suggested new funding via a variety of things, such as a tax on Wall Street transactions. Four times as many people as are currently on Medicare coming in and paying as much as the 60 million pay today (via the federal gov’t) YET requiring much, much less care than the 20% who are currently in the system? That would not only fully fund Medicare, but like I noted earlier, it could well allow for increased payments to medical providers.
Don’t you think it would be helpful if people like Chris Matthews knew this information and stopped calling Medicare “Government run healthcare” and confusing their audience with “fake news”?