Numerous American politicians have pointed to Canada’s public healthcare system as a model for a “Medicare-for-all” system. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has said that healthcare is a human right and that the U.S. must join every major country on Earth in creating a single-payer system.
“This legislation would provide comprehensive health care coverage to all without out-of-pocket expenses and, unlike the current system, it would provide full freedom of choice regarding health care providers. No more insurance premiums, deductibles or co-payments.”
Democrats in Congress don’t grasp this. They are trying to enact lots of new Medicare benefits when Medicare won’t be able to pay its bills just four short years from now.
The American Dental Association announced that it would oppose the vast expansion of Medicare proposed in Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget package.
This is an unprecedented, titanic problem, and the only hard advice I can give is: don’t make it worse. Restoring sustainability to faltering Social Security and Medicare will require extraordinarily courageous leadership not presently on the horizon.
The Social Security and Medicare trust funds are expected to soon be depleted, putting the health insurance and retirement income of millions in jeopardy.
The webpage “Government Healthcare Facts,” which was spearheaded by right-wing activist group America Rising Advanced Research, predicts tens of millions of Americans would lose their employer healthcare coverage throughout the country if a public option or a Medicare-For-All-style plan went into effect.
Make no mistake: No matter how their ideas are packaged, the left’s ultimate goal is Medicare for All—legislation sponsored by a majority of House Democrats that is full of empty promises and that would outlaw your existing coverage and put you on a government-run plan.
Noticeably absent from the Democrats’ latest policy platform: any mention of “Medicare for All.” But don’t be fooled. Efforts to push government-run health care are still a real threat.
Sen. Bernie Sanders makes a valid point: The pandemic does illustrate the shortcomings of our system of health coverage. But his single-payer health care plan would take the system in the exact opposite direction.
“How much is it gonna cost?” Biden asked Sanders. “Who is gonna pay for it? It will cost more than the entire federal budget we spend now. More than the entire budget. The idea middle class taxes aren’t going to go up is just crazy.”
There is certainly something to be learned from examining health care policies in such countries as the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Japan and Sweden, plus the problem-plagued Canadian and British models. But by far the most interesting and successful model is Singapore.