WHAT THEY ARE SAYING: Americans Urge Elected Officials To Build On What Is Working, Reject One-Size-Fits-All Health Care
WASHINGTON – As the unaffordable costs and middle class tax hikes of a new government-controlled health insurance system become clear to voters, voices throughout the nation are encouraging elected officials to oppose a one-size-fits-all system that will force Americans to pay more to wait longer for worse care.
As Democratic presidential candidates promote Medicare for All plans, they should realize that Medicare as a single or dominant payer would bring huge disruptions in healthcare for rural Americans, including many Iowans.
… The problem is that replacing private insurance with Medicare would immediately reduce payments to providers, who depend upon higher payments from private insurers … Replacing the higher payments of private insurers with much lower Medicare payments could put many rural hospitals at risk of closing unless Medicare payment rates would be increased significantly over the current rates. Hospital workers could also lose jobs … Medicare-for-all could critically worsen healthcare access.
Robert Hoffman, Small Business Owner, Minnesota:
As a small business owner, I’m concerned that Congress is too fixated on one-size-fits-all solutions to health care. Whether they call it Medicare-for-all or a Medicare buy-in, these proposals ultimately seek to put all Americans on a national health care plan that will be funded by increased taxes on business and workers and likely restrict access to care to control the unsustainable costs of over $32 trillion over 10 years … I hope members of Congress, like Sen. Tina Smith, focus their attention on these ideas to build on the system we have rather that replacing it with something as untested as the singe-payer proposals being discussed in D.C.
… What are the top priorities in healthcare? Cost, access and choice. Does a plan like Medicare for All address these issues properly? The closer we look at these proposals, the more it becomes clear that our healthcare system would not be better off.
A recent study by the Urban Institute provides information on costs for providing healthcare for all. Medicare for All would require increases in taxes across the board. You might not have a premium payment every month, but your paycheck and household are going to see a large impact. With this staggering increase in cost comes challenges with access and government plans paying providers much less than private plans.
This is not the route to fixing healthcare. Fixing the system we have will improve our outcomes, rather than chasing an unaffordable dream.
###