OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Why We Need Medicare for All
By BERNIE SANDERS
Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) is an independent senator from Vermont..
This is a pivotal moment in American history. Do we, as a nation, join the
rest of the industrialized world and guarantee comprehensive health care to
every person as a human right? Or do we maintain a system that is enormously
expensive, wasteful and bureaucratic, and is designed to maximize profits
for big insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry, Wall Street and
medical equipment suppliers? We remain the only major country on earth that
allows chief executives and stockholders in the health care industry to get
incredibly rich, while tens of millions of people suffer because they can't
get the health care they need. This is not what the United States should be
about.. All over this country, I have heard from Americans who have shared
heartbreaking stories about our dysfunctional system. Doctors have told me
about patients who died because they put off their medical visits until it
was too late. These were people who had no insurance or could not afford
out-of-pocket costs imposed by their insurance plans. I have heard from
older people who have been forced to split their pills in half because they
couldn't pay the outrageously high price of prescription drugs. Oncologists
have told me about cancer patients who have been unable to acquire
lifesaving treatments because they could not afford them. This should not be
happening in the world's wealthiest country. Americans should not hesitate
about going to the doctor because they do not have enough money. They should
not worry that a hospital stay will bankrupt them or leave them deeply in
debt. They should be able to go to the doctor they want, not just one in a
particular network. They should not have to spend huge amounts of time
filling out complicated forms and arguing with insurance companies as to
whether or not they have the coverage they expected. Even though 28 million
Americans remain uninsured and even more are underinsured, we spend far more
per capita on health care than any other industrialized nation. In 2015, the
United States spent almost $10,000 per person for health care; the
Canadians, Germans, French and British spent less than half of that, while
guaranteeing health care to everyone. Further, these countries have higher
life expectancy rates and lower infant mortality rates than we do. The
reason that our health care system is so outrageously expensive is that it
is not designed to provide quality care to all in a cost-effective way, but
to provide huge profits to the medical-industrial complex. Layers of
bureaucracy associated with the administration of hundreds of individual and
complicated insurance plans is stunningly wasteful, costing us hundreds of
billions of dollars a year. As the only major country not to negotiate drug
prices with the pharmaceutical industry, we spend tens of billions more than
we should. The solution to this crisis is not hard to understand. A
half-century ago, the United States established Medicare. Guaranteeing
comprehensive health benefits to Americans over 65 has proved to be
enormously successful, cost-effective and popular. Now is the time to expand
and improve Medicare to cover all Americans. This is not a radical idea. I
live 50 miles south of the Canadian border. For decades, every man, woman
and child in Canada has been guaranteed health care through a single-payer,
publicly funded health care program. This system has not only improved the
lives of the Canadian people but has also saved families and businesses an
immense amount of money. On Wednesday I will introduce the Medicare for All
Act in the Senate with 15 co-sponsors and support from dozens of grass-roots
organizations. Under this legislation, every family in America would receive
comprehensive coverage, and middle-class families would save thousands of
dollars a year by eliminating their private insurance costs as we move to a
publicly funded program. The transition to the Medicare for All program
would take place over four years. In the first year, benefits to older
people would be expanded to include dental care, vision coverage and hearing
aids, and the eligibility age for Medicare would be lowered to 55. All
children under the age of 18 would also be covered. In the second year, the
eligibility age would be lowered to 45 and in the third year to 35. By the
fourth year, every man, woman and child in the country would be covered by
Medicare for All. Needless to say, there will be huge opposition to this
legislation from the powerful special interests that profit from the current
wasteful system. The insurance companies, the drug companies and Wall Street
will undoubtedly devote a lot of money to lobbying, campaign contributions
and television ads to defeat this proposal. But they are on the wrong side
of history. Guaranteeing health care as a right is important to the American
people not just from a moral and financial perspective; it also happens to
be what the majority of the American people want. According to an April poll
by The Economist/YouGov, 60 percent of the American people want to 'expand
Medicare to provide health insurance to every American,' including 75
percent of Democrats, 58 percent of independents and 46 percent of
Republicans. Now is the time for Congress to stand with the American people
and take on the special interests that dominate health care in the United
States. Now is the time to extend Medicare to everyone. Follow The New York
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