Pigs fly! CBO admits Medicare for All will aid people, businesses, economy
Ed. note: Today (23 Feb 2023) marks one year since the Congressional Budget Office released the report summarized below. It has spurred politicians across the aisle to demand action on universal healthcare, replacing America’s broken corporate-run system. (Sadly, kidding.) This year, you could help. Demand your elected officials stand up to Big Insurance, Big Pharma and Wall Street. Insist Congress enact single-payer universal healthcare, fully covering all 333 million of us, cradle to grave. Also, prod your local officials to adopt resolutions in support of cost-saving, life-saving universal care. Thank you.
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On 23 Feb 2022 the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a 56-page report[1] saying the quiet part out loud: single-payer universal healthcare[2] will deliver dramatic positive impacts on families, businesses, and potentially the economy as a whole.[3] CBO summarizes[4]:
- BIGGER PAYCHECKS. “…employers would no longer provide health care benefits and would pass along the savings to employees, increasing their taxable wages.”
- NO PREMIUMS. “…health insurance premiums would be eliminated, and [families’ out-of-pocket] health care costs would decline.”
- LESS WASTE. “Administrative expenses in the health care sector would decline, freeing up productive resources for other sectors and ultimately increasing economywide productivity.”
- LOWER COST. “Reduced payment rates to providers would increase productivity and efficiency in providing health care…”[5]
- LIVE LONGER. “Longevity and [economywide] labor productivity would increase as people’s health outcomes improved.”[6]
- DIGNITY, PROSPERITY. “[Long-term services and supports] would further reduce [families’ out-of-pocket] spending, provide payments for care that is currently unpaid, increase wages among workers providing care, and allow some unpaid caregivers to increase their hours worked at their primary occupation.”[7]
I thought I would see such unlikely admissions from the corporate-captured federal government when pigs fly — especially because (a) Congress has adamantly refused to enact HR 1976, the single-payer Medicare for All Act of 2021; (b) Biden on the campaign trail vowed to veto it; (c) an out-of-control federal agency is seeking to quietly privatize all of Medicare against the explicit wishes of 30 million seniors,[8] and (d) the CBO’s Trump-appointed head previously sided with Wall Street against We the People.[9,10]
So I stand corrected: sometimes pigs do fly.
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THE ASK: Please let your Congress member know there’s compelling new CBO evidence to support single-payer universal healthcare. Ask them to co-sponsor HR 1976, the Medicare for All Act of 2021. If they’re already on board, thank them and urge them to buttonhole their colleagues. Let’s get this done!
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NOTES
- https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-02/57637-Single-Payer-Systems
- Single-payer universal healthcare is the generic and more formal term for Medicare for All.
- The CBO examined five scenarios making different assumptions, thus producing different outcomes regarding the economy as a whole — hence the “potentially” part.
- Summary by the study’s author: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57637
- This bullet item continues: “…however, some of the reduction in payment rates would be passed through to workers’ wages in the health care sector and throughout the supply chain.” Translation: (a) healthcare workers will still have to fight for their fair share of the economic pie, and (b) Medicare for All is a godsend but not a panacea.
- Sounds a lot like the Vulcan blessing: “Live long and prosper” — only this time in real life.
- “…allow some unpaid caregivers to increase their hours worked at their primary occupation.” Translation: a net increase in the productive, available workforce — a boon to employers.
- https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/02/03/warren-warns-corporate-vultures-are-circling-medicare-bidens-watch
- https://www.dailyposter.com/the-government-just-admitted-an-inconvenient-truth/. This piece first alerted me to the CBO’s new report and offers additional detail.
- Head of CBO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Swagel.
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