Exposing The True Cost Of “Medicare For All”

Exposing The True Cost Of "Medicare For All"

Washington, D.C. - Dr. Joel Zinberg, director of the Paragon Health Institute's Public Health and American Well-Being Initiative, published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal highlighting the enormous costs of the Democrats' "Medicare for All" scheme. Democrats' plan would add an estimated $47 trillion in federal spending over the next 10 years, all to fund a health care system marketed as "free."

WORD ON THE STREET

Sen. Bernie Sanders first introduced his Medicare for All legislation in 2017. Despite multiple reintroductions, the proposal has never received a floor vote in either congressional chamber. Medicare for All has become a rallying cry for progressives this election season, and recent polling suggests public support has surged. Voters should be careful what they wish for.

Two-thirds of Americans favor Medicare for All, according to a new KFF poll-a substantial increase from 2020, when roughly half of respondents were in favor. But most Americans don't understand the proposal or its likely effects. Medicare for All would eliminate competition and choice in medical care, limit access, and inevitably lead to tax increases.

Medicare for All isn't an expansion of the current Medicare program. Medicare as we know it combines public and private insurance options, allowing competition and choice. Eligible beneficiaries can choose from a traditional Medicare plan run by the federal government, privately-run Medicare Advantage plans, and privately-run Medicare Part D drug plans.

Medicare for All would replace the existing public-private system for financing healthcare with a single, universal insurance program operated by the federal government. It would ban private insurance, including the employer-sponsored group insurance that half of Americans have, if the insurance duplicates any Medicare for All benefits. It would eliminate Medicaid for low-income households, Medicare as it now exists for the elderly and disabled, and the Affordable Care Act exchange-based individual insurance market. The proposal includes systemwide decreases of reimbursement levels below private insurance rates. Patients who don't like the quality of care provided by the government monopoly would have no other insurance options.

Studies of Mr. Sanders's original proposal estimated it would increase federal spending by $32 trillion over 10 years. The projected 10-year cost is now $47 trillion, according to a recent White House Council of Economic Advisers estimate. That increased spending could be financed through a combination of deficit spending, program cuts and taxes-most likely heavy on the last.

Because Medicare for All's reimbursement rates would be substantially below private insurance rates, providers would respond by offering less service. This would lead to longer waiting times and less access to care. By eliminating the cost-sharing that private plans and Medicare currently impose to limit overconsumption of "free" healthcare, Medicare for All would also increase demand for care, further impairing access and possibly diverting care away from patients with urgent need. In the long term, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that lower reimbursements would cause fewer people to enter medical professions and pharmaceutical companies to develop fewer new drugs, exacerbating access problems and diminishing health.

When respondents in the KFF poll were told the effects of Medicare for All, support plunged. Only 52% were in favor when told that private insurance would be eliminated, 38% when learning Medicare for All could threaten the current Medicare program, 35% once they considered that Medicare for All could require most Americans to pay higher taxes, and 24% after learning it could lead to delays for medical tests and treatments.

Only 21% of the British public were satisfied with what is now the most famous single-payer health system in the world, the National Health Service, in a 2024 survey. Six in 10 Britons said they were "very" or "quite" dissatisfied, the highest level of dissatisfaction with the NHS since the survey began in 1983. In Canada, where private health insurance is prohibited from covering services included in the centrally financed public health insurance, more than 105,000 Canadians traveled abroad to pay for nonemergency medical care in 2025. Canadians who sought care within the country waited an average of almost 29 weeks between seeing a primary-care provider and obtaining treatment-a 15.3-week wait to see a specialist and then 13.3 more weeks before treatment. Canadians report far more access problems than Americans.

Americans should know that Medicare for All will eliminate their existing coverage, ban private insurance options, dramatically increase taxes and impair access to care. With those facts on the table, voters will likely conclude no version of the Medicare for All Act should ever pass Congress.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Medicare for All would increase the federal budget deficit by approximately $47.4 trillion over 2027-2036 by completely replacing the U.S. health system with a fully government-run and taxpayer-funded insurance program. While the government would ensure that every American has health insurance, access to physicians for Americans previously on their employer-sponsored plan would be reduced by 44 percent.

Medical productivity, the measure of the efficiency and quality of our health system, would decline by 22 percent as doctors and hospitals would lose all competitive incentives to provide high-quality services to patients, functioning more like the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) than a trusted doctor with personal relationships to patients.