Advocates of more government-run health care point to Medicare as successful example. “It’s popular!” they say. Vince Carrol points out one likely reason in his Denver Post column:
“The reason for Medicare’s attractiveness to seniors is not hard to find,” writes Professor Mark Pauly of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in his book “Markets Without Magic: How Competition Might Save Medicare” (AEI Press, April 2008). “Their premiums amounted to only 10 percent of the cost of the benefit before the advent of Part D and only about 12 percent afterward. This represents an enormous subsidy to seniors, and virtually any product, no matter how imperfect, would be attractive at this kind of discount.”
Mark Pauley also mentioned this figure in his article about means-testing Medicare.
Under “Medicare for all,” everyone in the United States would be paying 10% of the cost of the benefits they get. Hmm. And where does the rest of the money come from? Right now taxpayers are subsidizing health plans for seniors. But who subsidizes everyone? Our kids? I can hear the children now: Stop spending our future!
As it stands, the Associated Press reported earlier this year that “Medicare’s giant hospital trust fund is running out of cash more rapidly and could become insolvent as early as 2016″
