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Public support for Medicare for All is going to look much more interesting in a few years when the Medicare trust funds are running out and they have to cut cos
by fennecfoxen 4y ago
Public support for Medicare for All is going to look much more interesting in a few years when the Medicare trust funds are running out and they have to cut costs by 15% or more, and it’s clear there’s actually a price tag on the proposal.
- beej71 4y agoAnd then we'll see the corner we've truly painted ourselves into. I could imagine a scenario where an angry public demands the government take control of hospital finances. Not that it's necessarily a good thing, but I could see it panning out that way.
- joe_the_user 4y agoActing like social security or Medicare funding levels are fact of nature rather than a political football is parroting right wing talking points. The social security trust fund has been raided by congress multiple times and if it or the Medicare gets low, they can put that money back. More broadly, by having a single payer, a reasonable Medicare For All program would in total save Americans vast amounts of money though of course as a program it would have a cost.
- fennecfoxen 4y agoPoliticans hiding the cost of things is the fact of nature. No proposal for Medicare for All that has ever been floated has ever seen a realistic price tag attached. The trust fund's depletion is no fact of nature, it is merely an occasion when this will become a little clearer to the public. When this happens, voters will not like what they are being offered quite as much as they do now, when the costs are some distant abstraction; there will be a whole lot more hesitation and skepticism. And if pointing this out is a "right wing talking point" then go ahead and call me Margaret Thatcher.