Medicare for everyone!

According to the Cape Cod Times, the non-profit, bipartisan Economic Policy Institute reports that the number of Americans who do not have health insurance increased to 46.6 million in 2005. The EPI tells us that “….weak employment, combined with rising costs for health insurance, have resulted in many employers canceling coverage and many workers declining to accept coverage when it is offered.”

When is the United States going to join the rest of the industrialized world and make health insurance available to all of us; not just those with good jobs?

The most common way countries use to provide universal health insurance is some sort of single payer plan. People often criticize the single payer plans operated by foreign countries like Canada and Britain, but they seldom mention one of the largest single payer plans in the world, which is right here in the United States.

We call it Medicare, and it covers roughly 42 million Americans, including 6.3 million people under 65 who are permanently disabled.

We think those who oppose universal health insurance do not mention Medicare because they know most people are happy with it. Those on Medicare notice that they are not subject to the same restrictions on doctors and hospitals that are often placed on those in managed care plans. They believe the service they get is reasonably prompt. And they sense that the program operates relatively efficiently.

So, why don’t we simply extend Medicare to everyone?

The only serious problem we can see with this plan is the cost. The Medicare program is already hading for serious financial trouble as the population ages and the ratio of workers to beneficiaries goes down.

We have a suggestion that would solve both problems. It would cure the looming fiscal problem facing Medicare, and, at the same time, provide enough revenue to extend Medicare to every American, rich and poor, old and young. Our suggestion is a Value Added Tax (VAT).

The VAT is a form of sales tax that most European countries (and Canada) use. It is built into the price of products and services. Every time you bought something a portion of what you paid would be used to fund your health insurance.

The VAT should be able to raise enough money to fund a universal Medicare program without causing undue increases in prices. It will also eliminate the tax workers now pay to fund insurance for people who do not work.

Offsetting the increase in taxes we will pay would be the huge reduction in health insurance payments we all make. Company insurance plans could now focus on supplemental health insurance, which is much cheaper.

To reduce the regressive impact common to all sales taxes, we suggest excluding taxes on food, clothing, rents and products that already have sales taxes built in, like gasoline.

Right now, one way or another, the government pays for almost half of all medical costs in the United States through programs like Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, and Federal and State employee health insurance. Think of all the money we will save by combining all of those – plus all private insurance, which comes from hundreds of companies, each with their own administrative staffs — into one plan? Even doctors and hospitals would benefit from significantly reduced paperwork!

We have the need, and we have the program that will take care of that need. Now all we need is the will to do it.

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