Medicare for All means security for none

In a troubling policy twist, national Democrats who claim to be staunch defenders of Medicare are coalescing around a new plan that would effectively end Medicare as we know it. The so-called “Medicare for All” plan would repeal the existing Medicare program and replace it with a socialized single-payer, government-run health care plan.

Supporters of this plan claim it is merely an expansion of Medicare, but that is disingenuous. Their plan would fundamentally alter the structure of Medicare by expanding eligibility to people of any age.

Medicare is, by definition, a plan for seniors 65 and older. If their plan becomes law, traditional Medicare would cease to exist and seniors who have paid their entire lives into traditional Medicare would have to compete with the entire population for health care resources. In addition, the plan mandates higher premiums for popular Medicare Advantage plans.

Medicare for All is reckless for two reasons. First, traditional Medicare is already expected to run a $40 trillion cash deficit over the next 30 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The Medicare for All plan would cost at least $32 trillion, according to the left-leaning Urban Institute. We can’t afford the Medicare program we have. Why in the world would we endanger seniors’ coverage by expanding it? Before Washington makes more promises, we need to figure out a way to keep the promises we’ve already made.

Second, Medicare for All would impose crushing tax increases on working families. According to the Mercatus Center, doubling taxes on every individual and business in America would not be enough to pay for the plan. What this means to working Kansans is a tax hike of nearly $9,000 per family according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center.

Make no mistake: Medicare for All means security for none. Medicare for All is an elimination plan rather than an expansion. It would outlaw employer health care plans and force people onto government-run health care whether they like it or not. In addition, Medicare for All would end TRICARE for our veterans.

This move is troubling, but not entirely surprising. Since the country rejected the single-payer, government-run health care plan called HillaryCare 25 years ago, Democrats have been struggling to find a new way to push their socialist health care agenda.

Many Democrats viewed Obamacare as an intermediate or transitional step. In 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said, “What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever.”

When Reid was asked if that meant the country would have to abandon a free enterprise health insurance system he said, “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”

Medicare for All is a marketing push for the same policy many Democrats have always supported. They simply learned the term Medicare for All is more popular than government-run, single-payer health care.

For instance, in 2016 the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 36 percent of Americans felt “very positively” about “Medicare for All” but only 15 percent felt very positively about “single payer” or “socialized medicine.” In other words, Democrats discovered that rebranding their push for socialized medicine could help them impose their agenda on the nation.

Today, Medicare for All is the same policy Democrats supported in 1993 with a fresh coat of paint to hide socialism’s rust and decay. But more is at stake than words. By using the Medicare program itself as a tool to push for single-payer, government-run health care, proponents are putting seniors’ health care at risk. That is immoral.

Seniors have paid into Medicare their entire lives. The program should not be taken away from them to pursue a social experiment.

Medicare itself is on an unsustainable course. Congress needs to secure the program for today’s seniors and future generations, not jeopardize the program with a costly and uncertain transition toward single-payer health care. If socialists want single-payer, government-run health care, they should make their case honestly and directly. Hiding their agenda behind Medicare’s popularity is a threat to both traditional Medicare and America’s seniors.

This story was originally published September 23, 2018 at 5:15 AM.