@sacts,
The idea of medicare for all is a noble idea but when you get down into the weeds it doesn’t make sense from a quantitive nor a qualitative perspective.
Lets start with quantitative;
1) Medicare does not cover long term health. There is a good reason for that. It cost too much money and is unaffordable. Are you OK withy gutting that out of medicad which does cover LTC now.
2) Medicare doesn’t cover dental
3) There is a limit on OT and PT services. If you look at how much therapy children receive from early childhood to speech to OT to PT. And if CVS special needs even more. Who pays for all that under “medicare for all”? Right now most of that isn’t covered under medicare albeit its for seniors but you get my idea.
4) Medicare charges copays and premiums for many seniors. Can we do that under your Medicare for all?
Now lets talk about quality,
Our medical care is second to none and the envy of the world. Look at how many people collect in shul for a yid from EY who needs to be in the USA for medical care. This is because drs can charge high fees and make money. Its a business and drs who work hard need to be incentivized so they are rich. The same is for hospital ceo’s who build up start of the art facilities to provide high quality care. Many dr’s now don’t take medicare, under medicare for all, where prices will be negotiated down even more, you think they will accept it? And if they do we will look like Canada and the UK where lines for hip replacements are 6 months. And only the rich get better care via cash.
To summarize our standard of health care is so vast and expensive. We have very high demands and everything is a must. Therapy, mental health, LTC, dental all of that isn’t covered in Israel or other single payer systems. Neither do they have the ability to sue like here. We also have state of the art care that’s at least accessible to middle class thanks to private insurance. if your proposal is, something like emergency care for all, limited to hospital care etc. then I think that’s noble. But without severely fiddling around with the current system, its impossible to pay for all of this without compromising on quality or quantity of care.
As a side note, you left out one very important fact about the ACA. Sure it forced (or at least its idea was to force) those uninsured to get insurance thereby yes they pay more but its to their benefit. However, they weren’t the only ones who suffered a loss. It also forced those who are responsible and have health insurance already to pay more for all those irresponsible who now need to be covered with pre existing conditions too.
One more side note (and I agree this one is somewhat off topic) the idea that we need to cover the poor under medicad no matter what their behavior toward self care is a huge chutzpah and absurd. At my job if you smoke they charge you an extra $1K. And everyone has to partake in a work on wellness program or you pay another $1K. The fact that medicad holds no bounds and that you can be a fat smoker who drinks all day too makes the sense of entitlement such nerve. Medicad ought to charge if you smoke and obligate everyone to commit to work on wellness.