
Elizabeth Warren Releases Medicare for All Plan - atlasunshrugged
https://www.axios.com/elizabeth-warren-medicare-for-all-plan-66bb1f85-bef2-40d7-905b-66aba8b2c381.html
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mindslight
Why _for all_ , rather than _available to all_? It could just be marketing,
but the details seem like her plan includes completely eliminating the private
"insurance" industry.

But with the amount of money floating around at the private insurance
companies, plus all their make-work jerbs, I just don't see them being
possible to take on like that in one fell swoop. Rather, such a plan is sure
to be jiu-jitsued by the insurance companies similar to how we ended up with
Romney^h^h^h^h^h^hObamacare.

Simply provide a competing option based on allowing anyone to buy in to
Medicare. People that have access to good private insurers can stick with
them, so they lose nothing. The buy-in price could cover the true cost, while
still being competitive with the current options for the self-employed, so no
budget problem. Big Insurance will always throw up the standard "but we
shouldn't have to compete" sob story (see also: Comcraps vs muni fiber), but
would lack any real basis for objection rather than dealing with a mortal
threat.

I guess this is ultimately just divisive politics. Preaching to a choir that
sees coupling increased taxes on the rich as killing two birds with one stone
- but dead on arrival to everyone else.

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claytongulick
Would you like to compete with an entity that doesn't have to make a profit,
can lose as much as they want, and is infinitely subsidized?

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fooker
By providing better healthcare, sure.

Most rich people are usually willing to pay good fraction of their net worth
to live 10-20 years longer.

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mc32
Wait, are you saying the public option could result in reduced lifetimes
compared to top level private insurance? It cannot be that drastic.

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kian
It seems almost certain with the dawning age of biotechnology right around the
corner that private options are going to completely dominate any public
options conceived right now.

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mindslight
Private _services_ may provide treatment with amazing outcomes, but that
doesn't necessarily mean that private payment plans will be needed to
financialize those costs.

As a well-off individual, why would you want to give a bunch of money to a
company with the same eventual dynamic wherein they decide to not cover the
specific treatment you eventually need?

As an insurer, why would you want to be in the position of customers expecting
you cover unknown unknowns? If you're aiming to cover boutique treatments,
then your risk model becomes _what expensive new treatments are invented_!

Furthermore, once you're talking about that kind of market, there's no need to
bundle everything into a single plan. Rather there is a baseline of modern
medicine that can be predictably provided (however that is), and then people
with more resources can direct paying for hopeful emerging treatments.

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mrep
Link to her actual proposal: [https://medium.com/@teamwarren/ending-the-
stranglehold-of-he...](https://medium.com/@teamwarren/ending-the-stranglehold-
of-health-care-costs-on-american-families-bf8286b13086)

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unmole
From the Guidelines:

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
> evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or
> disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's
> probably off-topic.

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atlasunshrugged
NYT piece has much more info
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/us/politics/elizabeth-
war...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-
medicare-for-all.html)

~~~
ng12
Why does this piece refer to her as Ms. Warren instead of Sen. Warren?

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vonmoltke
This is the Times' chosen style. They almost always refer to people as "Mr."
or "Ms." when not using their full name, and rarely use titles. For example,
this article repeatedly refers to Bill Clinton as "Mr. Clinton" and Donald
Trump as "Mr. Trump": [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/us/politics/house-
impeach...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/us/politics/house-impeachment-
partisan-vote.html)

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crb002
”Substantially increase funding for the IRS” (according to her own words
linked by @mrep)

~~~
akhilcacharya
Probably a solid investment that will recoup more than the increase in
funding!

