What I would love to hear him say:
Tonight, I am announcing a fundamental change in the kind of healthcare reform I support. I have come to realize that the reform I have been supporting is primarily very expensive public life support for a troubled health insurance industry. So I call now instead for the healthcare reform favored by the majority of Americans and a majority of physicians: single payer Medicare For All.
Health insurance companies are threatened by declining enrollments. The “healthcare reform” I have been advocating includes the mandates and subsidies insurers need to remain viable. Mandates would force people to buy insurance. To make insurance “affordable”, massive government subsidies would be paid directly to insurance companies.
This kind of reform would produce more customers, revenues and profits for insurance companies—at the expense of policy holders and taxpayers. I have come to realize that this is not “Healthcare Reform” but “Life Support for Health Insurance Companies”.
There’s a better way. Rather than putting health insurance companies on the dole with a permanent transfusion from the public till, simply extend Medicare to cover everyone and save over $1 trillion of subsidies in the next decade and also the $3 trillion of overhead the insurers would impose. The increased cost for Medicare will be more than offset by eliminating any need to buy health insurance.
I urge everyone in Congress to vote for single-payer Medicare For All instead of costly life support for health insurance companies.
Comments