If you thought federal spending on healthcare was out of control under Obamacare, just wait until you hear about Berniecare. Under Bernie Sanders’ plan, costs could soar above $28 trillion.
Avik Roy reports at Forbes:
Bernie Sanders’ Single-Payer Health Care Plan Would Increase Federal Spending By At Least $28 Trillion
On Sunday, January 17—hours before the Democratic presidential debate on NBC—Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders released details of his proposal to replace the entire U.S. health care system with a universal, government-run, single-payer one. “Twenty-nine million Americans today still do not have health insurance,” said Sanders in a white paper published on his campaign website. “We must…achieve the goal of universal health care.” Sanders also published an analysis indicating that his plan would increase federal spending by at least 55 percent, reigniting the debate about whether single-payer health care is worth the money…
Since Berniecare would replace the entirety of the existing U.S. health care system with a new single-payer one, Friedman projects its total cost to be $40.9 trillion from 2017 to 2026, and argues that the plan would raise enough in taxes to cover $13.7 trillion in new government spending.
But Friedman ignores a critical fact: a big chunk of today’s government health care spending is undertaken by states and localities, not the federal government.
As a result, even by Friedman’s own optimistic projections about what single-payer health care could save, Berniecare would increase federal spending by $28.3 trillion over ten years. If Friedman is wrong, and the plan fails to reduce the growth of health care spending, it would result in $32.7 trillion in new federal spending.
If Bernie Sanders gets his way, America as you now know it will cease to exist.
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