One of the most frustrating aspects of proposed changes to the medical industrial complex via "improved" or "expanded" Obamacare or Medicare for All is the utter failure to address the real questions that the experience of Obamacare SHOULD HAVE taught as the syrupy utopian language of Medicare for All gets covered in the same broad strokes of gross generalization that Obamacare did that resulted in the passage of a law that actually INCREASED cost barriers to obtaining health insurance and needed medical services for millions and millions of Americans.
For the vast majority of Americans, premiums, copays, coinsurance and deductibles all went up with Obamacare and coverage went down as new exclusions were incorporated, all justified by the fact that insurance companies now HAD TO cover the bare minimum preventive services requirements of Obamacare. For the vast majority of Americans, the devastation from the costs of needed medical services became two-and-a-half percent WORSE as the former 7.5 percent threshold of gross income before a person can deduct medical expenses was allowed to lapse and became 10 percent again.
For the vast majority of Americans, the costs of covering illness, beyond a free checkup became higher as the free checkup provisions that expired after the checkup were replaced with higher deductibles, copays and coinsurance payments required in case more than the free checkup was required.
It is not unreasonable to ask whether the middle class will be gutted further through taxation in lieu of Obama's outright lies about families saving $2,500 a YEAR under his plan.
It is not unreasonable to wonder whether this time around, instead of defending their self-made superior benefits provisions that effectively excluded lawmakers from the onerous provisions of Obamacare, if this time around they would specifically mandate that public employees, including Congress be held to the same program as the one they're inflicting on everyone else.
As an additional and related inquiry, it is not unreasonable for taxpayers to ask whether public employee superior retirement health benefits will be brought in line with the crummy choices the rest of us get under Medicare for All. And how about getting some promise that Congress won't raise its own salaries to cover additional costs they might face as a result of finally having some skin in the game?
We also know that expansive programs have a tendency to reduce their coverage, like sharing a pie with more people where the slices get smaller and smaller, making coverage reductions expected, just like Obamacare which replaced substantive coverage for needed medical services with a list of free checkups. With Medicare, currently these ever increasing restrictions and non-coverages are addressed through a long list of optional PART whatever plans that individuals PURCHASE.
Right now Medicare for All is a con. It will not be for all in the same way, and if it is not for all then insurers or the government, whoever is the payer will get the money to pay for the Medicare for Some just like Obamacare does by charging the rest of us more.
