Biden and Sanders’s Argument

After 12 paragraphs of explaining Bernie Sanders’s and Joe Biden’s positions on health care reform, in his latest New York Times column Paul Krugman comes to the point he wants to make:

So there’s plenty of room for a good-faith Sanders-Biden argument. Unfortunately, that’s not the argument they’re having.

Instead, Sanders is arguing that only single-payer can purge “corporate greed” from the system — an assertion belied by European experience — and broadly hinting that Biden is in the pocket of corporate interests. That’s a criticism you can level about some of Biden’s past policy positions, like his advocacy of the 2005 bankruptcy law. But it’s not a fair criticism of a health plan that’s actually pretty good, and which most people would have considered radical just a few years ago.

For his part, Biden is declaring that the Sanders plan would undermine Medicare. In fact, it would enhance current recipients’ benefits. And it’s a bad sign that Biden, who poses as Obamacare’s great defender, is using a G.O.P. scare tactic familiar from the utterly dishonest campaign against the A.C.A. No Democrat should be stooping to that level.

“Medicare For All” would probably raise my taxes by between $3,000 and $5,000 per year while Joe Biden’s plan would not unless it also included the responsible measure of increasing the personal income tax to fund the expansion of the ACA. I say that because I know my employer and, unless there are specific measures compelling employers to pay the Medicare premiums of employees, the entire thing would come out of my pocket. Since I’ll probably enroll for Medicare during the next open enrollment (I no longer like my employer’s employer-sponsored plan) and add a Medigap plan to that, M4A might have less effect on me than might otherwise be the case. Either way I’ll survive. After five years I’ll end up with lower savings than would otherwise have been the case.

Neither plan will do a darned thing about costs since politicians don’t care about health care costs. M4A could even end up costing more than the status quo if it charges private plans the same as Medicare by increasing Medicare reimbursement rates which wouldn’t surprise me a bit.

“Corporate greed” is an inadequate explanation for why health care costs are higher in the U. S. than anywhere else in the world. Corporate greed, provider greed, patient greed, and the inefficiencies inherent in any health care system as large as ours is probably closer to the mark. Socialists always promise to stamp our human greed but somehow it always manages to survive.

2 comments… add one
  • TarsTarkas Link

    To make the phrase really roll off the tongue, Sanders should add ‘unbridled’ to ‘corporate greed’. Of course the PC police would then go after him for verbal violence against equines, but it’s all in the delivery.

  • steve Link

    “Instead, Sanders is arguing that only single-payer can purge “corporate greed” from the system — an assertion belied by European experience ”

    Plus Australia, Japan, Singapore and everywhere with first world medicine. We could certainly reduce overall spending with M4A if we wanted, but we have to make costs a priority. If we do that, we could make it work with other approaches also. That said, there is at least a road map of sorts looking at other countries if we go with single payer. If we were to try to do it via markets reforms we would be working blind as no one has figured out how to cut health care costs via the market.

    Steve

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