Building upon the points I made in the last post, if “Medicare for All” is a good idea and wouldn’t affect either patient or provider behavior, why isn’t “Medicaid for All” an even better idea? After all Medicaid reimbursement rates are even lower than Medicare reimbursement rates.
Just a modest proposal.
How would it work? Every state runs its own Medicaid program. Rules vary from state to state. Pragmatically, would be a nightmare. With Medicare you do have the MA programs which are not uniform, but Medicare FFS is pretty much the same everywhere. It would make a lot more sense if you wanted to cut rates further to Have Medicare for All, minus 15%. (Or whatever the differential is now.)
Steve