Shocker: Bernie Sanders' Health Care Plan Is A 'Train Wreck' For The Poor

Matt Vespa | February 26, 2016 2:00 PM

Sen. Bernie Sanders is adamant about establishing Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system that will take care of everybody. He has consistently said that our inability to cover every American when other industrialized nations have done so (at far cheaper* rates) is a disgrace. He blames the big Pharmaceutical sector, and a corrupt campaign finance system that protects its interests (in his mind), that prevents the changes needed for a better health care system. As with most policies that emanate from a planned economy ethos, Sanders’ health care plan is a disaster, especially for the people he claims to champion: the working poor (via WaPo):

Sanders estimates a middle-class family of four would pay an annual premium of $466 under his plan, with no deductible or co-pays. Less affluent households would pay less than that, or nothing at all.

But for at least 72 percent of households enrolled in Medicaid -- in which someone is working -- the costs of Sanders's plan would exceed the benefits, according to an analysis by Kenneth Thorpe, a public-health expert at Emory University.

That figure includes 5.7 million households, or 14.5 million people -- among them, 4.2 million Hispanic recipients and 2.5 million black recipients. The requirements for eligibility for Medicaid vary widely by state, so that group includes some households living in poverty as well as some that are modestly better off.

"The vast majority of low-income Medicaid workers, who are probably predominantly minority, are going to end up paying more in terms of payroll taxes, and aren't going to receive really any financial benefits," said Thorpe, a former Clinton administration health official.

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Thorpe has also argued that the senator from Vermont is underestimating the cost of his plan by roughly $1.1 trillion a year. Regardless of the cost, though, the plan would be detrimental for many poor households, he concluded.

In calculating that 14.5 million Medicaid beneficiaries would be worse off, Thorpe used the campaign's more optimistic estimate of the cost. Using his own, more pessimistic estimate, the figure increased to 16.8 million.