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Preparing for 2019
The most comprehensive study ever done of a national
single payer proposal has arrived - just in time for a big
lobbying push next year!
A team of economists from the University of Massachusetts
Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) has found that
the Medicare for All Act of 2017, introduced to the Senate
by Bernie Sanders, could actually reduce health spending
by about 9.6% while also providing decent health care
coverage for all Americans. |
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Here are the highlights:
- All low and middle income families would see
savings in their healthcare costs;
only high-income households would pay more
(up to 5.6% more) than they pay now.
- A single payer healthcare system
would save trillions, more than covering the cost
of increased utilization by those previously left
out of the system. Here are the major areas of savings:
- Cutting administrative waste created
by for-profit companies (47% of all savings)
- Cutting exorbitant
pharmaceutical prices (31%)
- Establishing uniform payment rates
(based on Medicare) for hospitals, physicians,
and clinics (15%)
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Shifting our regressively-financed healthcare system to a progressively-financed single payer means
relieving the bottom 80% and placing more of the burden
on the wealthy. In addition to existing sources
of financing for public health programs
(Medicare and Medicaid taxes, VA, etc.)
the following tax scheme would
generate a 1% surplus for the system:
- A premium paid by businesses that
would replace existing spending on employee plans,
set at 8% less than current costs
- Tax on net wealth, exempting the
first million dollars of income (this tax would only
hit the wealthiest)
- 3.75% sales tax on non-necessities
(food, housing, and utilities would be excluded)
- Taxing long-term capital gains as
ordinary income
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This game-changing study, which has received
extensive media coverage and been praised by
prestigious economists such as Jeffrey Sachs and
William Hsiao, was made possible by the
electoral and legislative gains that
elevated Medicare for All this year!
Those gains were the work of all y'all who did
organizing and lobbying in 2018. Stay focused and
let's bring this momentum into 2019 - we'll need it
to make single payer the official stance of the
Democratic party and finally move our bills forward!
In solidarity,
Ben and Stephanie
Healthcare-NOW staff |
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@HCNOW
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DONATE
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Healthcare-NOW is a grassroots organization that fights to
end the health insurance crisis by educating and advocating
for improved Medicare-for-All legislation,
such as H.R. 676.
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