Bernie Sanders Says Medicare for All Would Provide "Quality Care" During Pandemic

[AtheistCrusader]

31. I think there are assumptions made about quality of care for 'socialized' medicine that

either do not impress me, or might be a trade-off. I don't bank on the 'quality' aspect beyond, the care being delivered is done without the patient/insurance making cost-driven austerity choices. In essence, a higher probability under something like M4A that they will get all the care they need, rather than the bare minimum they think they can afford.

Shifting the debt from individuals, to a government cost center is still hugely beneficial. Instead of Joe Anybody walking out of the hospital with $30,000 in ICU costs (even though grateful to be healthy and alive or even still recovering, but alive) you might see those costs amortized for years across the entire population, offset by rainy day funding, offset by various taxes like capital gains from all the republicans that sold their stocks out one side of their mouths while reassuring the public nothing was wrong out the other side back in January, etc. Rescinding those tax breaks, as you mention, would absolutely help.

Government has a lot of ways to fund even a black swan like this event, that leave the individual that would otherwise be crushed by debt, in a MUCH better position. They still had to endure the illness, they still had to go through the process and recover, but the costs incurred are shared, and potentially financed in a way the individual can't support.

M4A is really just a way to break the back of that linkage between employment and healthcare. (It will also trim costs by reducing the profitability of notoriously inelastic health care.)