Insight Hillary Clinton: Medicare for Some

MAY 11, 2016

Hillary Clinton has suggested a series of costly proposals, many of which ostensibly “solve” the issue of expensive health care. This week, Hillary Clinton took a hard left on health care policy, proposing to allow individuals who are not yet retirement age to buy into Medicare. Clinton claims that her plan would ease health care costs for young people.

A recent analysis estimates Bernie Sanders’ ‘Medicare-for-All’ health care proposal will cost $2.47 trillion in 2017 alone and will exceed the proposed tax revenue by more than $1 trillion. Mrs. Clinton’s ‘Medicare for Some’ proposal is a narrower version of the same concept .

Secretary Clinton has repeatedly condemned her fellow Democratic presidential candidate’s Medicare-For-All health care plan stating, “The numbers don’t add up, and many people will actually be worse off than they are right now.” She also said, “The last thing we need is to throw our country into a contentious debate about health care again.”

Sec. Clinton is right; the numbers don’t add up. According to the Medicare Trustees, Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Fund will be depleted by 2030, when revenue will only cover 86 percent of the fund’s costs. Sec. Clinton argues her proposal would address the high cost of health care, but it is unclear how shifting the burden of covering older adults from private insurance or Obamacare exchanges to Medicare will reduce federal spending. Rather it is likely to accelerate Medicare’s fiscal deterioration. Instead of shifting costs to the taxpayer and creating ever more bureaucratic hoops and artificial divisions in the health care market, Sec. Clinton would be better served focusing on changes to the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges that will foster more robust private competition.

In addition to expanding Medicare, Secretary Clinton has said that if she were elected she would expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchange eligibility to everyone in the United States, including undocumented immigrants. AAF research found that expanding the ACA will cause premiums to go up and increase out-of- pocket costs. If one adds in massive costs for implementation, failures to address problems like emergency room overcrowding, the impact this would have on small business – which already suffering due to the outrageous amount of ACA regulations that have reduced employment by more than 350,000 jobs nationwide – and you have an unpalatable, toxic policy brew.

Further, in response to a questioner, Sec. Clinton floated the idea of expanding federal subsidies for health insurance through the exchange above the current limit of 400 percent of the federal poverty level and calling instead for a “kind of gradual diminishment” of benefits. As it turns out, that is exactly how the subsidies are already designed.

Clinton’s ever changing policy positions will end up costing American taxpayers untold dollars. Expanding Medicare to some or to all will drive our nation into even more debt and create a system that is even more unaffordable and catastrophic than the current one.

AMERICANACTIONFORUM.ORG