Money Crashers: What Is “Medicare for All”

Back before Obamacare was enacted, I used to worry about how Brian and I would ever manage to pay for health care if Brian were to lose his job. As a freelancer, I didn't have access to a workplace health plan, and New Jersey, where we live, was one of the most expensive places in the country to buy private health insurance. (That's because it was also one of the few states that required insurers to cover preexisting conditions before Obamacare was passed.) I'd checked the cost of private plans on a comparison site called ehealthinsurance.com, and the cheapest plan I could find that would put any sort of limit on our out-of-pocket costs—which is, after all, what health insurance is for—was about $1,000 a month. With just my freelance earnings to support us, that would have eaten up about a third of our gross income.

With the passage of the ACA, all that worry fell away from my shoulders. For the first time ever, I knew that I'd be able to manage the cost of health care for both of us if I ever became the sole breadwinner. I could even start spinning plans for an early retirement, with both of us living off our investment income and pursuing all those projects we'd never had time for during our working years. But of course, no sooner was the ACA passed than Republicans began threatening to repeal it—and while they haven't managed to do this in the legislature, they may yet succeed in taking it down through the courts. So at any moment, this security could be snatched away from us yet again.

Now, as we head into the 2020 election season, several left-leaning Democrats are making noises about a way to solve this problem once and for all: Medicare for All. This is essentially a new (and more popular) name for the health-care system once known as single-payer. It would expand Medicare to cover every single American (with a few exceptions, such as veterans, who would keep the system they have now) and scrap private health insurance completely. And, naturally, Republicans, who were already denouncing the patchy coverage provided by Obamacare as rampant socialism, are screaming in an even higher key about this new plan.

In my latest Money Crashers article, I attempt to cut through the shouting and provide some facts about what Medicare for All really means: what it would cover, what it would cost, and how it would affect different groups of people. I also provide some background on what's wrong with the health-care system we have now, and how it compares with some systems in other countries, such as Britain and Canada. And finally, I talk about some alternative plans that have been proposed (so far, only by Democrats) to expand health coverage in a less disruptive way.

What Is “Medicare for All” – Features, Costs, Pros & Cons