It has long been argued that the Medicare for All plan from Sen. Bernie Sanders would destroy health care and cripple the U.S. economy but university researchers insist it would benefit us all.
According to the analysis from the University of Pennsylvania, where researchers calculated Medicare for All benefits to 2060, every American would be insured by then, the life expectancy would jump two years, and workers would be more productive, Fox News reported.
“The issues come in,” Fox reported, “when it comes to financing the proposal.”
Sanders has been pushing a so-called single-payer health care system for years, but he made it a topic of conversation in 2016 while running against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
In recent months, Democrats in the House, Senate, and even the presidential race got onboard with the idea. However, Joe Biden has said he wants to expand Obamacare to include a public option.
"There's really not a lot of evidence that increasing access to public health insurance programs actually makes people any healthier," responds Hadley Heath Manning of the Independent Women's Forum. "At least that's the evidence from the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act."
When academic researchers studied the ACA, they found no benefits in health outcomes.
It is fair to speculate, Manning tells OneNewsNow, that people would use health care services more if they don't pay out of their own pocket for the doctor's office visit and don't pay for a health insurance premium from their own paycheck.
"But that presumption relies on an unlimited supply of health care services," she says, "which we know is unrealistic."