During last night’s Democratic presidential debate, Bernie Sanders pushed for a Medicare for All system as a solution to the Coronavirus pandemic:
“One of the reasons we are unprepared is we don’t have a system,” Sanders said. “We’ve got thousands of private insurance plans. That is not a system.”
The other candidate on stage, Joe Biden, pointed out that patients in Italy have not been served well by its single-payer healthcare system. Sadly, Joe Biden is right that Italians are suffering from a shortage of medical supplies, doctors, and hospital beds as Coronavirus spreads there. Writing for the Washington Examiner, Kaylee McGhee put it this way:
Hundreds of elderly citizens are going without treatment. Hundreds more have died already. Its system was woefully unprepared for this pandemic, and, as a result, the country has been unable to react to COVID-19’s effects in a timely fashion.
Far from making Sanders’ case, the dire situation in Italy is evidence that Medicare for All would make it more difficult for people to get the actual care they need when they need it. That’s because Medicare for All means there is only one payer: The government. When the government is the only payer, this means zero competition which means zero choice.
IWF just released a new video showing why Medicare for All is a bad idea and how a better approach is to focus on a system that is responsive to the needs of individual patients.