Americans Deserve the Full Truth About Medicare-For-All and its Ramifications for their Healthcare

So much of the nation’s discussion about the Medicare-for-all concept takes place through a political prism.  It’s important, though, to fully understand what such a drastic change to our healthcare system would mean for patients and the care on which they depend.  We welcome Barclay Berdan, the chief executive officer of Texas Health Resources, a faith-based non-profit healthcare system, to share his expertise on the subject.

Americans Deserve the Full Truth About Medicare-For-All and its Ramifications for their Healthcare

by Barclay Berdan, chief executive officer, Texas Health Resources and chair, HLC Executive Task Force on Access and Coverage

Everyone, advocates and opponents alike, acknowledges that changing our healthcare system from the status quo to a Medicare-for-all concept would bring about a seismic transformation in the way Americans receive care. Given that such an idea has become a frequent talking point in policy and political circles, it’s critical that the public understand the full ramifications of such a complete remake of American healthcare.

Today, roughly 160 million people in this country have private health insurance that is sponsored by an employer. Almost 14 million have purchased private health plans through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Even within the Medicare program, 26 million beneficiaries have elected to enroll in private Medicare Advantage plans. Under the predominant Medicare-for-all proposals we’ve seen, these private plans would all go away and be replaced by a single government-run health coverage infrastructure. We would be remiss if we didn’t give thought to how this could affect patient access to hospitals and physicians.

Hospitals are required to think about what we call payer mix. Private health insurance reimburses at a higher rate for healthcare services than Medicare and Medicaid do.  In fact, historically, Medicare and Medicaid payments are less than the actual cost hospitals absorb in providing those services. (According to one study, in 2017, those combined Medicare and Medicaid underpayments totaled nearly $77 billion.).  Hospitals, which generally operate on very thin margins, can afford to keep their doors open and provide care to Medicare and Medicaid patients because of those comparatively-higher private plan reimbursements.

So what happens if every single American becomes a Medicare beneficiary?  Our first concern has to be those communities that are in greatest risk of losing their hospitals even under the current healthcare financing system.  According to the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, 130 rural hospitals have closed in the past decade and another 900 are in danger of ceasing operations in the near future.  Many of these healthcare providers have low financial reserves and could not absorb a significant revenue loss.

Then, there are the current and future healthcare workforce shortages that were only exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.  A Mercer study tells us that, just four years from now, we will have a shortage of 3.2 million healthcare workers. Within a system financed entirely by the federal government, how will salary rates be set for healthcare professions and will they be sufficient to encourage more people to pursue health-related jobs?  And will we have enough personnel to meet what will be an expected rise in utilization under a system in which presumably everyone is covered for every healthcare service (or, will a Medicare-for-all system have to impose restrictions on utilization, a topic that has been severely under-discussed up to now).

Of course, it is always possible that, in creating a Medicare-for-all program, Congress could establish reimbursement rates that are sufficiently high to fully replace the loss of private plan payment levels.  That would, however, raise a plethora of questions about total cost for a Medicare-for-all program and the taxes required to pay for it.

The point being that we are likely to hear a lot about Medicare-for-all in the weeks and months ahead. We need more than political rhetoric, though, to rationalize completely overturning a healthcare system that is currently utilized by most Americans.  Tough questions about ramifications and possible consequences need to be asked and answered before we even consider moving from point A to a radically different point B. In the meantime, we should look at how to improve the current system to provide better care to those who don’t currently have access to it, roughly 10 million uninsured individuals without access to subsidies. Also, the administration’s action this month to improve the Affordable Care Act’s coverage affordability for families was an important step.  It is abundantly clear that we can improve both health care and health by improving what we have.