Tyler Cowen reported that Elizabeth Warren claims she can pay for her 10-year, $52 trillion health care plan without increasing taxes on the middle class. But both she and her critics are approaching the question wrong. What really matters is the opportunity cost of policy choices, in terms of foregone goods and services — not whether the money can be raised to pay for a chosen policy.

Consider this point in the context of Warren’s plan, which includes a complex series of health-care savings and higher taxes on the wealthy.

NOAH SMITH: Warren Tries to Make Medicare for All as Painless as Possible

One way of financing the plan is to pay doctors in hospitals lower fees (part of “saving” $2.3 trillion). There will then be fewer profitable hospitals, and fewer doctors working fewer hours because some of them might retire earlier than they otherwise would. Fewer hospitals mean they will likely increase their monopolistic tendencies, to the detriment of patients. A related plan to pay hospitals less is supposed to save another $600 billion.

The practical impact of these changes will be to deprive health-care consumers, including middle-class consumers, of goods and services. The larger point is that the real cost of any economic arrangement is not its nominal sticker price, but rather the consequences of who ends up not getting what.

Another part of the plan is to pay lower prices — 70% lower — for branded prescription drugs. That is supposed to save about $1.7 trillion, but again focus on which opportunities are lost. Lower drug prices will mean fewer new drugs are developed. There is good evidence that pharmaceuticals are among the most cost-effective ways of saving human lives, so the resulting higher mortality and illness might be especially severe.

Of course, many critics of the pharmaceutical industry downplay its role in the drug-discovery process. Regardless of the merits of those arguments, they do not show that a 70% cut in prices will leave supplies, or research and development, unchanged.

Another unstated cost of the Warren plan concerns current health-insurance customers: Many of them prefer their current private coverage to Medicare for All. Switching them into Medicare for All is an opportunity cost not covered by Warren’s $52 trillion estimates. Even if you believe that Medicare for All will be cheaper in monetary terms, tens of millions of Americans seem to prefer their current arrangements.

Warren also proposes higher taxes on corporations, capital gains, stock trades and the wealthy, as well as stronger tax enforcement — all of which is supposed to raise more than $10 trillion. Again, regardless of your position on those policies, they will diminish investment and (to some extent) consumption among the wealthy. You might not worry much about the consumption of the wealthy. But the decline in investment will lead to lower wages, less job creation, and fewer goods and services. These are all opportunity costs, for both the middle class and just about everyone else.

Supposedly $400 billion will be picked up from taxes on new immigrants, following the passage of a law legalizing millions now in the country illegally. I favor such legislation. Still, I don’t necessarily see this as a windfall. Yes, more immigrant labor will produce more goods and services. Tax revenue from this new productivity could be used in any number of ways, with universal health-care coverage just one option of many.

You might think that universal health insurance coverage is clearly the highest priority, but is it? America’s health-care sector is relatively costly and inefficient, and even major health-care legislation does not much improve health outcomes. What about investing in green energy or climate change alleviation? Private-sector job creation? Public health measures outside of the health-insurance system, such as fighting air pollution or lead? Checking California forest fires?

Even if you think health care is a human right, there are alternative policies that will benefit human health. They cannot all be carried out, at least not very well.

I don’t mean to pick on Warren. Virtually all politicians, of both parties, fall prey to similar fallacies when presenting the costs of their policies. Warren’s proposals, when all is said and done, are best viewed not as a way of paying for her program but as a series of admissions about just how expensive it would be. Whether or not you call those taxes, they are very real burdens — and many of them will end up falling on the middle class.

How Sen. Warren’s health care plan could impact 401(k)s

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s “Medicare for All” plan may impact your future nest egg. Some critics of the proposal note the presidential hopeful could potentially tax investors, which would make it more difficult to save for retirement. Edelman Financial Engines Founder Ric Edelman discusses with Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman, Sibile Marcellus, and ‘The Morning Brew’ Business Editor and Podcast Host, Kinsey Grant.

Hillary Clinton: Warren’s Medicare for All Plan Won’t Ever Get Enacted

Yuval Rosenberg noted that Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that she doesn’t believe Elizabeth Warren’s Medicare-for-All plan would ever become law and that there are better ways to raise revenues than Warren’s proposed wealth tax.

Asked at a New York Times conference whether she thinks the health-care plan released by Warren would ever get enacted, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee said: “No, I don’t. I don’t but the goal is the right goal.”

In her 2016 campaign, Clinton supported a public health insurance option and rejected calls from Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic nomination, for a single-payer system. On Wednesday, Clinton said she still favors a public option to build on the Affordable Care Act, which lifted insurance coverage rates to 90%. “I believe the smarter approach is to build on what we have. A public option is something I’ve been in favor of for a very long time,” she said. “I don’t believe we should be in the midst of a big disruption while we are trying to get to 100 percent coverage and deal with costs and face some tough issues about competitiveness and other kinds of innovation in health care.”

Clinton also said she supports the health care debate Democrats are having and tried to contrast that with the Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. “Yeah, we’re having a debate on our side of the political ledger, but it’s a debate about the right issue, how do we get to health care coverage for everybody that we can afford?” Clinton said.

Warren responded on Thursday. “I’m saying, you don’t get what you don’t fight for,” she said, according to The Times. “You know, you’ve got to be willing to get out there and fight.”

On the issue of a wealth tax, another central element of Warren’s campaign, Clinton said she doesn’t understand how the proposal could work, suggesting it would be too disruptive. Clinton added that there are better ways to raise revenues, get the rich to pay more and combat inequality. “I just think there are better ways of doing it,” she said, adding that she would be in favor of raising the estate tax.

Also, Hillary Clinton called the wealth taxes proposed by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren “unworkable” and said they would be “incredibly disruptive” if enforced.

Warren health plan departs from US ‘social insurance’ idea

Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar reported that Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s plan to pay for “Medicare for All” without raising taxes on the middle class departs from how the U.S. has traditionally financed bedrock social insurance programs. That might impact its political viability now and in the future.

While echoing her party’s longstanding call for universal health care, the Massachusetts Democrat is proposing to raise most of the additional $20.5 trillion her campaign believes would be needed from taxes on businesses, wealthy people and investors.

That’s different from the “social insurance” — or shared responsibility — the approach taken by Democratic presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Broad financing through payroll taxes collected from workers and their employers has fostered a sense of ownership of Social Security and Medicare among ordinary Americans. That helped derail several Republican-led privatization efforts. And signs declaring “Keep Government Out Of My Medicare” proliferated during protests against President Barack Obama’s health care legislation, which scaled back Medicare payments to hospitals.

The Warren campaign says the reason programs like Social Security and Medicare are popular is that benefits are broadly shared. A campaign statement said her plan would put money now spent on medical costs back in the pockets of middle-class families “substantially larger than the largest tax cut in American history.”

But Roosevelt was once famously quoted explaining that he settled on a payroll tax for Social Security to give Americans the feeling they had a “legal, moral and political right” to benefits, thereby guaranteeing “no damn politician” could take it down.

Medicare passed under Johnson, is paid for with a payroll tax for hospital services and a combination of seniors’ premiums and general tax revenues for outpatient care and prescriptions. Truman’s plan for universal health insurance did not pass, but it would have been supported by payroll taxes.

“If you look at the two core social insurance programs in the United States, they have always been financed as a partnership,” said William Arnone, CEO of the National Academy of Social Insurance, a nonpartisan organization that educates on how social insurance builds economic security.

On Warren’s plan, “the question is, will people still look at it as an earned right, or will they say that their health care is coming out of the generosity of the wealthy?” Arnone added. His group takes no position on Medicare for All.

“It’s not an accident that Social Security is on the chopping block a lot less frequently than so-called welfare programs,” said retirement expert Charles Blahous, a political conservative and a former public trustee overseeing Social Security and Medicare finances.

With Warren’s approach, “you are going to have this clash of interests between the people paying the bills and the beneficiaries,” Blahous added. His own estimates indicate Medicare for All would cost the government about $12 trillion more over 10 years than Warren projects.

The Warren campaign downplays the role of shared responsibility and instead points to promised benefits under Medicare for All.

“Every person in America will have full health coverage, get the doctors and the treatments they need, and no more going broke over medical bills,” the campaign said in a statement. “Backed up by leading experts, Elizabeth has shown how her plan will do this by having the richest 1% and giant corporations pay a little bit more and without raising taxes on the middle class by one penny.”

Under Warren’s plan, nearly $9 trillion would come from businesses, in lieu of what they’re already paying for employees’ health care. About $7 trillion would come from increased taxes on investors, wealthy people, and large corporations. An IRS crackdown on tax evasion would net about $2 trillion. The remainder would come from various sources, including dividends of a projected immigration overhaul and eliminating a Pentagon contingency fund used for anti-terrorism operations.

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ list of options to pay for Medicare for All includes a 4% income-based premium collected from most households.

John Rother, CEO of the National Coalition on Health Care umbrella group, said he can follow Warren’s argument about making the wealthy pay, but it still looks like a hard sell.

“What is different today is the tremendous gap between the well-off and middle-class people,” he said. “In a way, it makes sense as a step toward greater equality, but it is still a little tricky politically because you don’t have that same sense that ‘this is mine, I paid into it, and therefore no one is going to take it away.'” His group has taken no position on Medicare for All.

History records that various payment options were offered for Social Security in the 1930s and FDR favored a broad payroll tax. One competing idea involved a national sales tax.

An adviser’s memo in the Social Security archives distills Roosevelt’s thinking.

“We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits,” Roosevelt was quoted as saying.

“With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program,” he added. “Those taxes aren’t a matter of economics, they’re straight politics.”

Medicare-for-all could cause ‘enormous’ doctor shortage

Julia Limitone pointed out something I mentioned that I am concerned about in the Medicare for All plan outlined by Sen. Warren. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Medicare-for-all plan is a disaster and would lead to an “enormous” doctor shortage, according to FOX News medical correspondent Dr. Marc Siegel.

If Warren’s plan came to pass, doctors would be working for the government, which in turn would decide their pay, Dr. Siegel told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney.

“The government doctors will be paid up to 40 percent less,” he said on Thursday. “Many will leave the profession,”

In countries with socialized medicine doctors earn about half of what primary care doctors make in America, he said.

“I’ve interviewed an Australian physician who’s from Canada, and she’s making about 30 to 40 dollars for a visit at the most,” he said.

But even more than that, a patient wouldn’t necessarily be able to get the care they need, Siegel said.

“I have to wait a month to figure out if someone has a problem up here,” he said.

What’s more, he said, it would hit hospitals hard. Hospitals rely on private insurance to pay for research, medical students and quality care, Dr. Siegel said. Under the plan, they’d get a flat fee from the government, and would not be able to differentiate between medical centers and great care and something that’s of lower quality, he explained.

“Hospitals are going to go belly up,” he warned.

Warren’s campaign said the single-payer plan would cost the country “just under” $52 trillion.

VA launches new health care options under MISSION Act

Because we are celebrating Veterans Day I thought that I would review some of the changes in the VA healthcare system. The VA system represents a health care system that is run by the government and look where that is going…….back to the private health care system. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) launched its new and improved Veterans Community Care Program on June 6, 2019, implementing portions of the VA Maintaining Internal Systems and Strengthening Integrated Outside Networks Act of 2018 (MISSION Act), which both ends the Veterans Choice Program and establishes a new Veterans Community Care Program.

The MISSION Act will strengthen the nationwide VA Health Care System by empowering Veterans with more health care options.

“The changes not only improve our ability to provide the health care Veterans need but also when and where they need it,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “It will also put Veterans at the center of their care and offer options, including expanded telehealth and urgent care, so they can find the balance in the system that is right for them.”

Under the new Veterans Community Care Program, Veterans can work with their VA health care provider or other VA staff to see if they are eligible to receive community care based on new criteria. Eligibility for community care does not require a Veteran to receive that care in the community; Veterans can still choose to have VA provide their care. Veterans may elect to receive care in the community if they meet any of the following six eligibility criteria:

1. A Veteran needs a service not available at any VA medical facility.
2. A Veteran lives in a U.S. state or territory without a full-service VA medical facility. Specifically, this would apply to Veterans living in Alaska, Hawaii, New Hampshire and the U.S. territories of Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
3. A Veteran qualifies under the “grandfather” provisions related to distance eligibility under the Veterans Choice Program.
4. VA cannot furnish care within certain designated access standards. The specific access standards are described below:

• Drive time to a specific VA medical facility
• Thirty-minute average drive time for primary care, mental health, and noninstitutional extended care services.
• Sixty-minute average drive time for specialty care.

Note: Drive times are calculated using geomapping software.

• Appointment wait time at a specific VA medical facility
• Twenty days from the date of the request for primary care, mental health care, and noninstitutional extended care services, unless the Veteran agrees to a later date in consultation with his or her VA health care provider.
• Twenty-eight days for specialty care from the date of request, unless the Veteran agrees to a later date in consultation with his or her VA health care provider.

5. The Veteran and the referring clinician agree it is in the best medical interest of the Veteran to receive community care based on defined factors.
6. VA has determined that a VA medical service line is not providing care in a manner that complies with VA’s standards for quality based on specific conditions.

In preparation for this landmark initiative, senior VA leaders will visit more than 30 VA hospitals across the country to provide in-person support for the rollout.

The VA MISSION Act:

• Strengthens VA’s ability to recruit and retain clinicians.
• Authorizes “Anywhere to Anywhere” telehealth across state lines.
• Empowers Veterans with increased access to community care.
• Establishes a new urgent care benefit that eligible Veterans can access through VA’s network of urgent care providers in the community.

VA serves approximately 9 million enrolled Veterans at 1,255 health care facilities around the country every year. We send our military representatives-soldiers, sailors and airmen and women to fight for us and now we are arguing about how to care for them when they are injured, whether physically or mentally. Imagine if we adopt another government-run health care system??

Thank you, all you Vets for all you have done for us to keep us and our beloved country free!