By Ahmed C.K. Kutty, M.D.
Concord Monitor, July 7, 2017
With the turmoil surrounding the current healthcare bill in the Senate, a solution hiding in plain sight deserves every concerned Americanās attention.
Medicare For All fits the bill as a worthy replacement for the much maligned Affordable Care Act.
Having been around for 52 years, Medicare is familiar and popular, efficient with an overhead of 3 percent, contrasted with 30 percent in the private sector plans, and is available to all seniors and the disabled, regardless of economic status.ā
Medicare for All will be eminently affordable with savings of $500 billion predicted, from $3.4 trillion that is the current health care tab for the whole country. Financed publicly. No premiums, deductibles and copays will be due at the point of care. Delivery will remain largely private, as under the current system.
The time is now for an improved Medicare to be expanded to cover all 320 million of us in a single national risk pool.
Did Winston Churchill know something about our national character we did not when he remarked: āAmericans can be counted on to do the right thing after they have tried all else.ā?