Title: The Sanders Single-Payer Health Care Plan: The Effect on National Health Expenditures and Federal and Private Spending
Year: 2016
Author: John Holahan, Lisa Clemans-Cope, Matthew Buettgens, Melissa Favreault, Linda J. Blumberg, and Siyabonga Ndwandwe
Institution: Urban Institute
Funding Source: N/A
Plan Analyzed: Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign proposal (eventually became S. 1804 Medicare for All Act of 2017)
Percent Change in National Health Expenditure under M4A (1-year): 16.9% (2017)
Percent Change in National Health Expenditure under M4A (10-year): 16.6% (2017-26)
Increases in federal health expenditures: $456.9 billion (2017)
Read Study:
The Sanders Single-Payer Health Care Plan
Abstract:
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders proposed a single-payer system to replace all current health coverage. His system would cover all medically necessary care, including long-term care, without cost-sharing. We estimate that the approach would decrease the uninsured by 28.3 million people in 2017. National health expenditures would increase by $6.6 trillion between 2017 and 2026, while federal expenditures would increase by $32.0 trillion over that period. Sanders’s revenue proposals, intended to finance all health and nonhealth spending he proposed, would raise $15.3 trillion from 2017 to 2026—thus, the proposed taxes are much too low to fully finance his health plan.
Overview:
- 2016 study done by the Urban Institute utilizing a microsimulation approach to conduct a cost analysis of the Sanders Medicare for All proposal from the 2016 presidential primary in contrast to projection studies that had been done up to that point.
- This study considers how cost would be affected by:
- Acute healthcare spending increases by non-elderly individuals who would not otherwise be enrolled in Medicare
- Acute healthcare spending increases by those who would otherwise be enrolled in medicare under currently law
- Increase in utilization costs for long term services and supports
- This study discusses
- Assumptions that tend to over/underestimate costs when considering M4A.