House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky., has asked the Congressional Budget Office to analyze the effects of shifting all healthcare costs onto the federal government, a first step toward the “Medicare for all” legislation sought by progressives.
“Members of Congress developing proposals seeking to establish a single-payer system will face many important decisions that could have major implications for federal spending, national healthcare spending, and access to care,” Yarmuth said in a letter to Keith Hall, the director of the CBO.
Yarmuth didn’t ask for an analysis of a specific bill, but asked the nonpartisan scorekeeping agency various questions lawmakers should consider as they seek to overhaul the healthcare system.
The ACA made it possible for millions to gain health insurance for the first time. But there are still too many Americans who cannot afford their health care costs.
Today, I requested a CBO report on various proposals to establish a single-payer health care system in the U.S. pic.twitter.com/jlcKlbgr81
— Rep. John Yarmuth (@RepJohnYarmuth) January 8, 2019
Yarmuth said in a statement that his request for the score is aimed to inform House hearings on “single payer,” proposals. Such hearings would be the first step in the process toward passing legislation enacting single payer systems, a top goal pursued by progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
In the letter, he asked CBO to evaluate how the healthcare system would be financed, whether private insurance companies would play a role, whether patients would face any costs, what methods would be put in place to contain costs, what rules would be placed on hospitals and doctors, how to set reimbursement rates, whether to do away with other government healthcare programs in favor of a single one.
Yarmuth is a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act, a bill that would enroll everyone in the U.S. onto the Medicare program, doing away with private insurance, Medicaid, and other government programs. Currently more than 55 million are enrolled in the program, which covers adults 65 and older as well as people with disabilities.
One study from the free-market Mercatus Center at George Mason University estimated that government spending on healthcare would rise by $32.6 trillion over a decade in a single-payer system, an estimate that is in line with an earlier study by the left-leaning Urban Institute.
The study concluded that overall spending, not just government spending, would be $2 trillion less compared to where spending is projected under the current healthcare system, but that would come mostly through cutting payments that hospitals and other providers were getting from private insurance by about 40 percent. Higher taxes may be under consideration to have Medicare payments align more closely with those of private insurers.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., had asked CBO to score the Medicare for All Act introduced by Sanders. In taking up various requests, CBO analysts tend to focus on bills that are closer to passage.
