Medicare for all is actually quality health care for none

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Democrats from across the country are uniting around a new legislative proposal, “Medicare for All.” This Obamacare 2.0 reboot would in fact cripple and bankrupt our underfunded Medicare system, while denying crucial benefits for our seniors who have paid into it during their entire working lives.

Our seniors depend upon their Medicare benefits. Adding millions of new, younger recipients to the Medicare rolls would destabilize the underfunded health care system designed specifically for our seniors, and threaten the very coverage long promised to them. Many Americans, without the financial means, would be forced to pay higher taxes for such a massive, multi-trillion-dollar government boondoggle.

I am not an economist, but I have read the estimates of what this single-payer proposal would cost our taxpayers. For example, this government takeover of your health care could increase the proposed 2020 federal budget of $4.76 trillion to $7.96 trillion, and cost an additional $32 trillion over the next decade. This equates to massive increases in taxpayer debt, where U.S. unfunded liabilities currently exceed $123.7 trillion, which includes $30.3 trillion for Medicare’s share. Currently, the U.S. national debt and unfunded liabilities combined exceeds $1,181,000 per taxpayer.

About 181 million Americans receive health insurance through their employer’s plans, and about 70 percent of these individuals report that they are happy with their current coverage. Once again, Democrats are selling you a rose-colored fairytale about what their health care proposal will actually cost and how it will negatively impact our nation.

Just seven years ago, while selling the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, President Obama and the Democrats repeatedly told us that you could keep your plan and keep your doctor, and that “your premiums will go down” (Obama speech, July 2012). House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told us: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” However, few in Congress ever bothered to read the entire 2,300-page Affordable Care Act, and as of September 2016, it has now grown by approximately 16,000 additional pages of regulations. In addition to its many unfulfilled promises, most Americans now pay more for unaffordable health care under Obamacare.

It’s perfectly clear that “Medicare for All” is grossly unaffordable, unsustainable and ultimately just another name for the socialists’ goal of single-payer government-controlled health care. The United States can ill afford to adopt a broken, European style health care system with prohibitive costs, prolonged delays for basic services, care rationing and denial of services for elderly patients.

After all the broken promises of fixing the U.S. health care system with Obamacare, can we afford to believe the Democrats once again, who now want to muddle with our health care system a second time in less than a decade? Just like other ineffective, bloated government programs, “Medicare for All” is actually quality health care for none.

Rep. Bob Thorpe, R-Flagstaff, has been a member of the Arizona House of Representatives since 2013. He is chairman of the Federalism, Property Rights and Public Policy Committee.