Rep. Blaine’s Bulletin: Medicare for All, Choices for None

WASHINGTON, May 3 -- Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Missouri, issued the following column:

"If you like your health care plan, you can keep it" was one of President Obama's most famous failed promises, proving impossible to keep. Fast forward nine years, and House Democrats are no longer even pretending they want Americans to keep their insurance. Under the newest Medicare for All plan proposed by my colleagues, they would force a government takeover of the entire U.S. healthcare system. This would cause more than 3 million Missourians to lose their employer-sponsored insurance, impose long wait times and delays for critical treatments, drastically reduce the quality of care, and cost more than $32 trillion dollars paid by American taxpayers.

On Wednesday, my colleagues held a hearing on their proposal to socialize America's healthcare, shifting from our market-based system to one fully controlled by the government. The people of Missouri understand that government is not always the answer, and we've seen this play out time and time again. Across the world, government-run healthcare systems have seen a drastic reduction in quality of care and the inability to even see a doctor due to long wait times. In England, 362,000 patients waited longer than four months for hospital treatment. In Canada, the average wait time between seeing a doctor and beginning treatment is approximately five months.

Not only would Americans face a drastically reduced quality of healthcare, but we would also be facing dramatic economic consequences. Even modest estimates put the price of Medicare for All at a staggering $32 trillion. To put that in perspective, if Congress doubled federal individual and corporate taxes, it would still be insufficient to cover the cost of this plan. In addition to the unfathomable cost of Medicare for All, it is estimated to reduce GDP by 9% and reduce American household income by 19%.

Medicare is already in trouble, yet this proposal would expand the already at-risk program, possibly putting millions of Americans in peril. It would end Medicare Advantage for more than 22 million seniors and individuals with disabilities. The simple truth is that Medicare for All means choices for none, and my constituents deserve better than that.