Expand Medicare

Despite six years of immersion into intricacies of the health-care system, Republicans were unable to craft a bill they could pass, even with a majority in Congress. This follows decades of complacency from Democrats and Republicans as health care, left to free-market devices or lack thereof, grew to consume one-sixth of the economy.

As with almost everything, it is impossible to delineate between the free market (for profit) and the public sector (government) influence over the economy. Since 1966, Medicare has integrated itself as a primary force in health care.

Medicare sets more than half of the rates insurance companies pay to doctors and hospitals. The problem with the Affordable Care Act is not that providers are providing more care to people who did not have it before, but that insurance companies are balking because of profits.

Remember, however, that during negotiations leading up to the ACA’s passage, insurers were whining that a government-sponsored, single-payer system, competing with private insurance, would put them out of business.

Payers now desire to have their cake and eat it, too. They are the reason Obamacare has problems. Expansion of the overly demonized form of “socialized medicine” we call Medicare (single-payer) is looking more like the solution.

This story was originally published April 10, 2017 at 5:03 PM with the headline "Expand Medicare."