Unpacking The Sanders Medicare-For-All Bill

On September 13, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)—with 16 Democratic cosponsors—released the Medicare-For-All Act of 2017, intended to transition the American health care system to a single-payer system. In addition to the bill text, Senator Sanders released an executive summary, title summary, and white paper on financing options. The Act would establish the Universal Medicare Program (UMP) and, in doing so, make sweeping changes to the health care system. Once the UMP went into effect (for children, on January 1 of the first calendar year after the bill is enacted and three years later for adults), most benefits would no longer be available under the traditional Medicare program, the Medicaid program, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The bill would also end the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, the TRICARE program, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces; it would prohibit the sale of private health insurance, employer-sponsored insurance, and retiree coverage if that coverage duplicates payment for any item or service covered under the UMP. (Insurers and employers could still offer coverage of additional benefits that are not covered under the UMP.) The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Indian Health Service would remain intact. Consumers currently enrolled in coverage through the private health insurance market, Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, and Title X family planning services could maintain that coverage until the UMP went i...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Bernie Sanders single payer Source Type: blogs