Some Democratic candidates are pushing it as a free-choice version of Medicare for All. That's good rhetoric but bad policy.

http://www.thenation.com/artic...health-care-medicare/

In our essay we describe how the appealing rhetoric of competition and choice is being wielded to protect the greed and waste of private insurance. We call attention to the record of the Medicare Advantage program, a working model of the public options approach. Despite having overhead costs almost seven times that of traditional Medicare, private Medicare Advantage plans have been able to reap enormous profits by "cherry picking" the healthiest (i.e., most profitable) seniors, "lemon dropping" the sickest (and most expensive) ones, and extracting higher premiums from Medicare by exaggerating their enrollees' illnesses through upcoding. A similarly designed public option would become a de facto high-risk pool, attracting high-need enrollees while leaving younger and healthier enrollees on private insurance.

Moreover, a public option wouldn't reduce provider and hospital administrative costs. Only a true single-payer system could fund hospitals and other facilities through annual global budgets - similar to the way cities fund fire departments - and eliminate wasteful per-patient billing. And only a single-payer system could save billions more by negotiating with pharmaceutical and device manufacturers on a national scale.

We must redouble our efforts to educate our colleagues and communities about the need for real single-payer Medicare for All. Please consider sharing this article with friends and colleagues. And remind your elected officials that only single-payer Medicare for All can achieve the efficiency and cost savings that are essential for universal care.

Onward,

Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H., and David Himmelstein, M.D.
PNHP co-founders

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“It is the heart of US policy to use fascism to preserve capitalism while claiming to be saving democracy from communism “ - Michael Parenti