What really is "Medicare For All"?

"Medicare For All" is a controversial healthcare plan which would guarantee that every American has access to healthcare. This would happen by creating a national health insurance program. The insurance would cover a plethora of things that many insurances don't cover such as substance abuse treatment and mental health services. The program would have no deductibles, surprise bills, co-pays, premiums, and networks. On top of all of this, no prescriptions would cost over $200 annually.

How will "Medicare For All" happen?

America is one of the only countries that doesn't negotiate drug prices. If elected, Bernie Sanders would enact the "Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Act." This will allow Medicare to negotiate the drug prices with Big Pharma to ensure that every American has access to affordable prescriptions. As well, there will be the "Affordable and Safe Perscription Drug Importation Act." This will allow not only pharmaceutical companies and wholesalers to buy cheap prescriptions from places like Canada, but also patients. Lastly, there will be the "Prescription Drug Price Relief Act." America would take the median prescription drug prices from "five major countries: Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan," and utilize those numbers as a base number for our drug prices.

How will it be paid for?

There are numerous ways Bernie Sanders has proposed to pay for "Medicare For All." One of the more controversial and realistic ones would be taxing people a ton of money. There really is no such thing as "free," and usually when one thing becomes cheaper, something else becomes a lot more expensive to compensate. In this case, Americans will be getting affordable healthcare, but that would only be because they were making up for it in their taxes.

Here is a breakdown of the tax program for a married couple, who is filing jointly, making $250,001. After standard deduction, which is $24,400.00 would leave $225,601.00 to tax. The taxable income would take away $42,723.24 as well as an extra $9,024.04 for Bernie's Healthcare plan. This would leave the family with $198,253.72 disposable income. Whereas under the current plan, this same couple would have been left with $202,000.76 of disposable income. That is a $3,747.04 more the family would pay annually for Medicare For All than under the current tax program. While on the surface that number may not seem like a lot, that to many families could mean they would have to skip out on a family vacation, buying that car they wanted, or skipping out on things like going to restaurants.

So is it really affordable healthcare?

It depends on how much a person makes, how they file taxes, and how much their current health insurance is. Use this calculator to see exactly how much you would have to pay in taxes!