Letter to the Editor: If you support the free market, then ‘Medicare for All’ is too extreme
One thing that continues to baffle me is the high levels of support that ‘Medicare for All’ receives among Republicans. Real Clear Politics has found that ‘Medicare for All’ polls as high as 55%, even after voters are alerted it means abolishing private insurance. This number has fluctuated as high as 70% in some polls. Obviously, healthcare is a huge priority for Americans. I get it; it affects everyone, and healthcare can be RIDICULOUSLY expensive. I’m for reforming healthcare also, just in a less radical way.
I look at healthcare, and I see a commonsense change that could improve the system immediately. I can’t lie to you and say that healthcare is a free market. One of the most important factors in creating a free market is price transparency, or consumers being able to see and compare prices. Anyone who has been to the hospital recently knows that the last thing on Earth you will receive during your stay is an itemized bill. Big-Pharma is acting like an aggressive oligopoly; they hide prices so they can actively gouge people who can’t avoid the bill.
Wouldn’t making this change, before signing up for a policy that Bernie admits he doesn’t have a price tag for, make sense? If the system must burn, then so be it. Before I send my hard-earned dollars off to Uncle Sam, however, I would like to know that we did what we could to make the old system work.