A Koch-funded think tank tries hard to pretend it didn't find savings from Sanders' Medicare Plan

By MICHAEL HILTZIK
AUG 22, 2018 | 6:30 AM

Excerpts:

What’s overlooked in all these cavils about Sanders’ crowing about Blahous’ finding is that the champion cherry-picker in the discussion is Charles Blahous. The cherry he picks is the cost of Medicare for All to the federal government, and he fills a bushel basket with his harvest. “Paying for every American’s healthcare expenses would increase federal spending by $32.6 trillion over the first decade,” he writes. “Even if Congress were to double what it collects in individual and corporate income taxes, there still wouldn’t be enough money added to the federal coffers to finance the costs of this plan.”

Notice what he did there? He pretended that the only economic effect of the plan would be to drive up government spending, without netting out the savings reaped by businesses and individuals by eliminating premiums, deductibles and co-pays. Nor does he factor in the value to individuals and society of the expanded services advocated by Sanders. Sure, giving everyone dental and vision coverage will cost money. But in return, everyone gets dental and vision care. Isn’t that a positive?

In other words, Blahous counted all the increases in costs and attributed them all to the government, without placing his government spending figures in the context of the reduced spending by individuals and businesses or the gains in health services. That’s some world-class cherry-picking right there.


So, sure, let’s acknowledge that Sanders built his Medicare for All plan on a foundation of assumptions about costs and savings. But Blahous built his attack on a foundation of assumptions about costs and savings, just a different foundation. To declare his assumptions credible and Sanders’ not is to give up the fight for universal healthcare before the bugle is even blown. That’s what Blahous was hoping for, and no one should let him get away with it.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-blahous-sanders-20180822-story.html

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