The Bern, the Buffoon, and Health Care

Thursday, February 11, 2016 | 0

Well, I never thought I’d be writing about the healthcare plans of Bernie Sanders (!!) and Donald Trump (double !!) as the leading candidates for president.

Joe Paduda

And I won’t write about Trump – partially because he has no coherent plan and mostly because he is an insufferable egomaniac who will never become president.

Bernie’s single payer plan is, well, a pipe dream. He wants to drastically raise taxes on high earners and others to pay for a no-deductible, no-copay health insurance plan. There are about a gazillion reasons Bernie’s plan is just nonsense, to wit:

• it is completely unaffordable,
• would require every insurance, pharma, health care, and provider group to blow up their business and start from scratch,
• overrule every state, local, and federal, law and regulation about health care, every union labor agreement, every insurance policy and regulation, and it is
• completely impractical and impossible to implement.

Other than that…

Please don’t take this as a slam against Bernie. I love the guy – his passion, his views on big business (well, most of them), his railing against corrupt government-business relations and advocacy for the middle class are long overdue and very welcome.

For a more erudite take on the Sanders plan, read Charles Gaba.

Joe Paduda is the principal of Health Strategy Associates. He writes the blog Managed Care Matters.