hypothetical: medicaid and medicare public option

[dairygirl4u2c]

what do you think would happen if the feds opened up a public option with both medicaid and medicare buy in?

medicaid spends a third less than medicare on average for the same procedure. both spend less than private insurance usually.

at least at first there would be people taking the costlier medicare option but more and more people, even those with money would take medicaid. there would be criticism that those without money should be able to buy the expensive one, but to me it'd be fair cause beggars can't be choosers.

there would be some that say there would be an unfair advantage of the government versus the private sector, but if we made the systems have to be self sustaining instead of subsidized, it would at least help alleviate the criticism.

the trade off at first would be the cheaper option between medicare and medicaid would be that you wouldn't have as many doctors to go to if you took the cheaper medicaid. but even i would bet most doctors would begin taking it.

what would happen i would bet is that most people would take medicaid, and most doctors would accept it, and we'd end up with the single payer system we should have had all along. cause private business it goes without saying wouldn't be able to compete.

the main reason single payer countries and such are cheaper is because they regulate medical costs more than we do. if you knocked off a third of our cost it would put us closer to where we should be. a third of eighteen percent of our GDP that we spend on healthcare is around where we should be to get closer to the rest of the world.

doctors and hospitals and medical suppliers and such would have to find a way to work within the limits.

[havok579257]

you can't get medicare until your older for the vast majority of people, so this is pointless.  its not possible.

[Norseman82]

I think what she is referring to is expanding Medicare eligibility to those under age 65 - also known as "Medicare for All". 

As they say, "the devil is in the details".  Sen. Sanders recently proposed a "Medicare for All" that would include vision and dental coverage - two things currently not covered by Medicare - so the cost was estimated to be extremely high.