Would Medicare For All cause millions of people to lose their jobs?
And would those lost jobs disproportionately affect women? Even worse, low-income women?
From Bernie’s Sept. 13, 2017, editorial in the New York Times titled, ‘Why We Need Medicare For All’:
The reason that our health care system is so outrageously expensive is that it is not designed to provide quality care to all in a cost-effective way, but to provide huge profits to the medical-industrial complex. Layers of bureaucracy associated with the administration of hundreds of individual and complicated insurance plans is stunningly wasteful, costing us hundreds of billions of dollars a year. As the only major country not to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry, we spend tens of billions more than we should.
Few, if any, dispute that.
But, if you are looking to attack Bernie’s MFA plan, how about this angle?
Last week Monica Potts wrote for Vice that Bernie’s plan would kill jobs held by women:
Last week, when Bernie Sanders unveiled his new plan for single-payer healthcare in America, one of the biggest sins he laid at the feet of the insurance industry was its wastefulness.
Ok, so far so good. But, what’s this?
But all of that bloated spending does something else single-payer fans would do well to grapple with: It creates jobs. Often, these are good jobs, especially for people with a modest education. And what happens to those people—who are mostly women—is something Democrats and progressives need to get a handle on if single-payer is ever going to get real traction in Washington.
Uh oh, doesn’t Bernie care about the lost jobs? Doesn’t Bernie care about women?!
from a 30,000 foot perspective, it seems well and good that wasteful jobs are killed off if economic energy is better spent elsewhere, a kind of creative destruction with a progressive bent.
Well, that doesn’t sound good, right?
Yesterday, Jacobin published a piece by Matt Bruenig that pushed back on Ms. Potts’ assertions:
Implementing Medicare for All would cause some job loss. But it would be more manageable than you might think.
Matt begins his rebuttal to MFA’s critics, like Monica Potts, by laying out how many people separated from their jobs last year:
In 2016, 60 million people separated from their job at some point during the year. That is equal to 42 percent of the American workforce.
Of those 60 million people, “20 million people were fired from their job, representing around 14 percent of the total US workforce.”
Although it is hard to come up with a precise estimate, the likely number of jobs made redundant by the switch is a few hundred thousand over the course of a few years, in a country where 1.6 million people are dismissed from their jobs every single month.
Matt goes on to highlight how Rep. John Conyer’s HR 676 addresses those job losses:
(e) First Priority In Retraining And Job Placement; 2 Years Of Salary Parity Benefits.—The Program shall provide that clerical, administrative, and billing personnel in insurance companies, doctors offices, hospitals, nursing facilities, and other facilities whose jobs are eliminated due to reduced administration—
(1) should have first priority in retraining and job placement in the new system; and
(2) shall be eligible to receive two years of Medicare For All employment transition benefits with each year’s benefit equal to salary earned during the last 12 months of employment, but shall not exceed $100,000 per year.
Phew, maybe Medicare For All might not be so disruptive to millions of low-income women after all?
Maybe MFA won’t ‘kill’ the jobs of so many of the Democratic base?
Maybe we should take care to implement MFA wisely, follow Rep. John Conyers’ lead, and make sure we take care of those negatively affected?
I think it’s way past time that we try.
My wife has been enduring the effects of the retail apocalypse since 2007. She has over 30 years of retail management experience and, since 2007, she’s lost five jobs. Not for incompetence but for bankruptcies and store closures. She now makes less than what she did ten years ago. Funny how you don’t hear Ms. Potts or even the Retail Federation screaming bloody murder over the thousands of jobs lost in that sector. Income inequality is killing what’s left of the middle class. It’s the worst divide since the 1870’s. Heck, even Citibank claims we are experiencing the worst income inequality since 15th century Spain! Simply put, if we ever wake up and stop subsidizing the rich and their corporations, higher incomes will result in more jobs. This is NOT a tax issue but a moral issue.
I know this thread is supposed to be about job losses in the insurance industry but the same economic rules apply. The insurance industry is a major outsourcer to begin with. Most claims are adjudicated electronically and the ones needing review then drop to examiners in India. In my opinion, Medicare for all would result in a NEED for a domestic insurance workforce for all those newly insured patients. Sure, insurance company executives would be in less demand but the insurance workforce wouldn’t be as hard hit as it’s enablers claim.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply SparkyGump. I totally agree with you.
I worked in corporate retail (HQ) for almost 14 years, for two companies. Was laid off both times as the companies were either overwhelmed by The Borg (big box stores) and liquidated, or absorbed into The Borg. The trend toward big box stores and online shopping has left a lot of companies/people behind. I feel your wife’s pain.
But you’re right, where are the critics of this? We are simply told to adapt to the new normal.
Employees are expected to accept that the job they have today may be gone tomorrow. Oh well. C’est la vie. Did you think you’d be able to keep your half-decent job forever? How old-fashioned of you to expect a living wage for your expertise and hard work when someone down south, then from down south to overseas, will do it for lower wages.
Then there’s the way companies move their offices on a dime, often because a different state made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Tax credits, forgivable loans in exchange for jobs (that often never materialize), lower, if any, income tax rates.
Hey, that’s capitalism they say! More profits for the company’s bottom line and less tax revenue for BOTH states involved usually. That lost tax revenue must then be made up by the residents in the form of higher sales taxes and/or higher property tax rates. Which means less buying power for the people, which means less local businesses can survive, and on and on. A downward spiral while top executives get fat bonuses for improving the bottom line of the company who got the sweet deal. Ignore all the destruction left in their wake.
It’s unsustainable. And it must be addressed.
Medicare For All would lower health care costs, which would leave more money in people’s pockets to put into the economy, which would create demand and jobs.
Everything is connected. That is why I wrote about repatriation. Repatriation is just another way to consolidate the wealth at the top which is pretty much the last thing this country needs right now. Repatriation will contribute to the inequality. It’s not healthy for our society.
Capitalism needs to grow a socialist conscience. We’re not just workers and consumers, we’re humans who deserve dignity no matter what the elites think.
I believe pure capitalism will eat itself to death, capitalism needs some socialism and govt to keep it in check from eating itself to death.
Truth.
Unchecked capitalism is sure to consume itself when there’s nothing left to consume!
Socialists understand that our resources are not bottomless. Rapaciousness is not that way to go.
You sound like a really good person SparkyGump. Am glad to know you.
Yes, we humans are very much imperfect, but we’re not just consumer units, or whatever. I hope our society, our culture, learns to appreciate each of our unique voices and experience as valuable threads in the fabric of history.
Thank you very much. Right back at you.
The company I work for is a contractor for a government contract for medicare/Medicaid claims processing, converting paper forms into digital records for billing, archiving, doctors use, government spy lists, whatever…. A massive influx of medicare patients would mean we would have to hire a whole bunch of people to handle the claims volume so that all the new doctors/nurses/etc who have endless people to treat can get reimbursed for their services.
Cool! I hope Bernie’s team knows about these things. Sometimes I wonder….
I hear ya pb! I’d like to think that the smartest, coolest, most savvy, most compassionate and perceptive people work for “Bernie’s team”. You know, people like us! lol.
But sometimes I too wonder. I think that perhaps he could do better choosing the people who surround him.
Although he did kick butt re: social media last year.
I hope someone near him keeps feeding him good sales tips/points to help him sell MFA.
that makes me feel better.
I’m hoping since the infrastructure is in place for medicare that the template is in place to handle more patients, it would be a matter of hiring more people to handle the billings etc. Bernie said this would go in at phases. So if the insurance companies shed jobs over MFA their will be people looking for new jobs with experience and time to train people as well for these jobs.
Absolutely. Phases, benchmarks, constant review and adjustments as needed. As many foreseeable outcomes being planned for in advance. The most important one being to help anyone adversely affected. John Conyers’ plan seems like a good place to start, imo. From HR 676 text Sec. 303. (e):
The insurance execs will yell and scream the whole way, but it’ll be a time for resolve, I think. Something that just has to happen because it’s time.
“government spy lists”? 😉
I was told yesterday that we don’t have enough doctors or specialists to handle MFA. Sigh.
So for those who can afford to go to doctors rn it’s screw you to everyone else? I’ve got mine and tough luck for you?
Not to mention the sort of thing you brought up, that the increased demand for h/c services would actually create job opportunities!
lol, in these day and ages Im sure anything that is digitized goes into a government file on you somewhere. ESPECIALLY medical records.
Lol, sometimes I think that’s one of the few upsides to my not having been to a doctor for so many years. They’ve got less on me! haha
But I more than make up for that by laying it all out there online.
You know that saying about no more f__ks to give?
Yah, that one.
Although I wasn’t too happy to hear Trump’s new rules on immigrants and permanent residents having to hand over:
Search results??
I might have to do a post on that. I haven’t heard a peep from almost anyone about it and it’s one of those slippery slope things. First they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out, kind of thing.
ACLU will step in any minute, i’m thinking.
On that kind of thing just once I wish they would start with the 35% or so of those who think Trumpcorp can do no wrong.
Trumpcorps do seen entrenched, hard to reach. I wonder if it’s at least partly a kind of defense mechanism. They feel like they’re under attack. For sure certain media sources have tried their best to convince them of that.
Wow. Good to know they are already planning. How about a Green Energy Marshall Plan? pretty please?
Wow, would that EVER be a good idea!!!
I can envision a transition of weapons manufacturers to green energy products quite clearly. How much different could it be to develop/manufacture Sikorsky’s helicopter blades, for example, compared to wind turbine blades?
Yeah, i guess that would go more to the defense side. So, for all the medical billers, paper pushers, digital insurance stuff? Some of them would still be needed for an energy push, some could go to MFA.
Well, actually, the sky is the limit is we really put our money into helping people everywhere–we could use lots of help. Some of them could probably be doctors, since we don’t have enough. :O)
Puerto Rico could use that type plan just to rebuild as well.