In Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District, Republican candidate Denver Riggleman and Democratic candidate Leslie Cockburn went head-to-head in a debate last night, discussing everything from President Trump, to the economy, to laws surrounding firearms. Though, the main point during the debate centered on the state of the U.S. healthcare system and how people pay for care.
For over an hour, as reported by NBC 29, Riggleman and Cockburn sparred on the topic of healthcare. Cockburn pledged her support for a single-payer, “Medicare for All” healthcare system. In her explanation of the proposed system, the author and journalist cited Canada and Germany, two countries which operate with a single-payer system, as a prime example of the plan, with her saying that people in those countries pay half of the cost compared to the U.S. healthcare system.
During the exchange of viewpoints, the debate moderator asked Cockburn: “What if I have employer-provided heath insurance, and I like it?”
Cockburn replied: “First of all, you would, definitely, in any of these proposals, and there are several of them, you would be able to keep your employer insurance on the exchange.”
We’ve heard this one before. We all know how it turned out.
Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), many people liked their insurance plan and their doctor, but they could not keep their insurance plan or their doctor…period.
Medicare for All, or M4A, a plan championed by Bernie Sanders, will cost $32.6 trillion, all paid for by taxpayer dollars.
A study conducted by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, “The Costs of a National Single-Payer Healthcare System,” found that plan would, under conservative estimates, increase federal budget commitments by the above amount during its first 10 years of full implementation, 2022 through 2031, assuming enactment in 2018. The projected increase in federal healthcare spending would equal approximately 10.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2022, rising to nearly 12.7 percent of GDP in 2031, and further thereafter.
Riggleman countered her point with a prediction that Medicare would become bankrupt by 2025, adding that people should be able to choose their own care, not the federal government.
“It’s cruel and unusual punishment to think the government can take care of everyone’s healthcare,” Riggleman said.