Medicare For All: An Analysis Of Key Policy Issues

Medicare for All has emerged as a major topic in the national health reform debate. A clear understanding of the policy issues raised by Medicare for All would benefit both public discussion and policy design. In this article we identify key policy design issues for a Medicare for All system: comprehensiveness of coverage, the private sector’s role, the payment approach, and financing. We analyze policy options within these domains and show that the Medicare for All bills under consideration in the 116th Congress propose a comprehensive benefit structure with a limited role for supplementary private insurance. We suggest that Medicare for All could adopt payment rates between existing Medicare rates and the average all-payer rate, or it could implement global payment starting at a level similar to current spending. We propose a financing framework that includes repurposing existing public funds, redirecting private health care spending to public spending, and implementing a mix of progressive taxes to replace the regressive financing of private insurance.