Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar rebuffed the idea of Medicare for all, describing the phrase as a “misnomer,” according to The Hill.
“When you drill down into the details, it’s clear that Medicare for all is a misnomer,” Azar said during a speech in Nashville, Tennessee on Thursday. “What’s really being proposed is a single government system for every American that won’t resemble Medicare at all.”
He added that “Under the [Affordable Care Act], you were promised that if you liked your plan, you could keep your plan, and if you liked your doctor, you could keep your doctor. But under Medicare for all, no one’s even promising that you can keep your plan, or keep your doctor.”
The secretary said that increasing the scope of Medicare would “undermine the security and access seniors currently enjoy, come at a staggering cost to taxpayers, and ignore what seniors are showing they want from Medicare today.”
He also claimed that Medicare for all would cost an estimated $32 trillion over 10 years.
“Today, 28 percent of federal spending is on healthcare. Under 'Medicare for all,' in 2022, 58 percent of the federal budget would be devoted to healthcare — dwarfing what any other major industrialized country spends,” Azar said. “Try fitting the Pentagon, Social Security, and every other federal program into that remaining 42 percent — just see how that goes.”
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