Thread by @awgaffney

Very excited to see the re-introduction today of the House Medicare-for-All bill by @RepJayapal and @RepDebDingell — with a majority of House Democrats signed on as co-sponsors.

Medicare for All remains the reform we need today, for multiple reasons:

washingtonpost.com/health/2021/03…

1. Medicare-for-All would rapidly achieve 100% population coverage, at a time when uninsurance rates are on the rise. Numerous studies have demonstrated that lack of health coverage is not only financially ruinous — it can be deadly. We need a reform that covers us *all*.

2. Equally important, this bill would eliminate all copays and deductibles. These payments cause kids with asthma to forgo their inhalers, and women with breast cancer to put off chemotherapy (really). A recent study found that they, too, are deadly. And they are unnecessary.

3. But to cover everyone, and expand coverage for everyone else, we also need savings. Medicare for All can deliver them. As the CBO recently found, reducing private insurers' wasteful bureaucracy via M4A would save $400 billion annually *alone*

healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hbl…

4. This bill, however, does more. By paying hospitals & other institutional providers lump sum global budgets (which could not be realized as profit), it would dramatically slash providers' administrative costs while reforming the provision of care away from profit-orientation.

5. And by separately financing healthcare capital expenditures, the bill would we have healthcare infrastructure (including reserve capacity in times of pandemics and other disasters) where communities *need it*, not merely where it is profitable.

Medicare for All cannot wait — and it's great to see this bill re-introduced in the floor.

Worth noting as well that @FrankPallone is also a co-sponsor on this bill — and has promised to hold hearings on the bill in the Energy and Commerce committee.