 So this week the House Oversight Committee held a hearing on Medicare for all now this to me as a long-time advocate for Medicare for all was really encouraging to see it's bittersweet in the sense that I know that we're not close to actually Codifying Medicare for all into law, but the fact that there's still momentum is Really important because it doesn't matter what the political situation is We need to continually push in this direction because Medicare for all is Objectively the correct policy in the United States now There were a number of progressives that spoke at this hearing and we'll get to what they said But I've got a point to Katie Porter She broke out the whiteboard and as usual she makes a brilliant case for Medicare for all now What she chooses to focus on is the benefits to Savings specifically when it comes to administrative costs and I know about this argument This isn't new news to me But the way that she presents it predictably is phenomenal take a look We heard today about the cost of Medicare for all But there's a cost to letting insurers paperwork Patients and providers to death and that cost of inaction is two hundred billion dollars on administrative costs now Administrative costs waste money, but they also waste healthcare workers time a recent study found that a majority of doctors 56% support a single-payer health care program Why because today doctors spend only one quarter of their time with patients. What are they doing with the rest of their time paperwork? 90 and I want to also I want to add Not only would 50 to 56% of doctors support Medicare for all but patients would have the most choice under Medicare for all The health insurance coverage with the biggest network is Medicare No private insurance comes close 99% of pediatric non pediatric doctors participate in Medicare So I want to recap Medicare for all would save Admini on administrative costs two hundred billion a year Medicare for all would give patients the most choices 99% of non pediatric providers and Medicare would let doctors practice medicine not surprisingly given these three things What do we get with Medicare for all? better health outcomes and that's why I support Medicare for all because I support patients over paperwork Now these are things that I don't think most Americans know about they don't know that doctors spend more time doing paperwork than they spend time with Patients and when you put this in front of people when they know the details they support Medicare for all There was a point in time where Medicare for all had majority support in fact Democratic Party primary voters in 2020 They agreed with Bernie Sanders on the policy substance over Joe Biden But because the media told them that Joe Biden was more electable they sided with him They made a strategic choice in their views rather than voting based sincerely on what they want from a policy standpoint So Americans already know this is the logical choice and when it comes to networks I mean how many people have stories about someone that they knew who was rushed to the hospital They took an ambulance and they went to a hospital that was out of network. Well, just because it's out of network Well, you get a gigantic medical bill because your insurance company will not provide that or won't pay for that But with Medicare for all you don't think about these things It's just free at the point of service. If you're in America you go to the doctor and it's paid for you Don't have to worry about the paperwork. You don't have to worry about the bill Medicare is gonna be the one that is the sole Insurer, they're the single payer and that's why this makes sense now Katie Porter goes on and she explained specifically why there is more savings when it comes to Medicare compared to private insurance companies And this in my opinion was really important Dr. Collins, what percentage of revenue do private insurance companies spend on administrative costs? You know between about 17 to 18 percent of spending in private insurance plan So if I pay my insurance company 100 dollars one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen Seventeen dollars go to administrative costs. What about Medicare? What do they spend on administrative costs? You know that range is about you know three to five three to five percent three to five three to five percent About three to five percent Right here, and if we look at just billing costs just billing and insurance costs Medicare is that one percent? Wait private companies spend 17 times more on administrative costs than Medicare. What are private insurance companies spending on that Medicare is not? Does Medicare spend hundreds of millions of dollars on television advertisements like private insurance does? Dr. Collins No, does Medicare spend millions of dollars on stock buybacks to shareholders? No Does Medicare spend money on marketing private insurance likes to put its name on stadiums and PGA tournaments Is there a Medicare arena? No, does Medicare spend twenty three million dollars on executive pay like private insurance companies do? No, we know how much it costs to run a high quality health insurance program One dollar out of a hundred dollars research shows that Medicare spends 1.1% on administrative costs we spend four trillion dollars on health care every year We could save two hundred billion dollars on administrative costs with Medicare for all and those Savings they could go to expand Medicare We could spend that money to let patients see dentists We could let that money let patients pay for hearing aids to help older adults afford eyeglasses To bring down the cost of prescription drugs to finally pay mental health professionals for the work they do Instead all this money is wasted. We're not talking about paying to keep the lights on and operating rooms We're improving the quality of care all this money is used to through pay big insurance to push paper It's death by 200 billion paper cuts the way that she makes these presentations is just second to none She really is a skilled order. I love this. So yeah, these things make sense Medicare isn't spending Billions and billions and billions on administrative costs because they're not doing stock buybacks Medicare They're not paying for advertising This is something that is a service that is provided to citizens, right? They're not looking at profits They're just providing a service whereas these private insurance companies the goal isn't to provide people with insurance and health care The goal is to make money the goal Specifically is to increase shareholder value and that's why private insurance is so broken because if you have that profit incentive and The industry of health care it perverts the entire thing in health care The number one goal should be caring for people in saving lives, but because we have a disgusting For-profit health insurance system with private insurance companies ruling everything That's not the way that things happen And so there was a study that was released just before the pandemic that showed that if we had Medicare for all Not only would it save billions and billions hundreds of billions in administrative costs as Katie Porter pointed out there But it would also save 68,000 lives and so you can make the case that Medicare for all is a small tax cut for businesses because if they don't have to You know provide their employees with health insurance That's more money that they could spend, you know growing their business There's a lot of ways that you could pitch Medicare for all administrative cost savings as Katie Porter did but to me saving tens and Thousands of lives every single year is reason enough to move to Medicare for all Immediately no other lawmakers pitched Medicare for all and they did so in a number of ways And I want to get to kind of just the general summary of the way that they described Needing Medicare for all so this is from Brett Wilkins of common dreams who explains Representative Cory Bush who chaired the House Oversight Committee hearing said that Americans deserve a health care system that guarantees health and medical services to all Congress must implement a system that prioritizes people over profits Humanity over greed and compassion over exploitation Bush a former Black Lives Matter organizer continued the systemic racism Perpetuating health inequities cannot be overstated black women are three to four times more likely to die during childbirth We are more likely to have rates of asthma and cancer from generations living next to pollution centers We are more likely to have foregone routine screenings and medical appointments for a real fear of having our pain dismissed That's why my colleagues and I are coming through in force for our first Medicare for all hearing since the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic she added this policy will save lives. I want to make that clear I hope this hearing will be one more step forward in our commitment to ensuring everyone in this country and Particularly our black brown and indigenous communities have the medical care They need to thrive Representative Rashida Tlaib noted that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed just how broken the health care system is in our country Millions of people across the country know that passing Medicare for all is long overdue. She added in the richest country Our residents should not face financial ruin Continue to be sick or even die because they lack adequate coverage and care We need Medicare for all now and we will not stop fighting until we have it This hearing ignites the reality that we must act now all excellent points And there were more progressive lawmakers that made really fantastic points also adi barken Responded to this hearing talking about how it's absurd that in the richest country on the planet We have to resort to go fund me to pay for our medical bills when every other developed country has health care free at the point of service So why haven't we done that yet? It's not because we can't afford it It's because there's a lack of political will and more importantly There's overt corruption in this country where private insurance companies They pay politicians to maintain this broken system because they want to profit off of it So, you know in the near future, I don't see Medicare for all being a thing But the momentum that we have for Medicare for all is Encouraging to see it's going to be very difficult. I mean Joe Biden He ran on a public option and he hasn't brought up health care Basically at all since he's been president. So if we can't even get a public option When are we ever gonna get Medicare for all and I think that if we continue to push in this direction Vosiferously make the case for Medicare for all It's an arguable the American people agree with us And so just because it's politically infeasible currently doesn't mean that we shouldn't push for it This is objectively the right policy other countries our neighbor north of the border on Canada They've proven to us that this is the right policy We just have to push because it's a really easy case to make Americans understand that health health care being free The point of service is a no-brainer So it's just a matter of electing the right politicians who aren't corrupted that agree with this common sense position So kudos to everyone who spoke at this hearing and a special shout out to Katie Porter who once again Whenever she pulls out the whiteboard makes a phenomenal point And you know, she's someone who's very persuasive suffer her to be an ally to this fight is really encouraging to see and yet We just have to keep pushing even though currently, you know, it's easy to get bogged down It's easy to feel hopeless But there are millions of Americans in this country who agree that Medicare for all is the only Solution to this broken health care system So keep that in mind know that we're winning the rhetorical battle now We just have to win the political fight that's ahead of us Which is going to be admittedly difficult and seemingly insurmountable But we can do it in every single developed country who has some form of universal health care where it's free at the point of service It wasn't an easy battle. This is a difficult political fight But as long as we keep going and we don't give up I think that it is possible in the future. Maybe not in the near future, but it is possible