 Well, Elizabeth Warren released her Medicare for all financing plan and political commentators are weighing in I also released a video about it, but our friend Ben Shapiro also decided to give his take on it and What I love about this clip that I'm gonna show you is he's going to react to something that he clearly knows nothing about and He's going to talk about numbers as if he's never seen them before because health care spending in the US It's astronomical right compared to other countries, but the way that he talks about this. It's as if he's never actually Looked up how much we're already spending on health care So it's evident he doesn't know much about US health care policy in spite of that He's still going to pontificate about a subject that he knows nothing about and proceed to make a complete and utter fool of himself And I'll admit this was thoroughly enjoyable Again her Medicare for all plan is just a perfect window into the the bizarre mind of Elizabeth Warren According to reason.com reason magazine Her plan to finance Medicare for all at a total price tag of nearly 52 trillion dollars Including about 20 trillion dollars of new government spending an estimate that is probably low She keeps saying that she's not going to increase middle-class taxes But that's obviously false for example The the chief trick that she plays when she proposes Medicare for all is that she says that the the Employee-based insurance program so your employer pays in and then you pay in your employer pays and maybe 8% you pay in Maybe 7% and that pays for your health care She's just going to take all of that and turn that into a tax that goes to the federal government That's called the tax now people may say well, it doesn't come out of my bottom line Well, it does because see here's the thing your employer-based health care insurance is actually good Medicare not nearly as good So she's just converting private expenditures into a tax and then not calling it a tax But she refers to it as an employer Medicare contribution. Oh, it's voluntary now Sure, that that that is infect a tax obviously That was basically His head when he saw that 52 trillion cost But you know something that he is conveniently leaving out is that the cost with Medicare for all at 52 trillion That takes into account total health care spending which includes federal state individual private but what he doesn't tell you is that Actually not doing Medicare for all would cost more It would cost more money So Medicare for all is actually cheaper in terms of reducing total Health care spending but before I say that I'll also just add that I also have My issues with the way that Elizabeth Warren funds Medicare for all I prefer a payroll tax As opposed to her regressive head tax without being said though to say that 52 trillion is a type of Shocking statistic or he didn't say it But I mean it was evident and you know with the tone in his voice that this was somehow shocking It goes to show you that he doesn't know what he's talking about So I'm going to be extra kind to Ben Shapiro here And I'm going to argue with statistics that he can't possibly disagree with we're going to cite a Conservative Coke funded Mercatus Center study to demonstrate How much we really are paying for health care in this country? So I want to show you this graph from the brilliant Andrea Whitty of connect the dot USA comm Who shows you just how much we are projected to spend over the next ten years? This is according to an estimate by the Mercatus Center. That is fifty nine point seven Trillion overall if you look at the total on that left bar It's almost 60 trillion. So this estimate that Elizabeth Warren came up with is actually low But to the right of that you can see that moving to Medicare for all single payer will actually reduce overall spending By about two trillion dollars So when we saw all of these headlines about how a coke funded study found that Medicare for all actually saves Two trillion dollars overall. This is what we're looking at overall health spending will be reduced Now there's a number of reasons why this will be the case But a huge share of savings comes from the elimination of administrative costs But you know, that's kind of besides the point what I want you to look at is Federal spending which is the yellow portion of these bars So the federal government is already projected to spend trillions of dollars over the next ten years on health care So regardless if we do Medicare for all or not, we will be spending trillions of dollars on health care Now if we pass Medicare for all what actually changes is the amount of federal spending Versus state private and individual spending. So while federal spending increases State and local and individual and private spending Decreases under a Medicare for all system while overall total health care savings also comes down now You can argue about how long it will take for some of these savings to take effect There's debate about that and that's reasonable But what isn't reasonable is for people like Ben Shapiro to not explain that 52 trillion is less in total health care spending than if we actually keep the status quo So I'm gonna make a prediction over the next week or so since Elizabeth Warren did cite 52.5 trillion as total health care spending a lot of mainstream news outlets Will basically cite that as the cost for Medicare for all without telling you that not doing Medicare for all would cost more if we're looking at total health care spending because again even if we increase federal spending overall health care costs Come down because that administrative savings. It really is important because if you are a hospital and you only have to bill One entity the federal government That's a lot easier, right? You don't have to have legal departments and Individuals that you hire just to do paperwork to file, you know, these these different claims and whatnot for private insurance You don't have to do any of that with single payer So you save a lot of money alone just by doing Medicare for all and doing away with those administrative costs So you're gonna hear people say 52.5 trillion But please acknowledge that what that refers to is total health care spending over the next ten years And that is less with Medicare for all than if we maintained the status quo now getting back to Ben Shapiro's argument here. He also left us with another gem your employer-based health care insurance is actually good Medicare not nearly as good. You're wrong. I mean how out of touch Do you have to be to make a statement like that? You may get good Health insurance through your employer But the problem with that is when you link your health insurance to your employer Your ability to maintain said health insurance will be contingent on your employment with that company So that's an inherently unstable system and it could leave people vulnerable If they have a job change and you could lose your insurance on a whim if your employer decides that they want to Go with a different provider So this takes the health care choices out of your hands Because you are restricted to what your employer wants you're restricted to the network that they want you to have So it's not better and when it comes to Medicare It's largely cited as the most popular social program for a reason But here's the thing what Ben Shapiro isn't telling you is that before we expand Medicare to everyone We are first going to improve it I mean there's a reason why the slogan that you'll see on the posters in Medicare for all protests is Love it improve it Medicare for all because before we expand that we have to improve it Because there's a lot of loopholes that exist in current Medicare Which require people to get supplemental coverage through private insurers that gouge them So what we're trying to do is close all of those loopholes and expand coverage So that way when we actually do roll out Medicare for all and expand it to everyone it will be comprehensive It will actually be sustainable But Ben Shapiro of course, I don't even know what type of health care reform He's in favor of he'd probably say well We just need you know more of the private market and less government Which is incredibly stupid and I don't want to straw man him But I'm assuming if he is a conservative That's what he'd opt for right a more neoliberal approach to health care reform Because that is something that conservatives and corporate Democrats have in agreement but the problem with a private insurance based health care system is You are incentivizing People being ripped off right if you don't take that profit motive out of the equation if you don't decommodify health care Then you're not prioritizing the delivery of health care You're prioritizing profits Which is why we are in the current predicament where we're at right now where millions of people are uninsured and Millions more are under insured they have insurance But they don't realize that it's actually shitty insurance and Unfortunately under the Affordable Care Act premiums are continuing to increase because it actually isn't too affordable after all What is affordable is pretty subjective So what matters is making sure that every single person regardless of their income has access to real health care and not just access to insurance Access to health care meaning it's free at the point of service and if they want to see a doctor They just call their doctor make an appointment and show them their Medicare card. That's it But Ben Shapiro what he argues for is always going to be what's best for the private sector What's best for multinational corporations, right? So it doesn't even matter even if objectively speaking a policy like Medicare for all is better to him Big government is inherently bad So even if we shouldn't theoretically from a moral standpoint even have a health care system that depends on the private sector It doesn't matter what actually delivers the best public policy because he takes a default position of government bad But unfortunately for him that just automatically means that if you don't want government big government will then be replaced by big business So pick your poison. It's one or the other I'd rather opt for big government because at least we can elect who is in control of our government to a degree, right? We may have an oligarchy. We may have special interests drowning out our voices in elections But I don't get to elect who's on the board of etna or on the board of blue cross blue shield But Ben Shapiro he's a hack so in the event the Republican Party came out in favor of Medicare for all He would suddenly change his tune because that's what he does He's playing on a team team Republican team conservatives and he's going to rep their position no matter what and no matter what it is