The economists propose taxing long-term capital gains as ordinary income.
Individuals would save by not having to buy health insurance and businesses' costs for employee insurance would be reduced. Studies also have shown that overhead and administrative costs for Medicare are below that of private insurance companies.
Using these standards, the researchers found that the net costs of health care for middle-income families would fall by between 2.6 and 14 percent of income. For high-income families health care costs will rise, but only to an average of 3.7 percent of income for those in the top 20 percent income group, and to 4.7 percent of income for the top 5 percent.
Based on 2017 health care expenditures, the cumulative savings for the first decade operating under Medicare for All would be $5.1 trillion, equal to 2.1 percent of cumulative GDP, without accounting for broader macroeconomic benefits such as increased productivity, greater income equality and net job creation through lower operating costs for small- and medium-sized businesses, the research said.
“Middle-income families that now purchase private insurance on the individual market would see their health care costs fall by an average of 14 percent under Medicare for All,” said Jeannette Wicks-Lim, co-author of the report and associate research professor at the institute.
“Medicare for All promises a system that is fairer, more efficient, and vastly less expensive than America’s bloated, monopolized, over-priced and under-performing private health insurance system,” said economist and public policy expert Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University. “America spends far more on health care and gets far less for its money than any other high-income country.”
The report can be found here.