Sen. Gardner, your response regarding health care financing is wrong. The creation of multiple, smaller risk pools is the most costly, economically unsound health care financing there is.
A single large risk pool, i.e., medicare-for-all, is the most economically and actuarially sound health financing, preventing all high-risk insured individuals from being forced into one small risk pool, bound to be overwhelmed by costs.
Only a large single-risk pool insurer has the economy of scale to negotiate global budgets and bulk rates for pharmaceuticals and medical equipment. Mischaracerization of medicare-for-all as “socialized medicine” is wrong. It is single financing for private and public providers – not like the Veterans Administration or England, where providers are hospital employees.
People want full choice of providers – available only with Medicare – not a choice of fragmented multi-payer health insurances that continually drive up costs and cut benefits, while shrinking provider networks, to benefit insurers’ bottom lines.
We need medicare-for-all!
Michele Swenson
Denver