Total National Health Expenditure (in billions) National Health Expenditure Accounts, 2019 (Status Quo) Health Care Spending, 2019 (in Billions) Spending Category While the 1.8 percent increase is a relatively small change in national spending, the federal government’s health care spending would increase substantially, rising from $1.09 trillion to $3.50 trillion, an increase of 221 percent. If there were no supply constraint, we estimate that total health expenditures would increase by 9.8 percent to $4.20 trillion. We also include a supply constraint that results in unmet demand equal to 50 percent of the new demand. This estimate accounts for a variety of factors including increased demand for health services, changes in payment and prices, and lower administrative costs.
We estimate that total health expenditures under a Medicare for All plan that provides comprehensive coverage and long-term care benefits would be $3.89 trillion in 2019 (assuming such a plan was in place for all of the year), or a 1.8 percent increase relative to expenditures under current law. We did not model a Medicare for All plan using a microsimulation approach rather, we estimated aggregate changes to health spending that might occur under the plan by applying adjustments based on our previous work. Pramila Jayapal (Medicare for All Congressional Caucus, 2019). The approach is similar to national single-payer health care proposals that have been discussed in Congress, including a recent plan sponsored by Rep. In this research report, we extrapolate from our previous single-payer research, including the work mentioned above, to estimate the effects of a national single-payer health plan (often referred to as Medicare for All) that would provide comprehensive health care coverage to the population nationwide, including long-term care benefits and no cost sharing. 1782, 113 th Congress) in the course of completing her dissertation at the Pardee RAND Graduate School (Liu, 2016). Bernie Sanders for a national single-payer plan (S.
In 2016, co-author Jodi Liu also analyzed a previous proposal by Sen. The RAND study assessed how the plan would affect several outcomes, including health care spending. In 2018, RAND conducted a study for the New York State Health Foundation (NYSHealth) to understand the impacts of the comprehensive single-payer health plan (the New York State Health Act-NYHA) being considered by the New York state legislature (Liu et al., 2018). Supporters of a "Medicare for All" plan gather on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., September 13, 2017