The Samaritan newsletter this month has some great articles I would encourage you to read. The issue of Medicare for All is very frightening to me. Samaritan addresses the problems with many of the myths associated with this idea, not the least of which is physician wait times. It’s already taking far too long to see a doctor is many parts of the country and that will only get worse under the Medicare for All scenario.

Electronic health records were supposed to be the saving grace for efficiency and make health care so much better. Instead it turned into a digital nightmare. Doctors spend more time working with poorly coded software than they do seeing patients, for some their patient time was cut by more than half. This contributes to longer and longer doctor wait times and will not be better if Medicare is the new norm.

Those who love the idea of a nationalized health system deliberately leave out just how much taxes will go up. The government paying for something doesn’t make it free. Where does that money come from? It comes from the people. From us. The only way to do that is with higher taxes. Medical staff don’t work for free. Covering the costs of putting everyone on medicare will be astronomically expensive.

To read more about this please review the blog post Samaritan wrote and reference the book by Sally Pipes, The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care.