Sure, Charlie Baker has a vested interest not to have a Medicare for all or single-payer system adopted. But what he says makes sense, and I wonder myself why some physicians (*cough*PNHP*cough*) have such blind faith that the government won’t take a hatchet to the medical profession in the name of saving money.
Governments have consistently shown their stripes in these times of budget shortfalls, repeatedly cutting physician and hospital payments despite the fact that this will obviously lead to higher costs down the road:
In Massachusetts, the state is not only cutting Medicaid payments prospectively – it’s cutting Medicaid payments for some providers retrospectively – simply choosing not to make payments to them they had planned on and expected.I must say, each time this happens, I can’t help but wonder if the hospital operators and physician leaders who think a single payer like Medicare For All is a good idea ever stop to think about how these agencies deal with their financial problems. When they have a problem, they unilaterally whack their provider community hard – in ways private sector payers would never consider.
If there was only one payer, we will be slaves to their arbitrary payment cuts. There will be no recourse. We can’t “drop” our only payer, like we can now with Medicare and Medicaid.
And tell me how is that better than what we have now.
