The Center for American Progress’s new “Medicare Extra for All” proposal is a repackaged version of the congressional Democrats’ 2009’s “public option” proposal. It imagines that large savings can be generated by extending Medicare’s price controls for hospital care, beyond the elderly and disabled, to the purchase of hospital care for other patients. Individuals and employers would be allowed to buy into the system, to take advantage of these discounted rates. Yet, the monopoly power which has inflated prices for hospital care provided to privately funded patients is a deliberate product of policy, intended to sustain the solvency of hospitals in counties across the United States, which would be unviable in a competitive market.
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