Republicans love to shoot down the idea of Medicare For All because it takes away the freedom of consumers to shop around and choose the health insurance that best fits their needs. Let’s ignore for the moment that M4A would suit just about everyone’s needs better than just about any private plan available at less cost. Instead, let’s look at how much Americans value the freedom to shop around.
Short answer: Not at all. In fact, they pretty much hate it.
Once a year comes the open enrollment period where people have the opportunity to “shop around” and choose the health plan that suits them best and saves them the most amount of money. Here’s what most people do with that opportunity:
Unfortunately, the vast majority of employees fail to review their insurance benefits at the end of the year. As a result, they choose the same benefits instead of taking time to consider making any changes. This is easily one of the biggest — and costliest — mistakes people make during open enrollment.
In other words, even though they could save substantial amounts of money, most people can’t be bothered. But it’s worse than that.
According to a 2018 report from Aflac, 93% of employees simply stick with the same benefits year after year. In fact, 40% of the 2,000 survey respondents said they would rather do “three hours of hot yoga” or “clean up dog poop” than research their insurance benefits.
As it turns out, a large portion of Americans viscerally loathe this vaunted “freedom to choose”. So much for the #1 Republican talking point about the horrors of single payer.
That 40% number includes only those that most strongly despise the process more than cleaning up dog poop. It doesn’t include people who merely dislike it more than, say, mopping the floor or doing a week’s worth of laundry. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that most of the remaining Americans fall into that category and that precious few people actually like it.
The article contains more about how and why people neglect the opportunity to save money. The main takeaways are that it’s time consuming and confusing. Not that this comes as any surprise.
Let me add something from my own recent experience. I have a Medicare drug plan paid for by my former employer. I just received my annual open enrollment letter.
The letter explained that, unless I already have a creditable drug plan, I will need to pay a penalty if I later decide to sign up for a Medicare plan. It explained that the longer without a creditable plan while eligible for Medicare, the higher the penalty will be. It explained how the penalty is calculated based on the number of months I go without a creditable plan. It defined “creditable plan”. It contained contradictory information as to whether or not my employer plan is creditable.
As I finished reading this letter and set it down on the table, I was awestruck by the absurd complexity of all this. I thought about people in every other developed country. Nobody in any of those countries has to worry about things like creditable plans, late enrollment penalties, and how to calculate them. It’s hard to imagine how they’d react if I showed them the letter. I’d expect at least an eye roll. Nobody in their right mind would choose a health care system like the one we have in the United States.
And yet, Republicans continue to defend it. Elizabeth Warren just released a detailed M4A plan that would be cheaper and superior to the current system in virtually every conceivable way. Republicans will use every scare tactic at their disposal to try and defeat it.
BecauseFreedom! A “freedom” that, clearly, nobody wants.