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Big insurers’ exits revive talk of Medicare for all

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As big insurers bail out of the insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act, the idea of simplifying, and saving money on, the currently chaotic U.S. healthcare “system” by extending Medicare to all, or at least offering a “public option” on the exchanges, is gaining ground.

Polls suggest that a majority of the population would like Medicare for all but  the  insurance companies have a powerful lobbying and campaign-contribution operation in Washington to try to thwart that.

President Obama, pushing back against criticism of the Affordable Care Act in the wake of the insurance company exits from ACA’s insurance exchanges, has revived the idea of introducing a public, Medicare-like plan to compete with private insurers. He also has suggested that increased government subsidies could help draw more people into the ACA’s markets.

Bloomberg has noted also: “Another option is to simply give insurance companies more government money, but that would require action from a Republican Congress that would rather repeal Obamacare than fix it.”

‘There’s going to be absolutely zero interest among Republicans in bailing out Obamacare by giving it more money,”  Avik Roy, a healthcare expert who’s advised Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Marco Rubio on health policy, told Bloomberg.

With  such unknowns as who will control the White House and one or both houses of Congress after the November election, one would have to be very brave to make predictions.

To read the Bloomberg article on this developing story, please hit this link.

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