The real cost of "Medicare for all"

One of two things would happen as a result. Physicians could play hardball with the government and demand more pay, thus blowing out that $32.6 trillion figure. Or, more realistically, there would be a mass exodus of providers from the market. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but we’re already seeing it happen in Europe, as cracks emerge in their universal healthcare systems. Physicians would either age out of the market as young people don’t see the value in entering the profession, as is occurring in France, or they could physically emigrate, as they are doing in Romania, which has lost half of its physicians in the past decade.

Soviet-style shortages of providers would hurt Americans, but the effects of Medicare For All would reverberate across the country.

The United States comprises 4.4 percent of the world’s population, yet we produce 44 percent of the world’s medical research and development. This is not a coincidence. Of the $171.8 billion we spend on R&D, the federal government contributes just one-fifth, with private industry footing the overwhelming majority of the bill.