MedPage Today December 4, 2018
-Calls for patients to have a bigger stake in shopping for services and insurance
WASHINGTON — ‘Medicare for All’ has a fatal flaw, according to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar: “it depends on paying providers Medicare rates.”
Azar, speaking at an event here sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, was asked his opinion about allowing non-disabled people ages <65 the ability to ‘buy into’ Medicare in order to give them another option for health insurance. “The challenge of the Medicare buy-in is that it is effectively one of the many iterations of ‘Medicare for All’ — it hinges on the notion of paying all providers what Medicare pays doctors and hospitals,” he said.