In the end we needed a lot more than even Medicare for all because the administrative bloat in the healthcare system needs a flamethrower taken to it even after the giant leeches of the insurance companies were removed. But it’d be a start.
Public healthcare in any reasonable iteration uses regional agencies solving regional problems with cooperative agreements or wholly public enterprises. Right now the nursing home system that is top heavy even while it relies on a combination of Medicare and Medicaid should be example enough of that. Medicare for all alone would just create the worst of both worlds of bloat just like we see with US defense, infrastructure, and increasingly space funding.
Medicare for all is the best option anywhere near the table. It’s not perfect but you’re also minimizing the impact it would have on people. Being able to seek medical care without the risk of financial ruin is a fucking massive step forward, even if there are other steps needed.
I’m not minimizing the impact of people if the natural rent extraction of the market would result in the collapse of the system. The savings are overstated precisely because it creates a very poorly optimized mixed system. And if there’s one thing markets are optimized to do it’s extract rents from these things. See: the entirely of the American public private partnership. Medicare part D is the most recent egregious example on its own.
