How I changed my mind on 'Medicare For All'

I know most of the arguments against "Medicare for All." I’ve been making them for most of my professional life as a physician:

1) We don’t need it; our current mix bag of public and private insurance coverage is adequate

2) Disrupting the private insurance industry would result in too many job losses

3) The government cannot be trusted to run a program of this size

4) We don’t have buy-in from a majority of constituents

5) We simply can’t afford it.

I’ve said all of these for 30 years. I now know that I am wrong.

Health care policy can be simplified to answering the basic question of who gets covered and at what cost. Universal coverage was once championed only by the most progressive. Then came COVID-19.

COVID has taught us that every member of our society needs adequate health care. This is not just a progressive talking point, it is the reality of infectious disease: those without proper care run the risk of acquiring and transmitting the disease to the rest of us.