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Medicare for All Individual Cost Calculator

Medicare for All saves money overall … but what will it mean financially for specific individuals and families? That’s the question this new calculator answers for national M4A, in just a few minutes.

April 27, 2024

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
Email to supporters
April 25, 2024

Republicans HATE Medicare for All and they’re doing everything in their power to protect Big Pharma and our private, for-profit health care system.

This 100% free and accessible calculator compares the information you give for current spending on health care and your Medicare for All spending based on a progressive tax model proposed to fund the program. All you need to do is click here to get started. ››

Use the Medicare for All Calculator ››

 You may be asking yourself, what would Medicare For All accomplish?

The answer is: SO MUCH! Medicare for All will pay for all medically necessary care. Just look at everything it would cover:

  • Inpatient, outpatient, emergency, and preventive care
  • Dental, vision, and hearing care
  • Prescription drugs
  • Lab and diagnostic services
  • Medical devices
  • Reproductive health care such as abortion, prenatal care, infertility treatment and more
  • Gender affirming care
  • Physical therapy and rehabilitation
  • Emergency and necessary transportation
  • Long term care supports and services
  • Hospice care
  • Mental health care
  • Telehealth
  • AND MORE!!!

Our calculator is an accessible tool for disassembling Republican disinformation and fear mongering about Medicare For All. Using this calculator is incredibly easy and FREE. So please, take a moment and use our new Medicare For All calculator! ››

 

Comment by: Jim Kahn

The many economic analyses which demonstrate that single payer would reduce US health care costs fall short in one crucial way: they don’t indicate how any particular person or family will fare financially. Understandably, people want to know – how will this kind of program affect my costs? Since there will be some new taxes, maybe I’m at risk of paying more.

That’s the question the on-line calculator is designed to answer. Full disclosure – I led the technical team that worked with Congresswoman Jayapal and her staff to implement this calculator.

The calculator uses estimates from the Congressional Budget Office of how much new revenue the federal government would need to fully fund Medicare for All as specified in Rep. Jayapal’s bill. We designed a tax strategy to generate that revenue. It includes a 1.65% payroll tax; a progressive income tax starting at 1% at $178,000 for joint filers and $89,000 for single filers, and rising to 11%; a 15% tax on corporate profits; and a 3% wealth tax on individuals with >$30 million in assets.

The calculator asks for the user’s prior year costs – premiums and out-of-pocket spending. And asks for income; this determines the new taxes. And then, simple math, the calculator compares the two, yielding net savings (or costs).

We did a California calculator in 2022. This national calculator is very similar, with a refined tax strategy and two additional questions. As we reported in HJM for California, “Four thousand individuals reporting current healthcare spending and income reveal that … nearly 9 in 10 will save money, more than $5000 per year on average, with single payer.”

We’re eager to see the results on the national level. So — visit and use the site!

Geek comment: we’ll be able to explore the impact of different tax strategies on the distribution of savings and costs.

We hope the calculator will be a valuable organizing tool – to inform, energize, and advocate for Medicare for All. Please share information about the calculator widely via email, social media, and other channels.

About the Commentator, Jim Kahn

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Jim (James G.) Kahn, MD, MPH (editor) is an Emeritus Professor of Health Policy, Epidemiology, and Global Health at the University of California, San Francisco. His work focuses on the cost and effectiveness of prevention and treatment interventions in low and middle income countries, and on single payer economics in the U.S. He has studied, advocated, and educated on single payer since the 1994 campaign for Prop 186 in California, including two years as chair of Physicians for a National Health Program California.

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