Medicare For All
FAH strongly believes that every American should have access to high-quality, affordable health care and that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), not a one-size-fits-all government program approach such as Medicare For All or a Medicare-like public option, is the best way to achieve that shared goal of universal coverage.
Study after study demonstrates the dangers of abandoning our current approach, favored by a wide majority of Americans, which blends Medicare, Medicaid, ACA, and a robust private sector through which approximately 150 million working Americans and their families now receive and are satisfied with employer-provided coverage. More can, and should, be done to improve these programs. The recent strengthening and coverage expansion of the ACA is an important step in the right direction and proof of what we can do now. More states seizing the opportunity to expand their Medicaid programs would go a long way towards further filling the coverage gap.
But dismantling our current hybrid public-private framework as well as the coverage that comes with it, and starting over by raising the trillions of dollars in taxes necessary to finance a Medicare For All insurance program, instead of continuing to build on what works is no solution. It would instead undermine patient access to care, stifle innovation and threaten the ability of hospital providers and clinicians to meet the needs of the communities they serve.