A Koch-funded think tank tries hard to pretend that it didn't find savings from Bernie Sanders'

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Alternative headline: right wing clowns have egg on their face.

A Koch-funded think tank tries hard to pretend that it didn't find savings from Bernie Sanders' Medicare plan

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-blahous-sanders-20180822-story.html

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a libertarian think tank partially funded by the Koch brothers, appears to be mighty embarrassed about its finding in a recent paper that the Medicare for All proposal from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) might actually reduce Americans’ overall spending on healthcare.

We know this because Mercatus has sent out several emails pushing back against reports about the finding. And the paper’s author, Mercatus fellow Charles Blahous, took to the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal to complain that “some have seized on a scenario in my estimates showing a slight decline in projected total public and private health expenditures under Medicare for All.”

....

The problem with Blahous’ complaint, as it happens, is that he actually did find that the Sanders plan could reduce overall healthcare costs. That conclusion is right there on page 18 of his 24-page paper. Under the assumptions in the Sanders plan, he writes, “aggregate health expenditures remain virtually unchanged: national personal healthcare costs decrease by less than 2%, while total health expenditures decrease by only 4%, even after assuming substantial administrative cost savings.”


According to his own math, under Medicare for All, national health expenditures would total $57.6 trillion through 2031. They’re currently projected to be $59.7 trillion. In other words, Medicare for All would reduce total U.S. spending on healthcare by 3.44% (a bit less than the 4% Blahous cited).

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