Medicare for All: A prescription for death

By Robert M. Levy

I was 16 years old, working as a lifeguard at a local country club swimming pool. That was when the American people made me a promise. If I would pay a certain amount of what I earned toward Medicare, money that was needed by the elderly of 1969, the young people of 2018 would pay for the Medicare I needed. So, I contributed to Medicare for 49 years. Only then did I receive a benefit. In the meantime, in addition, I paid for private medical insurance for myself and my family. None of it was “free.”

In those years, the American ethos included a work ethic as a mandatory prerequisite to obtaining the necessities of life. The Academy award-winning actor and producer John Housman typified this ethos when he starred as a demanding Harvard Law professor in the movie The Paper Chase. Houseman then reprised that role in a commercial for the brokerage firm of Smith-Barney. Using his deep, authoritative British voice, he told viewers that at Smith-Barney “They make money the old fashioned way. They earn it.”

I earned my Medicare; but the left is now telling a new generation that none of it is now necessary. No work…no sweat…no problem! “Elon Musk and his friends will pay for all the healthcare you need.”

It’s called “Medicare for All.” More specifically, it’s called the “Medicare for All Act” sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Pranila Jayapal. No need to work for it like those silly “boomers.” No need to wait…No need to “earn it.” When you vote Democrat, a euphemism for socialist, bills will be paid from “cradle to grave.” It will all be financed by that billionaire’s “fair share.”

Today’s young workers and employers pay $1.7 trillion each year so “geezers” like me can get Medicare. To avoid a 49-year wait and to provide Medicare for everyone now, it would cost an additional $6 trillion. The new Medicare price tag would be $7.7 trillion per year.

Can the rich pay that? It’s possible, but it would take a confiscation of wealth that would embarrass even Josef Stalin.

The top 1% of taxpayers (the millionaires and billionaires) pay about $1 trillion in annual net income tax. They pay it at a rate of about 26%. To raise the income tax of the top 1% and produce an additional $6 trillion in revenue, the new “fair share” for the top 1% would be an income tax rate of about 200.2% (where 1/26%=6/x% x=200.2%).

By the way…just wait long enough…like Medicare, middle school math will pay off too. If you’re as smart as a sixth grader, you’ll know. It’s not Medicare for All… it’s wealth confiscation. And that’s communism.

Of course, America could do what other socialized countries have done…cut services and ration care. America could 1) encourage euthanasia, especially but not exclusively for the old; 2) follow the advice of Dr. Zeke Emanuel, the brother of possible Presidential candidate Rham Emanuel, and reduce the expensive healthcare utilized by the very young and the very old; and, 3) In the spirit of Margaret Sanger and her Eugenics movement now called Planned Parenthood, encourage abortion, especially for “imperfect” children who would burden the healthcare system with added costs. Maybe even extend that notion past birth as suggested by Democrat and former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. In that sense, “ throwing the baby out with the bathwater” becomes more than a common cliche. It becomes standard 21st Century medicine.

Writing in the medical journal Lancet, Dr. Emanuel, one of the chief architects of Obamacare, justified the money-saving advantage of one of the newest cliches, “throwing grandma’ off the cliff.” He wrote, “Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years.” Perhaps it’s just “equitable medicine.”

In short, “Medicare for All,” more properly called “socialized medicine,” is not a healthcare problem, it’s a math problem. And that problem can be solved with accountants and government “ethicists” who will ration life and death “equitably.” As such, is it too far-fetched to believe Medicare For All might also become an integral part of the movement for reparations? Preferring the young to the old is not much different to preferring the “oppressed” over the “oppressor,” those “of color” to those “lacking color.” Who shall live? Who shall die? Congress votes on it. It’s true “democratic” socialism.

And it’s ironic, too. Medicare for All is not “Medicare” at all. If the socialized doctors, ethicists accountants and politicians all join together, it will be “healthcare for some,”; but, for others, especially the very old and the very young, it will offer “little or none”.

It’s simple math…It’s simple death…That’s the simplicity of “Medicare For All.”

Aug. 22, 2026

Robert M. Levy

PsychodadRobert@gmail.com

RobertReports@Substack.com

Robert M. Levy grew up in Moore County and graduated from Pinecrest High School. He earned a BA in history and sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where his honors thesis on the Wilmington Rebellion of 1898 became part of the university’s library collection.

Admitted to the California State Bar in 1978, Levy practiced law for 40 years in California and Maryland, focusing on family and criminal law, including work with juvenile offenders and abused children. His writing on affirmative action appeared in the San Fernando Valley Law Review, and he authored Divorce: A Cynical Experience. He later earned a North Carolina teaching certificate from UNC Charlotte and taught high school social studies across Moore County.

Levy has served as chairman of the Moore County School Board, president of the North Carolina Electoral College, chairman of the Moore County Republican Party, and a columnist for The Pilot in Southern Pines. He lives in Pinehurst with his wife, Linda, and they have three children and four grandchildren.

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