Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson says he would not end Medicare and would use health savings accounts, which would eliminate “the need for people to be dependent on government programs.”
Carson told host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” that he “would provide people with an alternative” that he described as “so much better than anything else,” but added he doesn’t plan on ending Medicare completely.
Wallace: As you rise in the polls, your policies, your plans attract new attention, especially your plan to end Medicare, which serves 49 million senior citizens and Medicaid, which serves 72 million low-income Americans. Before we get into your plan, let me make sure I’ve got this right. Dr. Carson, you would end Medicare?
Carson: No, that’s completely false. And that’s a narrative that somebody’s putting out there to scare people. What the program that I have outlined using health savings accounts starting from the time you are born until the time you die, largely eliminates the need for people to be dependent on government programs like that — but I would never get rid of the programs. I would provide people with an alternative. I think they will see that the alternative that we’re going to outline is so much better than anything else that they will flock to it.
Wallace: Let me make sure I’ve got this right because this seems to me to be a bit of a change. So you’re saying that you would have a choice. You could either do health savings accounts or you could have the traditional Medicare?
Carson: Oh, yeah, I do not believe in imposing things upon people. I believe in presenting things that are so attractive that people will very quickly migrate to them.
Wallace: But here’s the concern a lot of people have about this plan. You would give the same $2,000 a year to every individual whether it’s a low-income sick person…
Carson: No.
Wallace: Well, that’s what you were saying, sir.
Carson: No, that’s the old plan. That’s been gone for several months now. The plan now for funding health savings accounts is using the same dollars that we use for traditional health care. We already spend twice as much per capita on health care as many other countries in the world. Utilizing that money, the place where the government would come in is with the indigent because that’s where Medicaid comes in. The Medicaid budget is $400 to $500 billion dollars a year and we have 80 million people who participate, which is way too many and we can fix that by fixing the economy.
Wallace: So how does the health savings account work if there’s no government subsidy?
Carson: Well, let me just tell you. I’m telling you right now, with the indigent people, 80 million to $400 billion goes 5,000 times. $5,ooo dollars each man, woman and child. What could you buy with that? A concierge practice generally costs $2-3,000 dollars a year and you still have a couple thousand dollars left over for your catastrophic insurance, which is much cheaper now because the only thing coming out of it is catastrophic insurance. Everything else is going to come out of your health savings account.