Opinion: The galling error in the case against Medicare-for-all

40 percent. This number comes up over and over again in the discussion around Medicare-for-all. It supposedly represents how much larger current Medicare payments (what the government pays health-care providers) are from private insurance payments to doctors, according to a widely cited paper written by Charles Blahous of the libertarian Mercatus Center — and thus how much health-care spending would have to be cut under Medicare-for-all.