Giving Compass' Take:

• Samantha Young explains the difference between single payer and Medicare for all, outlining why there is so much confusion about the two healthcare reform options. 

• How can funders help to ensure that the public is better informed about the implications of different healthcare reform options? 

• Learn more about the political obstacles to single payer healthcare. 

Across the country, catchphrases such as “Medicare-for-all,” “single-payer,” “public option” and “universal health care” are sweeping state and federal political races as Democrats tap into voter anger about GOP efforts to kill the Affordable Care Act and erode protections for people with preexisting conditions.

Republicans, including President Donald Trump, describe such proposals as “socialist” schemes that will cost taxpayers too much. They say their party is committed to providing affordable and accessible health insurance, which includes coverage for preexisting conditions, but with less government involvement.

Voters have become casualties as candidates toss around these catchphrases — sometimes vaguely and inaccurately. The sound bites often come across as “quick answers without a lot of detail,” said Gerard Anderson, a professor of public health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School Public Health.

“It’s quite understandable people don’t understand the terms,” Anderson added.

For example, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) advocates a single-payer national health care program that he calls Medicare-for-all, an idea that caught fire during his 2016 presidential bid.

But Sanders’ labels are misleading, health experts agree, because Medicare isn’t actually a single-payer system. Medicare allows private insurance companies to manage care in the program, which means the government is not the only payer of claims.

What Sanders wants is a federally run program charged with providing health coverage to everyone. Private insurance companies wouldn’t participate.

In other words: single-payer, with the federal government at the helm.

Read the full article about healthcare reform options by Samantha Young at Kaiser Health News.