Study: 'Medicare for all' projected to cost added $32.6 trillion

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: CriticalStinker

As usual they are looking at the problem from the wrong angle.
When the titanic was sinking, the water wasnt really the problem. The big fricken hole in the boat was the problem.

We need to fix the medical system not the insurance system. We can never afford to pay the for profit hospitals.

Exactly.
Corporate Globalism has been putting downward pressure on wages.
The medical industry is running out of other peoples money to prop them up.

a reply to: amazing

Your analogy reminds me of how millions of people send their children to private schools and pay for it, even though they're also paying taxes for public schools.

originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: amazing

Your analogy reminds me of how millions of people send their children to private schools and pay for it, even though they're also paying taxes for public schools.

That's true. We need a better way to have a say in where our taxes go.

originally posted by: atsgrounded
Agreed.

Also, why are big businesses not screaming for this. This is a opportunity to say goodbye forever to expensive health care costs. Something doesn't add up.

Big Business would be shooting themselves in the foot if they went after medical and insurance lobbyists, since they also have their own lobbyists as well.

I get triggered when people use the British derived “maths.”
a reply to: Sublimecraft

originally posted by: intrepid

originally posted by: grey580
No more $50 dollar tylenols.

Pretty much sums it up. There's no way to extend universal health care when the medical industry makes a killing(pun intended), Big Pharm makes a killing and insurance companies make a killing.

Right, like the time I went to the doctor for a broken finger. After X-rays and doing nothing but put a plastic splint over it, they charged me $500.

don't worry they will tax the rich and everything will be great

originally posted by: toysforadults
don't worry they will tax the rich and everything will be great

When they start we will have to see, and it's been quite a while since the rich have been taxed.

a reply to: atsgrounded

I know, we should level the playing field by taking everything from productive people and then give it to people who aren't productive

that's how things are done

a reply to: toysforadults

Who said take everything?

I just showed you the tax records from the 1950'-1960's and 1970's. What some would call the formation of the middle class and when the "American Dream" was formed.

a reply to: atsgrounded

I'm not rich, but I am in the top 10% of income earners in the country. You make my taxes go up any more than they are, I'll take my citizenship to another country that would be happy to have me and take less of my money (probably cost a lot less to live in as well).

If we factor in state income tax I'm at around 34%, not counting social security. That 7.6% that social security takes from me, that I will never see as the program most likely won't exist by that point, I could easily invest better than the government does. In fact that 7.6% could cover most of my healthcare costs each year, which would be nice.

Or if I choose not to move, I'll just pick myself up a job that pays in the lower tax bracket and take advantage of the government programs...like the rest of the zombies out there, which is what they want isn't it?

a reply to: Hypntick

I can not make your taxes go up.

All I did was point out a time in the US where taxing and tax rates were very different. A little home work would be for you to see what the realized taxes were during this romanticized time in our country.

And you got to go where the $$ is if you want to get the taxes.

So our corporate health care system is too inefficient, corrupt and unsustainable? Wouldn't that be the logical conclusion?

a reply to: CB328


If our health care system was our internet provider we would have fired it along time ago.

But we can't.

There is no competition/choice and no pricing oversight. And cost will not come down until they are forced to be reduced to an industrialized nation average.

Hell my electric supplier has more pricing regs than life saving medical treatment.

originally posted by: atsgrounded
a reply to: toysforadults

Who said take everything?

I just showed you the tax records from the 1950'-1960's and 1970's. What some would call the formation of the middle class and when the "American Dream" was formed.

Do you know what else was happening then? The rest of the world was recovering from this little thing called World War II when every other industrialized nation was bombed back to the stone age and we were the only game in town.

It doesn't work anymore. There are plenty of other up and coming nations with the industrial bases and will to undercut us easily at a 90% tax rate. They will and the business will go there to avoid paying.

a reply to: ketsuko
Devils advocate
At the "low" tax rate we are at presently the businesses are flowing out of the US and any businesses that are building in the US want huge tax cuts and abatements.

I can't locate the realized historic tax rates, if I find it I will post it. Very few paid such a tax rate as listed in the graph.

originally posted by: CriticalStinker
a reply to: Xcalibur254

It gets even more ridiculous when you realize it is the insurance companies, not the actual healthcare providers, that set prices. Take pharmacy as an example. No pharmacy can exist just dispensing medication. The insurance companies pocket all the profits and the pharmacy operates at a loss.

You're saying healthcare providers don't set their own costs?

And pharmacies operate at a loss?

I think the healthcare system needs serious addressing, but I don't think you are representing the truth in that post.

Why would pharmacies exist if they don't make money?

Exactly. They don't actually provide a service and yet they're making record profits.

Also, can you show me where they are making more than home or auto insurance companies?

In my pharmacy we have been barely keeping our head above water. Most times we are lucky to make any money on an rx......just today we had 200 rxs, and my margin was 10%.....that isnt even enough for payroll.

originally posted by: CriticalStinker

Sen. Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for all" plan would increase government health care spending by $32.6 trillion over 10 years, according to a study by a university-based libertarian policy center.

I will point out this was a university study under a libertarian policy center. That said, even if we cut the number in half it would still be astounding.

The latest plan from the Vermont independent would require historic tax increases as government replaces what employers and consumers now pay for health care, according to the analysis being released Monday by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia. It would deliver significant savings on administration and drug costs, but increased demand for care would drive up spending, the analysis found.

The Mercatus analysis estimated the 10-year cost of "Medicare for all" from 2022 to 2031, after an initial phase-in. Its findings are similar to those of several independent studies of Sanders' 2016 plan. Those studies found increases in federal spending over 10 years that ranged from $24.7 trillion to $34.7 trillion.

"It's showing that if you are going to go in this direction, it's going to cost the federal government $2.5 trillion to $3 trillion a year in terms of spending," said Thorpe. "Even though people don't pay premiums, the tax increases are going to be enormous. There are going to be a lot of people who'll pay more in taxes than they save on premiums." Thorpe was a senior health policy adviser in the Clinton administration.

ABC

I've noticed that single payer healthcare has been a huge topic in American politics recently. While I would be on board contingent that a luxury tax be placed on all consumables that are unhealthy (junk food, fast food, tobacco, alcohol ect.), so that more funding is put in by those who strain the system more. Hopefully, that would lead to better health in the coming generations.

Even that doesn't look completely viable with this new study though. When people talk about this issue they use other nations as an example. The problem with that is we are usually looking at countries 1/10 of our size both geographically and from a population standpoint. This is important because it has many implications on how we spend our money as a nation (think infrastructure and military).

One thing that is never brought up in the debate as well is what happens to the huge industry of health insurance? While most advocates for single payer system either don't think of that or don't care, the ramifications would have an impact on the whole country.

And the Koch funded study concludes that Medicare for all would, over that same ten years, a savings overall of 2 Trillion.

But as Matt Bruenig of the People's Policy Project notes—though absent or buried in much of the initial reporting—even the Koch brothers' numbers, which Sanders says are vastly inflated, demonstrate that the "U.S. could insure 30 million more Americans and virtually eliminate out-of-pocket healthcare expenses" while saving "a whopping $2 trillion" in the process.*

If the status quo continues:

In 2016, the United States spent $3.4 trillion on healthcare;
projected over ten years—and assuming costs don't rise, as they're expected to—that's $34 trillion.

By 2025, the current for-profit healthcare system is expected to cost a staggering $5.5 trillion per year.

Additionally, America spends far more on healthcare per capita than other industrialized nations—most of which have some form of government-funded universal healthcare—and achieves worse outcomes.

www.commondreams.org...

a reply to: atsgrounded

If very few actually paid those rates anyhow, what good were they? They weren't drumming up revenue the way they're projected to. The only ones who were caught by them were the ones who couldn't afford to escape them. What they would then end up doing is creating a hard cap on climbing the financial ladder, a barrier between those who can afford to hide their wealth and those who can't.

I'll tell you how the wealth was hidden - in non-liquid assets that couldn't be taxed as they weren't part of the tax code at that time.

Wherever the wealth truly is is where the tax code is aimed. Look at how they want to tax capital gains. They know very well that most of the nation's wealth doesn't lie with the so-called 1% right. It's hidden in 401(k) or IRA style investment accounts to hold people over for retirement. Those accounts generate capital gains, and most people take steps to have them tax free to avoid that worry in their retirement when they're on fixed income, but here come the pols, trying to pass capital gains taxes trying to tell you that it's not fair billionaires get away with it when it's really your mom and pop's retirement money they're after.

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14

originally posted by: intrepid

originally posted by: grey580
No more $50 dollar tylenols.

Pretty much sums it up. There's no way to extend universal health care when the medical industry makes a killing(pun intended), Big Pharm makes a killing and insurance companies make a killing.

Right, like the time I went to the doctor for a broken finger. After X-rays and doing nothing but put a plastic splint over it, they charged me $500.

What a bargain you got! Just to walk in to the E.R. here in Chicago costs $800. They have a big sign saying, If You Don't Have $800 (Cash/CCard/No Checks) Please Go Elsewhere. Thank-you.