Health Care

striker42 said:
Stuff like this and your border wall example is the equivalent of searching the couch cushions for loose change. Medicare for all, the most popular single payer option, would cost several trillion every year. You're not finding that kind of money in wasteful spending. There would have to be a major tax increase.

A lot of people seem to be under the impression that if there's medicare for all, they'll have all that money they're currently spending on health insurance premiums to spend however they want. In reality, funding medicare for all would likely require an increase in the payroll tax equal to or exceeding what most people with private health insurance already pay in premiums. This burden would disproportionately affect lower and middle income individuals.

If you think it's worth it, that's a completely valid viewpoint. Just depends on your priorities and personal feelings. I personally would like to see incremental change. Try to fix the weak points in the current system (and there are lots of them) and see where we're at.
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Can you show me how you determined this?
 
A low cost public option makes sense as the next incremental step. It could be grafted upon the current system, with minimal disruption to those satisfied with their medical care insurance.
 
Julio3000 said:
Can you show me how you determined this?
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It's the most commonly cited method of paying for it in plans that are proposed. It's the only real way to fund it. You'd have to take the money people are already having taken out of their checks to pay for health insurance and shift it into the government coffers.

I really don't know if there is any legitimate plan possible that would not shift what people are already paying for premiums into paying into medicare.
 
striker42 said:
It's the most commonly cited method of paying for it in plans that are proposed. It's the only real way to fund it. You'd have to take the money people are already having taken out of their checks to pay for health insurance and shift it into the government coffers.

I really don't know if there is any legitimate plan possible that would not shift what people are already paying for premiums into paying into medicare.
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Right, I know that the Sanders plan, for example, includes both an employer- and an employee-side payroll tax. I’m just not sure about the assertion that it would amount to the same as current insurance premiums. Using those figures, roughly: a family of 4 with an income of 50K pays a 4% payroll tax. That’s less than $900 annually. Ok, let’s double it, because there’s definitely going to be a scramble to find the money. That’s still considerably less than the average cost of insurance for that family. Less than half, even.
 
Julio3000 said:
Right, I know that the Sanders plan, for example, includes both an employer- and an employee-side payroll tax. I’m just not sure about the assertion that it would amount to the same as current insurance premiums. Using those figures, roughly: a family of 4 with an income of 50K pays a 4% payroll tax. That’s less than $900 annually. Ok, let’s double it, because there’s definitely going to be a scramble to find the money. That’s still considerably less than the average cost of insurance for that family. Less than half, even.
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A lot depends on what the new plan would look like. If you want a system with no copays and no coinsurance, you're going to have to come up with tremendously more money than people currently pay in premiums.

If you're still having copays and coinsurance, you'll still likely need more money but not as much. You'll have greater use of the healthcare system with greater access but some of that will be offset by administrative savings and negotiated rates. But that probably wont be enough. You'll still need to raise more revenue. My guess would be that the bulk of this could probably be had by people currently not paying for insurance or paying for minimal insurance paying more in payroll taxes than they're currently paying. That does put the burden of the plan on less affluent individuals though.

You say you could double the payroll tax and it would be less than people's health insurance premiums. But in order to fund this system you'd have to way more than double it for most people. The math doesn't work otherwise.

Ultimately, the only way to do this is to shift pretty much everything everyone is paying for premiums now into the new system and come up with more on top of that. It's doable. It's just whether or not people have the stomach to pay the price.
 
striker42 said:
A lot depends on what the new plan would look like. If you want a system with no copays and no coinsurance, you're going to have to come up with tremendously more money than people currently pay in premiums.

If you're still having copays and coinsurance, you'll still likely need more money but not as much. You'll have greater use of the healthcare system with greater access but some of that will be offset by administrative savings and negotiated rates. But that probably wont be enough. You'll still need to raise more revenue. My guess would be that the bulk of this could probably be had by people currently not paying for insurance or paying for minimal insurance paying more in payroll taxes than they're currently paying. That does put the burden of the plan on less affluent individuals though.

You say you could double the payroll tax and it would be less than people's health insurance premiums. But in order to fund this system you'd have to way more than double it for most people. The math doesn't work otherwise.

Ultimately, the only way to do this is to shift pretty much everything everyone is paying for premiums now into the new system and come up with more on top of that. It's doable. It's just whether or not people have the stomach to pay the price.
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Not to mention that hospitals dont make money on Medicare patients.

My employer pays almost all of my health insurance. Taking that away would be a massive tax hike. I'm not unique in that scenario
 
No mention of how everyone gets, no has access, gets,coverage
Hmm
Just the money ? The money is there as evidenced by the comments. Question is the willingness to spread the wealth for somthimg as basic as the health of our citizens.

Are we an everyman (person) for themselves country ?
 
Guess what I am getting at, can we agree on the goal of ( insuring the ) coverage of all citizens.
Cradle to grave
 
57Brave said:
No mention of how everyone gets, no has access, gets,coverage
Hmm
Just the money ? The money is there as evidenced by the comments. Question is the willingness to spread the wealth for somthimg as basic as the health of our citizens.

Are we an everyman (person) for themselves country ?
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We're definitely more individualistic than a lot of other areas of the world. It's something that has its benefits and its drawbacks.
 
striker42 said:
A lot depends on what the new plan would look like. If you want a system with no copays and no coinsurance, you're going to have to come up with tremendously more money than people currently pay in premiums.

If you're still having copays and coinsurance, you'll still likely need more money but not as much. You'll have greater use of the healthcare system with greater access but some of that will be offset by administrative savings and negotiated rates. But that probably wont be enough. You'll still need to raise more revenue. My guess would be that the bulk of this could probably be had by people currently not paying for insurance or paying for minimal insurance paying more in payroll taxes than they're currently paying. That does put the burden of the plan on less affluent individuals though.

You say you could double the payroll tax and it would be less than people's health insurance premiums. But in order to fund this system you'd have to way more than double it for most people. The math doesn't work otherwise.

Ultimately, the only way to do this is to shift pretty much everything everyone is paying for premiums now into the new system and come up with more on top of that. It's doable. It's just whether or not people have the stomach to pay the price.
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I believe any system must have co-pays. Make them sliding-scale or whatever, but there definitely needs to be co-pays.
 
Benefits for those that's gots .

What about the rest ?

What benefits does someone from E St Louis see, where the drawbacks are obvious .
Yet, they/we are expected to pull equal weight, pay the same sales tax on consumerables.

Again striker I ask, your goals for a health care system.
Like GND we hear from the naysayers without them offering an iota of a goal of their own.

We can't put the money together for a goal unless we identify --- a goal.
Let's agree on a goal first
Otherwise we are just talking past one another
 
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57Brave said:
Benefits for those that's gots .

What about the rest ?

What benefits does someone from E St Louis see, where the drawbacks are obvious .
Yet, they/we are expected to pull equal weight, pay the same sales tax on consumerables.

Again striker I ask, your goals for a health care system.
Like GND we hear from the naysayers without them offering an iota of a goal of their own.

We can't put the money together for a goal unless we identify --- a goal.
Let's agree on a goal first
Otherwise we are just talking past one another
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If you want to look at the advantages of individualism over collectivism, look at China's Great Leap Forward. Specifically, what happened to the farms. When they were collectivized and people were put on them to work for the good of everyone, the result was famine that killed tens of millions. This is oversimplifying it a bit, but the loss of individual reward led to disastrous results.

Much of the innovation and the explosion of wealth the west has enjoyed over the past 200 years has been aided by individualism. While there is undoubtedly still poverty, the standard of living has been raised to unprecedented levels. These are benefits. It's not a perfect system (no system is going to be close to perfect) but it's certainly not all evil.

My goals for a healthcare system is, to borrow from healthcare, first do no harm. Incremental improvement over time. Massive, wide ranging plans tend to end up with few being happy with them. I don't have strong feelings about what the end result will be. For all I know it will be something no one foresees at this point. I'm just for pumping the brakes and working on smaller fixes for individual problems. Things that you can get large support behind.
 
Individualism with a dash of slavery .
Overt and covert
//

" Incremental improvement over time."

How much time?
National health care was first proposed during the Teddy Roosevelt administration, furthered to a degree by FDR, given a shove by Truman and was given a blast by LBJ.
Made a target of HRC then left dormant until Pelosi stiffened Obama's spine.

Can we start with an incremental goal of getting us out of the 3rd world range of infant mortality in 10 years ?

And, why not incremental goals concerning abortion ala Colorado.
As opposed to the "Massive, wide ranging plans" of Alabama/Georgia/Missouri

Suppose a goal of lowering abortion rates by 10% by year. Making it feasible abortion by 2030 is as rare as polio.
 
To attain this goal I suggest:

a) implementing sex ed to public school curriculum beginning in Pre K within 2 years.
b) making contraceptives available at no cost. Money we would save on anti abortion ad campaigns and legal fights would more than pay for it.
c) provide sex counseling mandatory through high school graduation .

I am suggesting education as the main tool to abolishing abortion as we know it.
the infrastructure is in place.
This isn't a new idea
 
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“Deaths from lung cancer increased from 1.6 million in 2012 to 1.7 million in 2016,” said José Luis Castro, CEO and President of the global health organization Vital Strategies. “Tobacco use – the leading risk factor – is increasing in many low- and middle-income countries. These countries can avert the deadly and costly growth in tobacco-related cancers, but they must act swiftly. Adopting high tobacco taxes is the single most effective but least implemented policy to reduce tobacco use. The United Nations High-level Meeting on Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) in September provides an opportunity for countries to make public commitments to the effective use of tax as a cancer prevention tool.”


http://www.vitalstrategies.org/pres...ming-the-worlds-rising-burden-of-lung-cancer/


these health related taxes are levied regardless the form of health care.

And, your thoughts on stemming the epidemic of diabetes we find ourselves ?
 
It's clear you believe raising costs on something will deter it's consumption. I agree with you.

Why do you struggle with this concept when it comes to min wage, which raises costs on labor and thus decreases consumption of it?
 
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