Can Bernie Sanders Make This A One Term President?

Yikes.

That's a tough one, as I have a hard time arguing against a private firm charging for their product.

Maybe others should be negotiating a time limited paywall pass as part of their severance or as part of payment for their contribution. It wouldn't cost the firm, but they might not like it anyway.

 

You are correct that under a single payer system there are many ways the Federal government can reduce the total cost of health care-such as loan guarantees and research funding-but they can also happen outside a single payer system-and do.

The problem with single payer is that I currently use $0 in health care. In the past 5 years I've been to a hospital once, and that was only because I dropped 200 pounds of steel on my arm and had a real nice puncture wound. I sealed it up with super glue and went to the ER 9 hours later when my shift ended. The first thing the doctor asked me was when I served in the Marines-when I asked how he knew I was a Marine, he responded with they're the only people stupid enough to suffer such a severe injury and wait half a day to see a doctor. That sadistic ****ing former Navy doctor didn't charge me or my insurance a penny, except for the eye contact and me biting down on my belt as he dug that super glue out of my arm.

Point being is that right now every dollar I use in health care, despite full coverage, is a dollar I don't see on my paycheck. I care a ****load more about my union and union brothers than I will ever care about you, and if I'm paying 10% of my income into a national health fund, you can bet your ass I'm using $35,000 of health care every single year.

 

Well, "government health programs" has to include the ACA, which covers private and corporate insurance.

ACA subsidies are less than $10B, so that is essentially in the noise level - less than 0.5%. Thus that can't be a distinction being made.

And, since the 62% is paid to doctors, hospitals and pharmacies, it leaves out administration/management for Medicare, Medicaid and VA. My understanding is that overhead is something like 5% times the cost of what is actually paid in services. So, that doesn't close the gap.

I'm going to start looking around, but my initial googling hasn't helped me figure this out yet.

 

She worked big law in California, but moved to a penny pitching firm when we made the move to Texas. She lost the expense account and Beverley Hills lifestyle, but gained a substantial pay raise and longevity(apparently big law has a pretty strict up or out policy that kills your career after 6-7 years if you don't make Junior Partner).

I spent 3 years with a Special Operations Capable unit in the Marines, and literally the only reason we're together is because I have a remarkably high level of patience. From the day we met to our first date was literally 5 months, filled with "oh I have to fly to Delaware for the weekend for a court case" or "I'm going to Japan for 3 months". I got no problem with stingy bastards as long as my woman's at home every night.

 

OK, I didn't mean that there would be more ways to help hospitals if we are single payer. I DID mean that most hospitals are private enterprises and they are funded through what they charge for their services. That doesn't change by going single payer, since hospitals will still be private enterprises.

You say you have insurance.

So, why do you think you would be paying more under single payer?

Remember that in ALL other industrialized countries people pay less per person for health care than we do.

To me, this sounds a little like "America Can't".

 

Amen.

 

Sanders never ran on socialism, so I don't know why people act like he would try to get rid of capitalism and replace it with socialism. He is a democratic socialist which isn't the socialism that has failed where it has been tried. His ideas are in line with FDR, which is capitalism as an economic model with a larger Commons. And I remember seeing polling where what he ran on in the primaries the majority of americans agreed with him. So his FDR ideas are more liked than not.

So, you are distorting what the man believes in, which one generally sees coming from the right. FDR kept winning elections causing congress to pass a law where a president could only serve two terms. And it wasn't so much about free stuff as you put it, but for things like unemployment insurance, social security, and saving capitalism by convincing the elites to be satisfied with a reasonable profit and still stay rich rather than maxing it out by not paying their workers a living wage.

Sure he is a protectionist, just like our founders set up to protect america and her people from slave labor overseas. For slave labor is not new, but what is new is our gov't no longer protecting our people and their standards of living from slave labor in countries where people live like a 3rd world country. America would have never became the great and powerful nation she was if our founders had not protected this nation from slave labor. They put america first, instead of the desire of our elites to max out their profits by using slave labor overseas and then bringing those goods back here, to be a parasite on our markets. When our gov't turned their back on what our founders set up, only a fool would say globalism has increased prosperity here and made it better for our own people. It only got better for our elites.

Every nation today, except america is exercising protectionism. And always have. For it is the only way any nation will have security for its own people and an economy that provides for the People. Our move away from what the founders put into place has only enriched our elites which is why this insane globalism was taken up to begin with. America has never needed to depend upon exports to have an economy that fed its own people. Yet today, people have been brainwashed to believe we must compete with slave labor or starve. That is a lie, and Perot tried to tell americans what that giant sucking sound would be. Globalism was a decision made for the elites, a choice and not some natural law. Just as the founders made a choice, and if they had chosen something like globalism, for the elites to max out there own wealth, we would have lost ww2 for we would not have had an industrial base which is what wins wars.

And unless we reverse globalism and look at our economy again as the engine that allows our own people to feed themselves and to prosper by their work, this bitch is going down, for history should have taught the fools in DC what happens when you make your own people suffer in order that the top dogs can max out their own wealth by being parasites on the people in america.

 

Amen!

(Well, we would have to discuss the globalism part.)

 

Yes. Prop up Bernie.

 

Total government health expenditures, including the total cost of health services, overhead, subsidies, and tax credits/expenditures were $1.38 trillion for 2015(according to Politifact), but as I stated earlier only $600 billion of that is Medicare. Recovering the Medicaid expenditures from states would be politically impossible, as that $300 billion(which would make total government health expenditures $1.68 trillion) could be spent on things people would otherwise lose their **** over(parks, libraries, emergency services, education, municipal infrastructure), and I do not believe for a moment that non FICA dollars that are currently spent on health care(Medicaid, tax expenditures, research grants, subsidies) would transfer to a new single payer system.

 

Well I currently pay $0 for health care, and under a single payer system would likely have to pay $6,000 a year in new taxes while receiving significantly worse care.

 

the elites create their own wealth with the slave labor of peasants, if you cannot create money then it is not yours to redistribute.

socialists must enslave the elites using lawful government force, and take the product of their labor to equitably redistribute among the peasant working class.

lastly, while ww2 was necessary for the socialism of FDR and America's past greatness, a war should never be the reason to motivate the rich into helping the poor by way of forced charity. a consensual way should always be possible, especially for a country who supposedly landed on the moon.

 

You're leaving something out, because there isn't an option available where one gets health care and pays $0.

Also, I'm curious where you got that $6K /year figure.

 

Our tax dollars go to making the US a good place for business. We pay for a well regulate banking system, the SEC, patents and copyrights, the FED, a judiciary and police enforcement, transportation systems, national defense, an educated labor pool, etc., etc.

In fact, we allow the wealthy to have inordinate influence in designing these systems. So, they are designed to work well for the wealthy even to the extent that those without wealth may be left without basic needs. Surely you didn't think our health care system was designed to be used by those on minimum income, did you? And, it wasn't the poor who decided we needed to spend TRILLIONS of dollars conquering Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc., etc., while defense contractors, petroleum and petroleum equipment and services, and the rest made a killing (yes, a killing).


So, if you want to propose a better way to help those who are struggling or are unable to work, feel fee.

 

I'm a union man, and like most union men don't know what health care costs because it's completely paid for by my employer. I think I have a $500 deductible for "elective" care, but that's it.

I got $6,000 from my personal calculation of what "Medicare for All" would cost, using a $2.4 trillion price tag(which seemed the most common cost estimate), and figured it'd take 4 times the current Medicare FICA rate to fund it(11.6%).

Apparently increasing the Medicare FICA rate to 14.4%(the current proposal by Sanders) won't even raise half of the necessary funding.

 

Every garrison meal I ever ate in 8 years in the Marine Corps was prepared and served by someone "unable to work. Adults with Downs Syndrome, cripples, you name it. And they were all making $20/hr with full benefits working for that evil military industrial complex.

 

Sanders is as big a phony as Hillary is, so no, he won't be President of anything.

 

I'm not so sure those are valid assumptions for funding. Here are a couple assumptions I've been making:
- corporations will contribute, too. That is, corporate tax will include some % that goes to US health care.
- taxes paid by individuals will come from income tax, not from payroll tax. Or, at least not all from payroll tax.
- your accounting might not include tax revenue for health care that is collected today and is used for Medicare/Medicaid, for support for those who can't afford insurance, for support for hospitals that provide care to the indigent, etc.
- the Bernie plan may not pay for all health care. It's called "Medicare for all". Medicare doesn't pay for all health care for anyone. In fact, many with Medicare also buy insurance to cover what Medicare doesn't cover. That's true in some other countries, too. So, some of that $2.4T may still be covered by individuals.
- there will still be co-pays to discourage people from visiting their doctor too often. That's not much, perhaps, but it still impacts how much will come from taxes.

Say something if there are more of these or if they are wrong.

I'm not trying to be argumentative here.

But, I'm seriously interested in what it will cost us in taxes. And, you gave it a shot - to your credit.

 

That's not the justification for having as much military as we have.

 

Having read several summaries of Bernie's proposal, he wants to completely eliminate premiums and copays, include vision and dental(which is why there's a $32 trillion price tag), and you were correct that in addition to a 7.5% employer payroll tax the individual tax increase would be a flat 4% tax on all income.

Corporate taxes get paid by customers-which at some point are always people, and would simply increase prices. How you feel about that typically depends upon your side of the aisle, but believing that the $500 billion spent on Medicaid, or the $200 billion in tax expenditures for the purchase of health insurance will be carried over you are simply naive. Medicare for All would be funded exclusively by it's dedicated revenue streams, and any health related spending outside of it would go straight back into the general fund.

The military isn't the military, but the greatest social program the world has ever known. Cutting military spending would just increase spending somewhere else

 

I was just pointing out that we already fund Medicare/Medicaid, so the cost of that can't be represented as a tax increase under the Bernie plan.

Likewise, any change for corporations would be the difference between the 7.5% and what it is they pay today for employee health care. Plus, corporations wouldn't have to have employees who spend time creating and administering corporate healthcare plans, analyzing the health care plans of other corporations as part of their competition for employees, etc.. My bet is that many if not all corporations would see Bernie's plan as a push at worst.

As for co-pays, France tried the "no co-pay" idea and it didn't work. People loved their doctors and nurses and just couldn't stay away until co-pays were added to cost them at least something.

My bet is that is one reason we have co-pays today here in the US.

 

There must always be some minor barrier to health care. Basic needs with the exception of food and clothing are essentially non elastic(doctors, housing in high density urban areas, schools, hospitals) and trail demand considerably. And the advantage single payer systems give to free enterprise is it's only actual benefit.

My biggest fear is that while we currently spend about $1.68 trillion tax dollars on health care(Federal and states), only about $600 billion is dedicated health care funding. The tax expenditures, research grants, and Medicaid will be lost to the general budget, especially as we return to trillion dollar deficits due to raising debt service costs. That means substantial new tax increases, which I would rather avoid.

 

Can Bernie Sanders Make This A One Term President?

Bern can't, no.

 

I haven't seen a serious comparison of today's total health care expenditure vs. the BernieCare projection. I know someone said $32T over 10 years for BernieCare, but that came with a political motive and undoubtedly included a projected rate of healthcare cost increases. And, I think we may be spending closer to $3T per year TODAY. After all, analysts say we're spending $9,500 per capita. And, regardless of our system, that is going to grow over 10 years, too.

Until someone starts comparing apples to apples these huge numbers are mostly a scare tactic.

I do hope we don't see research as part of the health care budget. And, I also hope VA , Medicaid and Medicare are all included. There is a real cost to having multiple systems. And, when they serve limited segments of the citizenry they absolutely will get less congressional attention.

 

Bernie's own cost projection was $14 trillion over 10 years, which is an extremely rosy projection that could only be met by killing the sickest 5% of the population. His funding also primarily depends upon traditional employment, which has significantly declined over the years.