Posted on 05/03/2019 6:42:23 AM PDT by xzins
“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.” That quote is attributed to satirist P.J. O’Rourke, but it just might end up being disturbingly prescient.
Not satisfied with already turning healthcare on its head through Obamacare, liberals are now floating their next plan for America: universal healthcare. A more accurate term is probably socialized medicine, but the left is trying to sell the idea to voters by dubbing it “Medicare for All.”
The idea is simple, at least at a glance. Take taxpayer-funded health coverage such as Medicare and just expand it, until every American has the same type of program as many senior citizens today.
But as conservatives know all too well, reality can get complicated. There is strong evidence that the latest liberal scheme would be riddled with problems — and one of the most troubling is the price tag.
During recent testimony in front of the House Rules Committee on Tuesday, respected economist Charles Blahous of George Mason University burst the Democrats’ bubble by delivering some harsh calculations about socialized medicine.
“Medicare for All would add somewhere between $32.6 trillion and $38.8 trillion in new federal budget costs over the first 10 years,” the economics expert explained to lawmakers in Washington.
For comparison, the entire U.S. national debt is currently $22 trillion, with no real plan on how to pay it back anytime soon.
“The $32.6 trillion estimate is a lower-bound estimate,” Blahous continued. “It essentially assumes every cost-containment provision in the bill saves as much as possible. If instead things play out more consistently with historical trends, the new federal costs would be closer to $38.8 trillion.”
Most people can barely imagine a million dollars, let alone a billion or a trillion. In order to help legislators — and the public — wrap their heads around the massive cost of “Medicare for All,” the economist put it in terms that should make every taxpayer’s jaw drop.
“Obviously, such enormous numbers are very difficult to grasp,” he said. “We’re talking about 11 to 13 percent of our GDP in 2022, rising to 13 to 15 percent of GDP in 2031 being added to the federal ledger, and we simply do not have historical experience with permanent government expansions of this size.”
His next statement should provide a much-needed reality check for liberal socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“So to provide a sense of the magnitude, the study notes that doubling all currently projected federal individual and corporate income taxes would be insufficient to finance even the lower bound estimate of $32.6 trillion,” Blahous said, according to Independent Journal Review.
Re-read that sentence again, because it’s vitally important. Even if every income tax in America were doubled, a move that would cripple the economy, there still wouldn’t be enough money to pay for the liberal pipe dream.
Not that it will make much difference: Far-left Democrats seem to be little interested in the facts and numbers behind their proposals, but appear to be throwing any ideas available at the wall in the hopes that one will stick.
That’s exactly what we already saw with Ocasio-Cortez’s fantastical “Green New Deal,” which included such wild proposals as renovating every building in America and ending air travel to make way for trains. When pressed for details about how she intends to pay for such schemes, the former bartender repeatedly dodges the question.
Liberalism as practiced by figures like JFK and even Bill Clinton used to mean wanting government to be a bit bigger and more helpful, while still being conscious of economic limitations. Today, all deference to math and reality seems to have been tossed out the window by the left.
Basement-cade for all.
When will people understand the Rats don’t care if it’s feasible or not? It’s about buying votes and control. It’s the same with the border and the environment, the truth is not relevant. Power, control and unlimited funding is ALL that matters.
They do not care.
They will do it any ways.
ObamaCare was just the start and they intend to force it upon us, unless and until we remove them from office or the planet............
Paul Krugman or Richard Wolff or some other Lefty economist will publish an opposing view and they’ll all glom onto that.
They take $135 right out of my SS Check every year......and that's after paying into Medicare since it began.
Medicaid is the ongoing freebie that has totally ruined the system.
But it wouldn’t cost that much in money, because the health care would be rationed and more sick people would die and, as Scrooge put it, decrease the surplus population.
Whoops...correction....$135 every MONTH
That ‘economist’ might as well been talking to a bunch of 4 year olds. They have absolutely no understanding of business, economy or mathematics.
They, as a group, are as ignorant as short bus full of students.................
But THIS TIME Socialism will work!
B..b... but Bernie said if I really believe it, I’d have it! We just need to stop being #1 and go below Obama’s level straight into the gutter! Then we can have health care for everyone!!
But THIS TIME Socialism will work!
—
Socialism is always ABOUT to work... just before it doesn’t work.
“Eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Iron Lady’s Iron Law of Socialism.
“When will people understand...?”
Not until we remove the socialists/progressives from public and secondary education, the unions, the media, the churches, social media and both political parties parties. Then, not until we have deprogrammed our younger population.
We’ve allowed a treatable cancer to spread to the point it is now systemic and deadly. Only harsh, invasive and painful treatment can work. IMO.
Everyone just needs to wear some weighted blankets and helmets and it will all be possible! A nice diet of lead-tainted crayons doesn’t hurt either in having socialism become the best thing ever!
Exactly.
150 million families covered by employer and personal health care today costs each about 20k per year. That’s about 3.2 trillion dollars. And those folks have good health insurance.
If the government ends private health care and takes it over, they are NOT going to spend that amount. They’ll take 4 trillion but spend maybe 1 trillion and tell every formerly covered person in America to get lost and die. (The other 3 trillion will go to crony projects and crony people)
That is what socialists do. They kill you off.
1. Some version will happen eventually
2. Democrats/communists would like to take 100% of your money and give you back a pittance to live on
3. Facts have never mattered to them - only power
4. Democrats and republicans are two cheeks on the same a$$
Simple as that.
Trump is an aberration.
If he succeeds, we survive (for now).
If he fails, we become Western Europe or worse.
Pray for this man.
The economics don’t matter to the Democrats. What matters is the political appeal. Remember the majority of the population has an IQ of less than 100. Something for nothing and the government taking care of them appeals to most of them. “Medicare for all” promotes the socialist narrative, the way the Bolsheviks used the “Bread for all” slogans. The concept appeals to the muddled middle that determine electoral outcomes. In reality, if ever implemented, medical care would collapse in the United States.
They don't care that medicare for all is not feasible. They intend to pass, medicare for all, then rob the working class to pay for it.
Our problem, ("our", being Americans with more than two or three functioning IQ points), is that RAT voters, (for example, in max water's district; hank johnson's district; the "kill the baby now or kill him later" mongrel) have nothing, earn nothing, contribute nothing, therefore are fine with destroying the middle class, and continue to vote RAT.
Healthcare is cheap when everyone covered is young and healthy. That's how the military's TriCare works!
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