Moreover...why would we want it?
Disclaimer: I do not qualify for these benefits so this is based upon reading about the program
If an individual wants to receive basic guaranteed health care from the US government, not a gold-plated program but one that does work though with some waiting list and covers most preexisting conditions then it is readily available to anyone under I think 40-years-old.
Join the military, not the reserves, for four years and qualify for VA benefits.
How about Medicare for none?
Yeah, elderly people that have paid into Medicare for Twenty-Forty years, should share it with Eighteen year olds that haven’t worked, or paid a dime into t. INSANITY. Give everyone over Sixty-Five the money they paid into it, With Interest, before you blather about Sharing.
Maybe if they kill all of the old white people in might work.
The real reason this country can’t go to a Single-Payor system is COST. If we had done this right after W.W. II like Canada and Western Europe it would have worked, costs were low and those countries now probably do not spend much over 3% GDP.
We are now spending close to 20% GDP. In California the estimated cost to do this was an additional $400 Billion on top of current budget. So you extrapolate that cost nationwide and your talking, my estimate, about $3 to $4 trillion on top of the current budget.
How would you raise that kind of money. Probably and additional payroll Tax or 15 to 20%. That will take even more disposable income out of people’s pockets, for a lot of folks it will squeeze them on basic expenses for living.
We are just past the point of a Single-Payor system unless we find a serious way to collapse Health Care costs 80 to 90%. So let the Democrats explain how they will do this.
I have said many times, when I was working in the British NHS a few decades ago, I was making peanuts as I wasn’t a registered tech over there. My tax bite was 50%. That was THE LOWEST TAX BRACKET THEN. I don’t know what their brackets look like now, but it cannot be much better. In the 60’s, the high earners tax bracket was 95%. Yeah, that Socialism really works well for all the people! /s
California abandoned it.
Vermont abandoned it.
why ? cost to damn much.
If they pull this off does this mean that everyone who paid for Medicare since 1964 will get that money refunded to them?
Why don’t we perform an experiment.
ALL government employees (elected or otherwise) MUST be covered by this plan. The Medicare Payroll deduction will be increased from 2.9% to 25.0%.
After 5 years, depending upon how well it works out, we can either extend it to everyone or roll it back to the way it is currently.
There is an ad on TV in Arizona that says ‘McSally voted against pre-existing conditions’. So I looked it up. Turns out she voted to allow Arizonans to buy short-term health insurance that doesn’t require the insurer to cover pre-existing conditions. I think the Dems can’t help but lie, that’s all they have.
Medicare for all is merely ObamaCare in a different package...
Of course we can, and will. It's the only way out at this point.
Nobody said a Medicare-based single payer will cover MRI, for example. If you want an MRI, there will be a private market and you can pay for it, or your private insurance you pay for can.
What EVERYBODY wants (and I've been sending doctor bills for 45 years) is to take your kid with a fever and a sore throat to the doctor, get a prescription, take it to the pharmacy (or even better, to the drug desk in the practice), and the only thing you hear from the doctor or office staff is, "Gee, I hope Johnny feels better soon".
Single payer cannot and will not pay for MRI, chemotherapy to produce 3 month partial responses in metastatic cancer, implantable auto-sensing defibrillators, DaVinci robotic prostate surgery, and all the things we have invented or bought with borrowed and printed money. If Congress could have figured out how to do that without $20 trillion in debt, they would have.
What single payer CAN and WILL do is release the taxpayers from responsibility for the financial success of the health "insurance" industry. Most people can and will live happily with their Trump Card in their pocket and zero bills when they are sick, or are worried that they are. Employers will be freed from the titanic costs of prepaid health care for their employees, provided under the rubric of "insurance", although it is no such thing.
And insurance businesses CAN and WILL sell individual true health insurance policies, rated and priced accurately (which they DO have expertise in), and offered in tiers (kicking in after $50,000, $100,000 out of pocket, or cutting off after $1,000,000, for example) - whatever you want to buy and can afford, you will be able to get.
What WON'T exist anymore is a taxpayer guarantee to pay, without limit, for any medical invention our incredibly creative scientists can devise that could, under very broad guidelines, possibly be of any use to any person, whatever their condition, life expectancy, or contribution to society.
That's not health insurance. That's Ponce de Leon searching for the fountain of youth. If $20 trillion in debt hasn't done the job, it’s not happening.
Oh, it goes without saying that closing the Southern border, with a wall and machine guns if necessary, expulsion of anyone (and their children) without citizenship or permanent residency with the right to work, and capital punishment for selling opioids or amphetamines will all be part of the grand bargain.
Of course we can, and will. It's the only way out at this point.
Nobody said a Medicare-based single payer will cover MRI, for example. If you want an MRI, there will be a private market and you can pay for it, or your private insurance you pay for can.
What EVERYBODY wants (and I've been sending doctor bills for 45 years) is to take your kid with a fever and a sore throat to the doctor, get a prescription, take it to the pharmacy (or even better, to the drug desk in the practice), and the only thing you hear from the doctor or office staff is, "Gee, I hope Johnny feels better soon".
Single payer cannot and will not pay for MRI, chemotherapy to produce 3 month partial responses in metastatic cancer, implantable auto-sensing defibrillators, DaVinci robotic prostate surgery, and all the things we have invented or bought with borrowed and printed money. If Congress could have figured out how to do that without $20 trillion in debt, they would have.
What single payer CAN and WILL do is release the taxpayers from responsibility for the financial success of the health "insurance" industry. Most people can and will live happily with their Trump Card in their pocket and zero bills when they are sick, or are worried that they are. Employers will be freed from the titanic costs of prepaid health care for their employees, provided under the rubric of "insurance", although it is no such thing.
And insurance businesses CAN and WILL sell individual true health insurance policies, rated and priced accurately (which they DO have expertise in), and offered in tiers (kicking in after $50,000, $100,000 out of pocket, or cutting off after $1,000,000, for example) - whatever you want to buy and can afford, you will be able to get.
What WON'T exist anymore is a taxpayer guarantee to pay, without limit, for any medical invention our incredibly creative scientists can devise that could, under very broad guidelines, possibly be of any use to any person, whatever their condition, life expectancy, or contribution to society.
That's not health insurance. That's Ponce de Leon searching for the fountain of youth. If $20 trillion in debt hasn't done the job, it’s not happening.
Oh, it goes without saying that closing the Southern border, with a wall and machine guns if necessary, expulsion of anyone (and their children) without citizenship or permanent residency with the right to work, and capital punishment for selling opioids or amphetamines will all be part of the grand bargain.
H.R. 676 (Medicare For All)... “It shall be unlawful for a private health insurer to sell health insurance coverage that duplicates the benefits provided under this Act.”
Making private insurance illegal.