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.
Yep, and healthcare is the gold key they're grasping for. As Mark Steyn so succintly put it, nationalizing healthcare really means the nationalizing of your body. The Left will quite literally own you when they control your healthcare.
I'm assuming "worse." After importing Latin America for 30 years, we won't be turning into Sweden.
Medicare is based on income. I pay over $ 1,000.00 per month for me and my wife not counting another $ 44.00 for part D (?) is it?
No one ever told me this.
I’m no math wiz, but:
$32.8 trillion divided by 323.13 million residents would be $101,507 per resident.
$32.8 trillion divided by 138.3 million taxpayers would be $237,165 per taxpayer.
That seems a tad bit pricey for my liking. Personally, I will stick with my employer’s self insured plan for $1600 Alex.
The exact same look I get when you inform them that legalized pot will be taxed like cigarettes or booze. It is just a matter of time and amount.
The dirty little secret is that the longer you wait, the more expensive it gets.
We ended up having to pay for two months of coverage she never used because it was cheaper than paying inflated premiums down the road by delaying the sign up.
At least for now, she gets better coverage from Medicare than I do from work insurance particularly since we added a $22 per month supplement which is supposed to cover MOST OF what Medicare doesn't. There are still co-pays and extra perks like a gym membership. The main difference now is that Uncle Sap subsidizes her rather than my employer.
A dirty little secret is that Uncle Sap is so incompetent at administration that they pay the supplement plan $800 or so per month for administration . . . the REASON they can throw in inexpensive little perks like gym membership.
FWIW, you're employer's average subsidy is nearly the same $800 per month. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that you can carry a high deductible catastrophic plan, put the difference in a medical savings account and be money ahead for all the extra costs imposed by big government.
Sounds like the culmination of the Cloward and Piven strategy,overload the system causing its collapse
The disconnect is that we are already spending $3.5 trillion per year on healthcare as it is. I have no doubt that Medicare for All will be more expensive, but this old study doesn’t adequately explain why. They are only talking about the government’s share. Maybe they think the patients’ cost will put it over the top?
bkmk
That’s over ten years. So $10 grand a year or so per person.
Their number is over 10 years so the monthly would be $846.
That’s still $8,552 a year more than my plan, so I don’t want it.
Pay it back?
They don't even have a plan to stop increasing it by $1 trillion per year!
What about the portion your employer pays?
Bttt
Excellent
Why should they care? It’s not THEIR money.
Most aren’t ignorant. They just don’t care.
Just like the U.K.! Pull your own teeth!
Once the politicians get between you and your doctor, they own you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.