The Cost of Free Health Care

Nope. Nothing is free. Sure are a lot of people who think everything should be free for them and paid for by someone else. That is one of the biggest roadblocks to this whole discussion.

 

The concept makes sense but the devil is in the details. In order to get that increase you are going to have to give something in return. What will that be and what will it cost? That was purely rhetorical because right now there is no way that scenario is going to happen anyway. Politicians are not proactive critters and will only react to pain or bribes.

 

Then I'd go on TV and praise the ones who supported the idea by name (the bribe).

And I'd verbally spank the opposers by name (the pain).

 

There is not such thing as "free" health care. Someone, somewhere is paying for it.

Your math is off by the fact that you are assuming that everyone is ponying up their fair share money, working or not. We all know in every case that will never happen here. There will always be people who are getting everything for putting in nothing.

The question you need to ask is how much would we be saving if we were not carrying those who do not pay.

 

It is called the Bully Pulpit for a reason.

 

Again, your math is faulty based on the fact you do not take into account the people who will never pay a cent into your assumption.

 

Same applies to the 1% who are not putting in their share of the pie right now. If they were fully taxed at the appropriate rates we would not have any deficit spending.

 

The 1% are not a drain on health care. I am rather sure they pay their medical bills.

I am all for taxing everyone the exact same percentage. If the government wants 20% out of everyone, I want that 20% out of the 1% as well as the 40% who don't pay a cent. Period.

I am also assuming that any "free" healthcare would go to card carrying US citizens only.

 

I know that. My point is that it's built around the established private system - in simple terms it just plays the premiums for the recipients. A fully (or even largely) public healthcare system in the US would be entirely different from Medicare (or Medicaid).

My example wasn't about highlighting profit, it was pointing out that you can't rely on current "cost of healthcare" figures as any kind of basis for how much a national public system would actually cost without knowing how those figures are being calculated.

 

Right.

Why do I want to ask that question? If this is paid for through payroll taxes, everyone who works, even part time at minimum wage, chips in. So the only people who don't pay are the unemployed. IMHO, there are very few people in our society who are willfully unemployed. Some, yes. Not many.

How could we not carry those who do not pay? Just refuse to give them medical care? Please don't tell me that.

 

When it comes to Payroll taxes, which covers Medicare, everyone, including the mythical 40%, pay them. No exceptions.

When did US citizens have to "carry a card"? Is this something new that T-Rump is demanding?

 

Medicare patients are often treated at a loss, so questions arise about whether or not the system could sustain itself on those reimbursement rates. Also, we really have no way of knowing how often people would go to the doctor if it were relatively free. I suspect you would see a lot more patients than are being seen now.

 

What a giant bureaucratic nightmare that would be.

Most non-citizens are working. And most of those who are working are working above board (legit employers), which means they're paying payroll taxes, even if they're here illegally.

Let's let the medical system deal with medical problems, not burdening them with checking citizenship.

 

I think those are both valid concerns. That's a good argument for keeping deductibles and co-pays. My wife bills Medicare for her hospital. She says Medicare pays for "usual and customary charges" for a given treatment. Sometimes those payments do not cover the cost of treatment, sometimes they do, and sometimes they get a little more. This does have the effect of keeping a doctor or hospital from charging exorbitant rates, but whether it is enough to sustain the provider is definitely an issue.

 

well lets see.

payroll tax implies that everyone is working. It also implies that everyone makes 100k according to your math. If everyone is not making that 100k, then they are not paying the same % as others. Someone is carrying them.

 

What a lot of doctors do with medicare patients is churn fees on profitable things like blood work that the doctor can farm out to some low level staffer so Granny has to have her blood drawn every few weeks to "monitor" her whatever.

 

There's probably nobody more "middle America" on this board than me. I'm not looking for "free" healthcare and my checkbook certainly doesn't care whether the money comes out of it each month to pay the United States of America or United Healthcare. What it wants is to not have to pay the the county and state for indigent health care or to pay the 30% "administrative mark-up" to the private sector for such things as lavish parties, girls, and G-5 aircraft, and it doesn't want to pay 8% and increases in premiums and co-pays to go along with 8% annual decreases in coverage. I want some rationality to the system that the private sector is unwilling to provide.

 

All government should do is to pay 50% less for all medical goods and services.
It works very well in any other civilized country, it should work in U.S..

 

Everyone would be paying the same percent out of their paycheck no matter how much or how little they earned. But what is true is that low income earners would not be paying in enough total dollars from that percentage to pay for their health care. That is true. They would be contributing to it, but not paying for all of it. That would be made up for by high income earners who were paying in more than the cost of their own health care.

 

That is not your original math.

Alright, so to the new terms. It is the same as it is now. The top and the bottom are covered. The middle class gets the shaft.

 

No, Clarah.

Even right now ... today ... if you are working you are paying a 1.49% tax for Medicare out of your pay. So is the guy making $200k/year. So is the part time minimum wage clerk at 7-11. We are all paying the exact same percentage per dollar earned to pay for Medicare (elderly medical care).

But if you earn $200k/yr, that percentage taken out amounts to a lot more dollars than the number of dollars taken out of someone's pay that earns only $10k/year. They are both paying the same RATE of tax, though. If anyone is getting the shaft in this deal, it is the people in the upper incomes. The rate of tax is the same, but because they earn so much, that rate translates into a lot more dollars paid. They are the ones who would be subsidizing the lower income people, not the middle class very much. In fact, the richer you are, the more dollars you pay into the system, and the more you are subsidizing the low income people.

This thread was thought of because we have a candidate who wants to provide health care for all, paid for by the government (which means paid for by us) with no more private insurance. I was curious how much that would cost, so I did a little research on the Medicare system, knowing that we pay for it with payroll taxes - all of us do. Then all I really did is figure out how much MORE in tax money the government would have to get to cover everyone, and I increased the RATE of tax to reach that amount. I'm not a math expert or accountant. And yet the math was pretty simple, even for me.

As some of these others have pointed out, there are other variables that could effect what it would really cost, but I think my facts and my math give us a pretty strong case that, if we want to have a national health care system that covers everyone, it's going to cost us. We would all have to be willing to have a substantial piece of our paychecks taken out to do it. The money does not just magically appear out of thin air. I think we would all have to understand that and be willing.

I'm just wondering if Bernie or Bernie's supporters have really thought this through at all.

 

If you get the entire amount you payed into federal taxes back, you are paying zero into anything. If you take 20% from everyone, no deductions, nothing coming back, that is when everyone is paying the same.

 

Clarah, what you are talking about there is INCOME tax. Yes, some people owe no income tax, especially lower income people with families. But that's not what we're talking about here. This is not the income tax. I am using the Medicare tax as a guide. This is a tax that is taken out of your check, and the government keeps it. It is separate from income tax and has nothing to do with the income tax. There is no getting the Medicare tax refunded to you like with income taxes. That only happens with the income tax.

 

alright, same thing.

It will still be the rich are just fine, the poor will reap all of the rewards for free, and the middle class will be screwed carrying them.

 

Everyone is paying EXACTLY THE SAME PERCENTAGE OF THEIR EARNINGS!

That is what the term percentage means!