Warren says she will soon release plan to fund 'Medicare for All'

[ataraxia]

If she can come up with a better way to fund Medicare For All -- better than Bernie Sanders himself -- more power to her. I'm up for better ideas. Lets have at it.

If she promises that she can provide M4A without increasing taxes, she'll be in a world of trouble.

All she would have to show is that the net amount will be less than what people are paying now.

 

[Surrealistik]

A] It's not subsidizing the private insurance market. The private market would be private premium based, as it is now for insurance not purchased on the ACA exchanges. Essentially, the premiums are privately funded, free-market, and non-subsidized.

C] I'm a little lost here. Medicaid & Medicare (predominately) are paid for by the government. How is that not single-payer?

D] Besides the political expediency, I still believe a publicly funded option is the way to go. I can't see how or why we would stop Americans from purchasing a private product, if they so desire. Other countries' healthcare systems (UK, CA, etc.) do just as I'm suggesting. And it works fine, for them. I'm not sure what the problem is, here?

A: Indirect subsidy is still a form of subsidy. Again, now the public system will take on all the bad risks, and the private system will take on all the good ones; this is effectively privatizing gains and socializing losses. The govt takes on the bad risks, and private health insurance becomes more profitable than ever as their risk pools improve at tax payer expense.

C: Singlepayer = you have one (1) payer. A system that involves private payers and a public payer is by definition multipayer.

D: No they don't. In the UK, not only is it singlepayer, but even the providers and hospitals and doctors are socialized (and the UK has one of the most efficient healthcare systems in the world, with excellent control of costs, while offering more comprehensive care than a vast majority of healthcare systems worldwide). In Canada, providers are private. In both countries, the private insurance industry only exists to provide supplemental coverage on top of mandatory, universal public healthcare for peripheral things that the government only partially or doesn't cover. What Buttigieg is advocating is much more like Switzerland which is still vastly more expensive than the rest of the developed world, albeit not nearly as expensive as the State's. To clarify, it's not that UHC SP prevents private health insurance from existing so much as it limits them to a supporting or supplemental role, rather than being a payer of primary and necessary healthcare (and they don't receive any kind of govt subsidy, direct or indirect); you can still buy a gold plated supplemental plan for things like plastic surgery, expensive eyeglasses, maybe even private rooms or in Canada's case certain pharmaceutical expenses, vision and dental, but you cannot get a health plan that covers primary care.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Everything has its price.

Quite true, yet so hard to get folks like Warren to admit. The concept of a public option is actually something that I support. IMHO, expanded Medicaid is the best basis for doing that. The problem, of course, is that the annual per capita cost of Medicaid is now about $10K - making it impossible to get anyone to "opt in" at that price. If that could be cut to $6K/year then it might be possible with a 50% subsidy to reduce the "opt in" premiums to $3K/year ($250/month) making it become feasible.

 

[apdst]

Warren will have to thread an awfully small needle for this. She'll have to...

a)overcome the ridiculous narrative that paying an additional, say, $8000 in taxes is somehow worse than paying $16,000 in premiums, deductibles and copays, and simultaneously...
b)avoid giving Republicans the soundbite that she will raise your taxes, which is of course what all the fuss is really about.

The taxes are mandatory. The insurance payments are voluntary.

I hope she tells the citizenry that we all have to pay 8 grand a year, on top of our other taxes so she can give free healthcare to illegal aliens. Oh, yeah! That's going to be great!...lol

 

[Northern Light]

I think making it an option for businesses to buy into is indeed the way to go. The insurance industry is too big and employs too many people for any sort of fast transition.

I could see some deal of "agree to pay x in taxes instead of paying y to private insurance, just sign here" or something along those lines.

Problem is, for the hardliners it's all or nothing. They don't want a diversified market that can threaten their bottom line. That's really what this is all about.

They won't give ground to any piecemeal proposal, which is why the right wing trashes every single attempt at government paid anything related to health care, and why they continue to try and erode the quality of pre-existing systems.

We will never have a good health care system in this country until the GOP gets their house in order. It's just not possible. It has to be a genuine bipartisan cooperative effort or nothing will stick.

 

[Crovax]

That's addressed better by Vox:



Medicare-for-all: The design and costs for Democratic health care plans - Vox

One important point is the MFA and employer provided health care are not mutually exclusive. Another point is that you are employed you have great coverage, which kind of gets to the heart of what's wrong with the current system: it works well for one half of the country, and absolutely terribly for the other half.

I’m not worried about where my healthcare comes from or who is providing it, I’m worried about losing 5% of my income and not getting any better healthcare

 

[MauiMan]

Warren says she will soon release plan to fund '''Medicare for All'''



Good. She's incredibly intelligent and competent policy, especially in regards to economics and finance. I figured it was a matter of time.

Her plan will be to take from the rich and give to the poor. Then have the government dole out our healthcare.

 

[Hatuey]

All you do is go from thread to thread and get the same answers to your same, intellectually dishonest questions and claims. It's your thing, and I'm not going down that rabbit hole with you for the ten thousandth time.

He lives in Canada, but can't see how universal healthcare would be a benefit to us.

It's weird.

Sent from the Matrioshka in the WH Christmas tree.

 

[MauiMan]

I’m not worried about where my healthcare comes from or who is providing it, I’m worried about losing 5% of my income and not getting any better healthcare

It will be worse than that. I have Medicare, and it is not great and it is not free.

 

[Hatuey]

The basic problem which Warren faces is that even if she can "predict" that per capita medical care expenses will drop from about the current $10K to $6K under the new "cost saving" M4A terms that is still going mean that cost to cover a family of 4 is $24K/year.

Basically she must use that M4A annual per capita cost guesstimate times 330M people, subtract that which is currently (federally and state) funded by Medicare, Medicaid and VA (which would presumably be replaced by M4A funding) and then cover the difference with new taxes.

It should prove to be quite educational for Warren as well as the rest of us.

Why new taxes? Can't the Pentagon use a little less money? They seemed happy enough to give it up for a wall. Let's find out how many agencies can spare money for a wall, and use it to find health for US citizens instead.

Sent from the Matrioshka in the WH Christmas tree.

 

[GreatNews2night]

The taxes are mandatory. The insurance payments are voluntary.

I hope she tells the citizenry that we all have to pay 8 grand a year, on top of our other taxes so she can give free healthcare to illegal aliens. Oh, yeah! That's going to be great!...lol

If the Dems continue the folly that they started in one of the debates, when all candidates raised their hands to say yes when asked if healthcare should be free for illegal aliens, it is 100% guaranteed that Trump will get re-elected (which I'll deeply regret).

This idea is completely non-viable. People who don't think of unintended consequences say "but we already pay for their care in the Emergency Room and if they get elective care the costs will go down." No, that might be true (in a limited way - although, keep reading) if not for this piece of unintended consequence: every single person in the world with extremely expensive health conditions (like advanced cancer in need of ultra-costly chemotherapy and need for open heart surgery or neurological surgery) from countries that don't already provide that service to their citizens (that is, most of the Third World) would just flock to America and become an illegal alien here, in order to get that health condition taken care of, for free. Medical tourism at its finest. Just manage to get a valid visa, overstay it, become an illegal alien in America, and let those suckers, the American citizens, pay for your healthcare. Neat!

And then, yes, if you take care of an asthma attack in the Emergency Room, it is more expensive than if you have access to a primary care doctor who will give you a prescription for albuterol which will prevent that asthma attack from ever needing ER care in the first place.

But that's very misleading. The cost for the type of service offered by an Emergency Room will go down if provided in a preventative manner by primary care. But the cost for services NOT rendered by an Emergency Room, like elective surgery, chemotherapy, etc., are currently NOT offered to an illegal alien without health coverage. But in the new system, that care WOULD be provided to the illegal aliens. So any savings in preventing the illegal alien from going to the ER with an asthma attack, would be more than offset by the new cost of providing another illegal alien with chemotherapy. While an ER visit costs a couple of thousand, chemotherapy costs hundreds of thousands.

Also, any savings are for the hospitals, not necessarily for the taxpayers. The hospitals wouldn't be burdened with unpaid ER care and would stop passing on these costs to the ensured people. But again, this is misleading, because the currently insured people would, in the new system, continue to pay for that care for illegal aliens, just, in a different way (through taxes) and would pay for more of it (not only an ER visit, but all the elective services too, which currently we don't pay for). A hospital would be delighted to have more business; for example, getting paid for more open-heart surgeries. However we American citizens would have more trouble getting a spot for an open-heart surgery - there are just so many heart surgeons and heart surgery-ready operating rooms and ICU recovery beds, and we'd suffer the competition from all the illegal aliens flocking here to get those surgeries.

The first guy who explains all this to the American people (it's impressive how people don't think and don't know the details about what providing elective services - that is, non-emergency services - to illegal aliens would entail) will bury the electoral chances of any Democrat defending this stupid idea.

European countries who have universal healthcare typically only provide elective (non-emergency services) to their own citizens; not to their illegal aliens.

This Democrat idea is the stupidest one I've heard in a long time, and will be highly unpopular, ensuring Trump's re-election.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Why new taxes? Can't the Pentagon use a little less money? They seemed happy enough to give it up for a wall. Let's find out how many agencies can spare money for a wall, and use it to find health for US citizens instead.

Sent from the Matrioshka in the WH Christmas tree.

You seem to ignore the fact that we have a $1T/year federal deficit now - just to eliminate that deficit would require about a 40% increase in individual federal income tax revenue.

 

[OscarLevant]

I hope she finally mentions that the middle class is getting a big fat, burdensome, tax increase. I'm sure they'll love it.

The idea is to replace expensive premiums with a smaller tax.


She said "I will sign no bill if the costs to the taxpayer are more".


That's what she is talking about. If there is no insurance, there are no premiums, and the tax will be less than the premiums because the cost of the insurance industry built into the cost structure would no longer exist.

This is one of the contributing reasons that in the 50 or so western developed nations, the per capita costs for heath care is roughly half of what it is in the USA.

 

[TheRepublican]

Why should we trust this psychological lair


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[apdst]

Why new taxes? Can't the Pentagon use a little less money? They seemed happy enough to give it up for a wall. Let's find out how many agencies can spare money for a wall, and use it to find health for US citizens instead.

Sent from the Matrioshka in the WH Christmas tree.

The $20 billion a year in green energy subsidies would be a good place to start. Then, the billions in foreign aid we give to other countries. The $500 million a year that goes to Planned Parenthood. Those are great places to start.

 

[MovingPictures]

If the Dems continue the folly that they started in one of the debates, when all candidates raised their hands to say yes when asked if healthcare should be free for illegal aliens, it is 100% guaranteed that Trump will get re-elected (which I'll deeply regret).

This idea is completely non-viable. People who don't think of unintended consequences say "but we already pay for their care in the Emergency Room and if they get elective care the costs will go down." No, that might be true (in a limited way - although, keep reading) if not for this piece of unintended consequence: every single person in the world with extremely expensive health conditions (like advanced cancer in need of ultra-costly chemotherapy and need for open heart surgery or neurological surgery) from countries that don't already provide that service to their citizens (that is, most of the Third World) would just flock to America and become an illegal alien here, in order to get that health condition taken care of, for free. Medical tourism at its finest. Just manage to get a valid visa, overstay it, become an illegal alien in America, and let those suckers, the American citizens, pay for your healthcare. Neat!

And then, yes, if you take care of an asthma attack in the Emergency Room, it is more expensive than if you have access to a primary care doctor who will give you a prescription for albuterol which will prevent that asthma attack from ever needing ER care in the first place.

But that's very misleading. The cost for the type of service offered by an Emergency Room will go down if provided in a preventative manner by primary care. But the cost for services NOT rendered by an Emergency Room, like elective surgery, chemotherapy, etc., are currently NOT offered to an illegal alien without health coverage. But in the new system, that care WOULD be provided to the illegal aliens. So any savings in preventing the illegal alien from going to the ER with an asthma attack, would be more than offset by the new cost of providing another illegal alien with chemotherapy. While an ER visit costs a couple of thousand, chemotherapy costs hundreds of thousands.

Also, any savings are for the hospitals, not necessarily for the taxpayers. The hospitals wouldn't be burdened with unpaid ER care and would stop passing on these costs to the ensured people. But again, this is misleading, because the currently insured people would, in the new system, continue to pay for that care for illegal aliens, just, in a different way (through taxes) and would pay for more of it (not only an ER visit, but all the elective services too, which currently we don't pay for). A hospital would be delighted to have more business; for example, getting paid for more open-heart surgeries. However we American citizens would have more trouble getting a spot for an open-heart surgery - there are just so many heart surgeons and heart surgery-ready operating rooms and ICU recovery beds, and we'd suffer the competition from all the illegal aliens flocking here to get those surgeries.

The first guy who explains all this to the American people (it's impressive how people don't think and don't know the details about what providing elective services - that is, non-emergency services - to illegal aliens would entail) will bury the electoral chances of any Democrat defending this stupid idea.

European countries who have universal healthcare typically only provide elective (non-emergency services) to their own citizens; not to their illegal aliens.

This Democrat idea is the stupidest one I've heard in a long time, and will be highly unpopular, ensuring Trump's re-election.

It's a silly idea that won't work, but I think you're getting paranoid again in thinking that X guarantees Trump's reelection.

Trump himself has about a dozen really fringe policy position that the public finds disgusting, so the idea that the broader public won't weigh that against him is missing the big picture, and letting 2016 PTSD spook us way too much.

This election is about trade offs. How much are people willing to tolerate? If Trump had just one unpopular conservative police I'd agree with you, but that's not the case. The man is a fascist hot mess, and the majority objectively sees him as too crazy to be in charge past 2020.

 

[Hatuey]

The $20 billion a year in green energy subsidies would be a good place to start. Then, the billions in foreign aid we give to other countries. The $500 million a year that goes to Planned Parenthood. Those are great places to start.

Helping people, and getting a cleaner planet? No thanks. War profiteers need money too.

I hope that's working out financially. You must be taking in the benjamins from of those multimillion dollar investments by now.

Lol, it's only a joke if you post that nonsense for free.



Sent from the Matrioshka in the WH Christmas tree.

 

[Hatuey]

You seem to ignore the fact that we have a $1T/year federal deficit now - just to eliminate that deficit would require about a 40% increase in individual federal income tax revenue.

Okay, fine. I'll meet you half way. We can cut some money off from all of the farm subsidies too, bases around the world, maybe even close all of those tax loopholes that allow people to make billions, and not pay taxes. Where does that put us? Come on, I just want to know how many flips we can do before we come to the conclusion that healthcare for all is not something you will ever want to do.





Sent from the Matrioshka in the WH Christmas tree.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Okay, fine. I'll meet you half way. We can cut some money off from all of the farm subsidies too, bases around the world, maybe even close all of those tax loopholes that allow people to make billions, and not pay taxes. Where does that put us? Come on, I just want to know how many flips we can do before we come to the conclusion that healthcare for all is not something you will ever want to do.





Sent from the Matrioshka in the WH Christmas tree.

OK I'll meet you half way - you come up with $3T/year in new tax revenue and/or savings and I'm all in on UHC.

 

[Hatuey]

OK I'll meet you half way - you come up with $3T/year in new tax revenue and/or savings and I'm all in on UHC.

Again, money for wars, money for military, no money for healthcare.

Shameful.

Sent from the Matrioshka in the WH Christmas tree.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Again, money for wars, money for military, no money for healthcare.

Shameful.

Sent from the Matrioshka in the WH Christmas tree.

OK, cut defense spending to zero and then you only need $2.3T/year in new tax revenue.

 

[GreatNews2night]

It's a silly idea that won't work, but I think you're getting paranoid again in thinking that X guarantees Trump's reelection.

Trump himself has about a dozen really fringe policy position that the public finds disgusting, so the idea that the broader public won't weigh that against him is missing the big picture, and letting 2016 PTSD spook us way too much.

This election is about trade offs. How much are people willing to tolerate? If Trump had just one unpopular conservative police I'd agree with you, but that's not the case. The man is a fascist hot mess, and the majority objectively sees him as too crazy to be in charge past 2020.

I think you are underestimating the power of financial self-interest. You are talking about the politically savvy people who post here, but the common voter often thinks with his or her wallet. A voter will very often prioritize that over anything else. Someone may experience profound disgust for Trump, but then if the person is convinced by the PAC-sponsored ads that the Dems will give free healthcare to illegal aliens and that the voter will have to pay $8,000 per year for that goal, I can guarantee that that person will not be very likely to vote for the Democrat, regardless of his/her disgust for Trump.

 

[Abbazorkzog]

I'm not afraid to criticize my insurgent candidate of choice, and this looks bad, and if it keeps up she'll lose the left-wing/liberal vote to Bernie and it'll be 2016 all over again, ensuring the full-fledged return of Hillary Clinton (indirectly by proxy, probably Bloomberg) in the form of a running-mate or a major surrogate for whomever it is that is the opponent of Bernie, and we'll get Trump reelected. It's quite clear that the establishment class are at least indignantly tolerant of her since she tentatively identifies as a capitalist. I believe a lot of the capitalist class debating backing Trump in 2020 can be persuaded to back Warren - should she be the nominee - but I do not see that happening with Bernie.

I'm strategic about these sort of things. Bernie seems to be more inspiring and gets his message across more forcefully and plainly which strikes me as more authentic, but I don't percieve Warren as inauthentic, just a bit socially awkward, which is fine. But I do think Warren would be better for the progressives and insurgents, and she would probably appeal to the rural Trump people better than Bernie as well having Oklahoma/Southern roots and all. Bernie's too radical, or comes off as too radical, for him to ever be my first choice but more of a begrudging last resort.

 

[MovingPictures]

I think you are underestimating the power of financial self-interest. You are talking about the politically savvy people who post here, but the common voter often thinks with his or her wallet. A voter will very often prioritize that over anything else. Someone may experience profound disgust for Trump, but then if the person is convinced by the PAC-sponsored ads that the Dems will give free healthcare to illegal aliens and that the voter will have to pay $8,000 per year for that goal, I can guarantee that that person will not be very likely to vote for the Democrat, regardless of his/her disgust for Trump.

These people you're so concerned about losing, guess what? They are die-hard Republicans, who have likely NEVER voted for a Democrat in their lives.

If all they care about is a taxcut and they hate paying for social programs, WTF do you think they are? They are not moderates. If they are telling you that just know they are lying through their teeth, because they don't want to let you know that they would vote for a racist or a pedophile over a Democrat.

There are 4.2 million voters that went for Obama in 2012, who simply sat out 2016. The reason we won big in 2018 is because Trump put a fire under their asses, and for once they are seeing the consequences of not voting and opening the door for Republican to win.

Trump only won by 130K votes across three states. That's little for error on his part, and he has made many fatal errors since he walked into office, so much so that 52% now support his removal from office, and have finally had enough of him. Remember, he only won 46% of the popular vote, so it's to reason there's been a 5-6% swing towards his opponent if these impeachment numbers are real, and they would result in a blood bath for the Republican party in 2020 if it holds up.

 

[GreatNews2night]

These people you're so concerned about losing, guess what? They are die-hard Republicans, who have likely NEVER voted for a Democrat in their lives.

If all they care about is a taxcut and they hate paying for social programs, WTF do you think they are? They are not moderates. If they are telling you that just know they are lying through their teeth, because they don't want to let you know that they would vote for a racist or a pedophile over a Democrat.

There are 4.2 million voters that went for Obama in 2012, who simply sat out 2016. The reason we won big in 2018 is because Trump put a fire under their asses, and for once they are seeing the consequences of not voting and opening the door for Republican to win.

Trump only won by 130K votes across three states. That's little for error on his part, and he has made many fatal errors since he walked into office, so much so that 52% now support his removal from office, and have finally had enough of him. Remember, he only won 46% of the popular vote, so it's to reason there's been a 5-6% swing towards his opponent if these impeachment numbers are real, and they would result in a blood bath for the Republican party in 2020 if it holds up.

Unless the Dems snatch defeat from the jaws of victory... again. Remember, he is the incumbent now. It's harder to defeat the incumbent. The economy is now perceived as good; that's always good for the incumbent. Of the 4.2 million voters who sat out, not all of them will come back. Some of the people who sat out were Bernie or Bust idiots, and since that loser Bernie is running again, who knows if they'll have the same attitude once Bernie crashes out? And do you think that Elizabeth Warren generates the same interest as Barack Obama? Especially among black people?

No, even though Trump's victory in 2016 was narrow, it doesn't mean that he isn't a formidable candidate for 2020. This attitude of "we have this in the bag already" is exactly what contributed to the Democratic Party's defeat in 2016. Let's not repeat the mistake.