Monday, July 30, 2018

Medicare for all!






"In any event, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. I am chomping at the bit to hear the details from the socialists on how to pay for single payer. Stay tuned folks - this show is about to get real good, real fast."



Like the sound of that? I sure would if I were stuck in a ObamaCare exchange with $1,400 monthly premiums, an $8,000 family deductible, and co-pays. What a back breaker! So the socialist faction of the Democratic Party has come up with a whopper of a solution - Medicare for every citizen. Heck, why should just the old farts get Medicare? Expect as we get closer to November, to hear that clarion call - over and over and over again.

Okay Bird - you stingy old man! What is wrong with Medicare for all? Well, money for one. Like (and I really hate to bring this one up), who is going to pay for it? Right now, Medicare is on pins and needles. The plan which FDR thought would be a springboard for something much better in fifty years, has turned out to be a lemon. And it is going broke at breakneck speed.

How broke? Like 2026 it will be out of money. Not totally, but more money will be going out than coming in. Then every year it will get worse. Did I mention that 2026 is only 7 1/2 years away? Now if (as an example), we threw millions of more of folks on the Medicare roles in 2019, I wonder what the new date would be? 2020? Maybe even 2019.

Folks on Social Security should not feel that smug. Even though in better shape, Social Security only has eight more years of life beyond what Medicare has. In other words, in 2034, the party is over. And that party could end quicker if the "universal income" folks get their way. I can see it now - in addition to Medicare for all, they would want Social Security for all. 

Because I am getting up there in years, I remember stuff. This warning about Medicare and Social Security just not just happen - it has been going on for decades. "Some day, we are going to run out of money, and then there will be trouble". Yes, yes. Been hearing that for years. Well guess what? That some day is just a bit beyond than tomorrow. 

The timing for these socialist nitwits could not be better. "Medicare for all!" the same time the Government is shouting "Medicare going broke!" However some socialists, like that gal from New York who just won her primary, have rock solid solutions - defund the military and tax the rich. Make the rich pay their fair share. 

Fair share? Just to get this straight, according to Market Watch, the bottom 45% of income earners pay $0 federal income tax, and the top 1% pay almost half (according to CNBC). I guess I agree with the socialists. Everyone should pay their fair share. When I look at those stats, they certainly are NOT fair. Everyone paying 10% (as an example) would be fair. Or better yet, a Fair Tax (consumption tax).

In any event, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. I am chomping at the bit to hear the details from the socialists on how to pay for single payer. Stay tuned folks - this show is about to get real good, real fast.


7 comments:

  1. Use Denmark's model of high taxes (minimum of 40%) and then add a Value added tax of 25% on everything purchased and a tax on autos of 180% and you can create a system that pays for healthcare, education, retirement and numerous other benefits. Or not!

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  2. Every liberal government program has the same single critical point in their project plan. It's the one labelled "and here a miracle occurs." Government cannot spend one dime that it does not first extract from the economy in some form, and it is impossible to get more out of, say, the medical insurance system than the amount put into it.

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  3. Since the current insurance medical loss ratios (claims paid) are in the 55 to 65% of total premiums range I would think a little more could be gleaned from it.

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  4. Just read a study paid for by Koch Brothers indicating that Federal health expenditures will necessarily go up a lot, to $32.6 trillion over the 10-year period.
    But this is more of an accounting thing than anything else: rather than paying premiums, deductibles, and copays for health care, people will instead pay a tax that is, on average, a bit less than they currently pay into the healthcare system and, for those on lower incomes, a lot less.

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    Replies
    1. Failed to mention, savings would be 2T over 10 year period.

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  5. Off topic...........
    L
    New Deal for you wealthy Conservatives!
    Indexing Capital Gains! 86% of benefit goes to top 1%. Again.

    There is a grim irony in the fact that every prediction the Republicans have made about their tax cut has so far failed to come to fruition. They promised the tax cuts would inspire more business investment; no such increase has been seen. They insisted the official budget projections underestimated the growth effects of the cut, and that deficits would not rise. They are rising quickly.

    This is, in a microcosm, three decades of Republican economic policy. Republicans have fixated on the tax burden paid by the rich as the foundation of economic growth. They insisted Bill Clinton’s tax hike on the rich would cause a recession, that George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich would usher in prosperity, and that Obama’s reversal of those would end the recovery. None of those predictions came true. Lawrence Kudlow, Trump’s chief economist, has made the most fantastical, and fantastically wrong, of these promises. And Kudlow is the chief proponent of Trump’s plan to enact it by fiat. (If Trump does try the capital gains indexing gambit, he could be challenged in court.)

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  6. We see what happens when government runs health care-- costs go UP 50-100%. It is inevitable. Right now, costs could be brought DOWN 50% if government marketplace disruptions were eliminated.

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