Discussion for article #244798
According to this article, the plan doesn’t mention eliminating premiums for businesses and individuals, just co-pays and deductibles. Is this an oversight in the plan itself or just in the reporting on the plan?
Cost $13.8T over ten years but save $6T?
The title is a hit-job on Bernie.
Right now Americans spend 19.8 T. With single payer it will cost 13.T. Instead of paying some in taxes and some in premiums, we will be paying the entire 13.6 T in taxes. No premiums. So we save 6 T.
This savings alone will more than pay for all other all other programs Bernie proposes.
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Unfortunately, the insurance and pharmaceutical companies (not to mention banks servicing medical debt) see that 6 T as prophet being robbed from them …
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"But much of the cost would be paid for through a 6.2 percent payroll tax paid by employers and a 2.2 percent “health care premium” on workers. It also relies on taxing capital gains and dividends on families earning more than $250,000 a year, eliminate deductions for wealthy Americans and raising the estate tax.
The plan would also raise income taxes on Americans making more than $250,000 a year,"
I’d “feel the Bern” from that. Bernie better have a plan to dramatically increase youth and low income voter turnout. I am exactly the kind of Democrat that Dems will lose with Bernie.
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I just checked, there are 830 health insurance companies in the US in 2014, if the average number of employee of each company is 100 then that is 830,000 unemployed workers. It is a sector of the economy which will disappear, so the stock in these companies will go to zero, which will effect everyone’s 401K funds. It just doesn’t make sense to me, as this is being explained as Medicare for everyone? If that is such good insurance, why does most Medicare recipients have Medicare supplement policies, which can be cost as a young person’s total medical insurance costs, so what are the AARP members really getting. Paying more for Medicare insurance, which requires a supplement with other insurance to obtain reasonable coverage. If the above 830 health insurance companies disappeared as there is one payment thru the government, who will provide the supplemental insurance that is now available for Medicare recipients?
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Would that “Bern” out weigh what you and your employer pay in premiums plus what you pay in copays/deductible/etc?
I’m not being snide, honest question?
Now take into consideration if you or a family member had a health issue (hope it is not or won’t be the case) and the out of pocket items that would be paid.
Seems me and my employer would save thousands, and I’m at 6 figures(but less than the 250k)
The working poor, and their employers would save huge.
The portion of that savings that goes to the lower wage employee (through elimination of the Insurance premium only, not the extra wages the employer should get commensurate with the savings to their employer) would go right back into the economy.
Obviously we shouldn’t ignore that the increased taxes on income over 250k are only increased on taxable income over 250k. (Healthcare 2.2% not withstanding)
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Supplemental insurance is because Medicare pays about 80% on some items etc.
Also some private insurers facilitate Medicare in certain ways for a fixed negotiated cost per beneficiary.
They are also often diversified to life, auto, home and other insurances. (Which with more money in the economy, such businesses should improve).
And lastly, I’m certainly sympathetic to the job loss in a sector that is disrupted by a sea change even if I think the losses will be mitigated some by the above. But when system doesn’t function, and provides worse outcomes for more cost it can’t (and shouldn’t) be propped up.
This happens as a matter of course all the time. Is Travelocity and Kayak etc bad because they basically put travel agents out of business?
The added money in the economy should facilitate more activity. As a lot of these jobs you are speaking about amount to accounts payable and other office type jobs, this increased activity should drive demand for these same skill sets elsewhere in the economy.
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I am the employer. I do not have to provide insurance to my employees but I do. It is a benefit that attracts better,more loyal workers and it is tax deductible for my business. Myself and my employees like our private insurance. It is good.
My business and personal taxes would go up under Bernie’'s plan.
I commend that you do the right thing(or left, as it were).
I’m not looking to argue or whatever, I’m just not sure, based on your response, you answered my question.
Does this new tax cost you more that you are paying in premiums for these same employees? I imagine on the lower wage end it couldn’t, and on the higher end, it would be comparable. So on average (your industry may skew my assumptions, I concede) there should be savings for the company.
Throw in that premiums would remain predictable, and the administrative costs go away, this further justifies the marginal extra cost (if it truely fleshes out to be more)
If you are in an industry that benefits from increased economic activity, this could mitigate some of the loss you expect.
No doubt there will be narrow section of the economy adversly effected. On average, th
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It will cost the Govt. a lot less to let them go on unemployment benefits. Most of them have some medical training. After all we will need a lot more medical professionals if people don’t have to think twice about visiting a doctor. They can go on to make real use of their talents instead of passing around sheets of paper and trying to find ways to deny a claim.
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You’re exactly right. The title is very misleading.
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Most insurance heath employees do not have medical training, they are people who process the claims, and are clerks or data entry staff, so where will they go, become federal employee, that probably be better for them, but I want Sen. Sanders to address the issue.
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these are administrative costs… people who process the endless paperwork associated with filing/denying claims and avoiding the telephone calls of desperate consumers trying to get clarification of what those policies they are paying for actually cover.
noted previously, but i’ve recently been helping someone who due to longterm unemployment has just been accepted by medicaid. finding a doctor who accepts medicaid is near impossible; and just scrolling thru the dozens of policies an individual doctor will accept has been enlightening; and the administrative costs associated with it are where those monies are going. just as an exercise, i would suggest you check out your primary doctor on one of the websites that provides the list of policies they accept. you will be surprised.
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I also have an issue with Sen. Sanders medical insurance plan would include Long Term Care. The major cost of Medicaid is Long Term Care for people in nursing homes and the percentage of people in nursing homes will increase as the population grows older. In St. Louis, the average cost of care is $69,350 a year, there are 1.7 million licensed beds, that is $117,895,000,000. But in New York the cost is $182,500 so which one will be used, will the New York providers have their reimbursement decreased to $69,350. Will St. Louis taxpayers pay for the additional cost of coverage that New York providers receive and they won’t? Please, Sen. Sanders explain, I pay for Long Term Insurance that will provide me over $450 a day, which gives me options to use the increase benefits to allow me to remain in my home, will that still be an option?
This article, especially the headline, is dishonest and disingenuous, and quite misleading.
The obvious persuasion-push subtext is that taxpayers will be more burdened by a single payer system than they are now. That is patently false.
The means of persuasion that this article uses: Trumpet all of the bad-sounding half truths, without filling in the rest of the relevant details, ones that if provided, would lead readers to the opposite conclusion.
Examples:
Note that the “tax burden” for the ordinary person will increase under Sanders’ single payer system, without also being clear that (a) we as individuals pay for health insurance one way or another, and that (b) under a single payer system, by replacing premiums with taxes, we pay considerably less (and if comparable to European countries, the average person’s net healthcare costs could be reduced by as much as half);
Note that Sanders “promised” not to raise taxes for anything except for family leave, when the fact is that Sanders has always promoted a single payer system which, by its nature, funds healthcare through taxes instead of payments to private insurers. Consequently, given his consistent promotion of a single payer system on the campaign trail, to interpret whatever Sanders said in the fall (for which the reporter conveniently leaves out quotes or references) is to take his statements out of context, or exploit what is, at worst, a misstatement that Sander would have quickly corrected had he been challenged;
All the while, leaving out any mention of the obvious counterarguments until the end, when they are presented as a kind of downplayed afterthought – “Oh, also the Sanders campaign thinks it would leave people better off” – without noting that the counterarguments in fact decisively refute what is disingenuously implied by the bulk of the rhetoric of the article.
To put TPM’s muscle behind this kind of sleazy rhetoric is disturbing, to say the least.
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I don’t see Blue/Cross having any other insurance other than health, my point, that the health insurance sector of the entire insurance will be eliminated which will effect all insurance companies’ bottom lines, and close other companies such as Blue/Cross.