Absurdity: "Study Finds Bernie’s Healthcare Plan Would Cost OVER $30 TRILLION IN TEN YEARS"

[Human101948]

Last fall, the Wall Street Journal reported that Bernie Sanders would add $18 trillion to America’s national debt. Now a second study has confirmed that. Additionally, the new study claims Bernie’s healthcare plan alone would cost over $30 trillion in just ten years.

http://www.progressivestoday.com/study-finds-bernies-healthcare-plan-cost-30-trillion-ten-years/

How can this panicky claim possibly be true when every other developed country with national health care does it for far less with better outcomes than our current half assed healthcare system? Are they extrapolating from the current system? Why not emulate the other systems that are working well at less cost right now?

U.S. spends more on health care than other high-income countries but has worse outcomes

Data from the OECD show that the U.S. spent 17.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care in 2013. This was almost 50 percent more than the next-highest spender (France, 11.6% of GDP) and almost double what was spent in the U.K. (8.8%). U.S. spending per person was equivalent to $9,086 (not adjusted for inflation).

...On several measures of population health, Americans had worse outcomes than their international peers. The U.S. had the lowest life expectancy at birth of the countries studied, at 78.8 years in 2013, compared with the OECD median of 81.2 years. Additionally, the U.S. had the highest infant mortality rate among the countries studied, at 6.1 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2011; the rate in the OECD median country was 3.5 deaths.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2015/oct/us-health-care-from-a-global-perspective

[Jarqui]

1. US is paying roughly about twice as much or more than any single payer

system per person.

Depending on how they transition to a single payer system, it might go up for a very short period but after that, it will come down - in part because with single payer, they have control.

The premise that it's going to go up dramatically smells like empty rhetoric.

[Vinca]

2. I don't care what it costs - the citizens deserve health care.

If the 30 trillion isn't spent on making us a healthy population, it'll be spent on eliminating a population somewhere overseas.

[Recursion]

3. Because their doctors make half as much as ours do

That's the main answer. And we're not willing to tell doctors to take a pay cut.

[Human101948]

4. But where are they going to go?

The other problem is that we limit the number of doctors. Is it maintaining high standards of care? Don't think so, because our outcomes lag behind those of other developed countries. Or is it just a cartel limiting the competition?

Because it takes 10 years to train a doctor, the nation will have a shortage of 85,000 to 200,000 doctors in 2020 unless action is taken soon.

The predictions of a doctor shortage represent an abrupt about-face for the medical profession. For the past quarter-century, the American Medical Association and other industry groups have predicted a glut of doctors and worked to limit the number of new physicians. In 1994, the Journal of the American Medical Association predicted a surplus of 165,000 doctors by 2000.

"It didn't happen," says Harvard University medical professor David Blumenthal, author of a New England Journal of Medicinearticle on the doctor supply. "Physicians aren't driving taxis. In fact, we're all gainfully employed, earning good incomes, and new physicians are getting two, three or four job offers."

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-03-02-doctor-shortage_x.htm

[Recursion]

5. They're going to spend a lot of money to unseat legislators who vote for a pay cut

Look at the absurd "doctor fix" that's kept Medicare reimbursements 20% too high for the past 2 decades.

[Human101948]

10. They fought Medicare and lost...

Ronald Reagan produced a record to be played at these events, “Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine,” in which he warned that “one of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine.” The A.M.A. also had strong allies, such as the insurance lobby, which preferred to work behind the scenes to combat the bill.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/medicare-made

[Recursion]

12. No, they won. The doctor fix was an abomination and what worries me about single payer

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/house-approves-permanent-fix-medicare-doctor-payment/

[Skwmom]

6. They want the corporate puppet to win and they are willing to lie and mislead the American People to

keep the gravy train rolling.

[Gothmog]

7. Krugman- Sanders health plan looks a little bit like a standard Republican tax-cut plan

Prof. Krugman has been saying that the Sanders plan did not add up for some time now http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/weakened-at-bernies/?_r=0

On health care: leave on one side the virtual impossibility of achieving single-payer. Beyond the politics, the Sanders “plan” isn’t just lacking in detail; as Ezra Klein notes, it both promises more comprehensive coverage than Medicare or for that matter single-payer systems in other countries, and assumes huge cost savings that are at best unlikely given that kind of generosity. This lets Sanders claim that he could make it work with much lower middle-class taxes than would probably be needed in practice.

To be harsh but accurate: the Sanders health plan looks a little bit like a standard Republican tax-cut plan, which relies on fantasies about huge supply-side effects to make the numbers supposedly add up. Only a little bit: after all, this is a plan seeking to provide health care, not lavish windfalls on the rich — and single-payer really does save money, whereas there’s no evidence that tax cuts deliver growth. Still, it’s not the kind of brave truth-telling the Sanders campaign pitch might have led you to expect.

Again, as noted by Prof. Krugman this plan does not add up.

[Fawke Em]

15. I'll never believe that lying shill again.

He flip-flopped on his own belief system to kiss Hillary's ass while besmirching Bernie.

He's dead to me.

[Gothmog]

16. I am sure that Prof. Krugman will be very hurt to hear this

[cherokeeprogressive]

8. I'm waiting for the Hillarites to claim eleventy hunnert trazillion soon.

[Human101948]

11. I've been hearing that number bandied about...

And that's a lot more a gazillion bazillions!

[MelungeonWoman]

9. So, it will cost what we spent in 12 weeks at the height of Operation Iraqi Liberation.

When can we get started?

[Rass]

13. Hillary the warmonger

Hillary has an established record as a warmonger along with the banksters she supports. $30 trillion is chump change when it comes to war. We should keep that money here at home.

[lagomorph777]

14. Wait - another study says Bernie's education plan will cost a million brazillion thousand dollars!

And Wall Street says that we should give them Social Security or it will cost an INFINITY GOOGLEPLEX dollars!!

Holy cow these cretins are scared shitless of Bernie!