It's possible to avoid 3 trillion/year "taxes" for M4A

[andym]

Last edited Mon Oct 21, 2019, 12:15 AM - Edit history (1)

I'm surprised that it's been talked about so little. I suspect Elizabeth Warren will propose something like this.
Right now a plurality (49%) of the private health insurance premiums are paid by employers to private (group) plans. Having employers pay will mean they get a big new tax, but individuals won't.
It would be quite possible to shift their obligation to a M4A program.
It is the co-pays that are the question.

Personal insurance is only a small percentage of the total market. Medicare, Medicaid and the VA are already government run.

The numbers from the Kaiser Foundation:
49% employer covered (group)
7% non-group (eg Obamacare)
21% Medicaid
14% Medicare
1% Other public (like VA)
9% uninsured

So the key is covering the uninsured and the non-group individuals==~16% which will be much less than the 3 trillion/year bill.

This will be similar to the contribution employers make to social security for each employee.

[blm]

1. Looking forward to her speech and hope it's given in front of a chalkboard.

Some people need to SEE the math.

[blm]

21. Katie Porter kept it simple for Jamie Dimon and it went viral.

Porter’s mentor was Warren.

https://m.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

2. The only problem I have is that they could stop paying.

What I like about M4A is that is not dependent on my employer not being a douchebag. And I don't have to worry every year how much my insurance is going to go up.

If they are not paying for insurance, they can pay me more.

[brooklynite]

9. ...or not.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

12. Yeah. That's the point. You don't know if you have insurance.

At any point, when it is "given" to you by your employer, you could have no insurance or shittier insurance with very little input from you. Not so much if the government is providing it. And the money my employer is expending on me for my insurance benefits can now go right to my wages.

[brewens]

3. That employers obligation is really the workers money. Most of us got medical in liu

of higher wages. Somehow all of that money need to go into the system and or to the workers. If you let the corporations just pocket all that and make up all the difference in taxes on working people, it can't stand a chance. People could never pay all that. One reason why I have no use for anyone that's been describing M4A like that.

[Blue_true]

4. How did you come up with $3 trillion.

Pete Buttigieg, who claims that Warren's plan is not explained, claims that he will get everyone covered by recinding the tax scam and with savings from negotiating drug prices. So, we know the tax scam costs about $1.3+ Trillion per year.

So Warren can recind the tax scam and other tax giveaways to the super rich and be at close to $1.5-1.6 trillion. She then adds negotiation of drug prices on tops of those savings to take her over $2 trillion. My argument is that is all that would be needed to cover everyone that Medicare and the VA doesn't cover. Medicaid and Obamacare expenditures should be given over to MFA or an Advanced Obamacare, call it whatever you want to.

Under the plan that I laid out, individuals will keep the premiums they pay for their corporate insurance in their pockets. Corporations will also benefit by saving the premiums that they now pay out for employees, that likely will be sufficient to not have them notice that their tax scam money and giveaway money has been taken away.

One additional upside to Warren's system is that employees won't be subject to annual increases in their portion of their healthcare premiums ever again.

[wasupaloopa]

16. And everyone gets a piece of the Brooklyn Bridge to call their own.

Any new health care legislation will be put together like the ACA was. By bipartisan compromise.

We could hold a contest where everyone dreams up their own health care plan and the one that makes it to the President's desk get a prize. We really wouldn't need to buy a prize because none of them will reach the president's desk.

Now the really easy one is the Bernie fan one where everybody gets free health care funded by the top one percent. No prize for that one.

It's called the bold progressive agenda.

[Blue_true]

23. Actually. If the Supreme Court refuses to stand up to Trump's abuse

of the Executive Order process, she can simply do an Executive Order and dare the Courts to do anything about it.

Look, any attempt to get a better healthcare system for this country will be met with violent resistance from republicans, that will be the case whether we go for a milk-toast adjustment to the ACA or something bolder like MFA. Republicans are going to fight us rrgardless, fuck em, we need to shoot for the sky and shove what we want down their damned throats.

[Hoyt]

5. Individuals pay every penny of corporate tax, one way or the other.

I don’t doubt she’ll try that, but we will pay for it through higher prices, lower wages, small businesses selling out, disruptions in healthcare system, etc.

We don’t need Warren to tell us how she going to fake us out. We need a CBO score that tells the truth, including impact on economy, employers, self-employed, healthcare utilization, provider income and pay for nurses, etc.

Personally, I think we can achieve a viable, affordable single payer system over time. But, I don’t want it sold by saying someone else is going to pay for it because that is not the case.

[Joe941]

7. Bullocks. The rich have plenty of extra money that needs to be taxed heavily!

[Hoyt]

8. We are already tapping them for free college, debt relief, bolstering Social Security, etc.

You wait until General Election when people say, “I need all this programs, but these pipe dreams ain’t gonna work.”

[ritapria]

11. That's The Old Math

We can bring in 5-7 million first time voters who will rally to our standard if we loudly and proudly proclaim a bold progressive agenda …… That's the New Math …...Incrementalism gave us Donald Trump

[wasupaloopa]

14. Free stuff, free medical care, free college education. You think you can get new voters

by offering them candy and circus. Shame on that idea!

[PETRUS]

19. Oh good lord.

Last edited Mon Oct 21, 2019, 01:48 PM - Edit history (1)

We should probably impose tolls on all the roads, charge tuition for all K-12 education, and insist people purchase subscriptions for the fire department, too.

What's with all the distaste for public goods and services, and why do you see them as bribery?

[Hoyt]

18. "Incrementalism gave us trump" -- Sanders, Warren and their supporters helped give us trump too.

And that put us years away from meaningful healthcare and other legislation.

[wasupaloopa]

15. This bold progressive agenda is giving stuff away and charging weathy people to pay for it.

They lie like trump does to his base. It is sucker bate.

[Joe941]

17. I guess that's what goppers keep telling us.

We can decide who we believe.

[Demsrule86]

6. Employer have no obligation to provide health care and with this court, they won't have to...

MFA is a political loser. We should support the public option.

[andym]

10. But they will be under an obligation

Under the kind of plan I am guessing will be proposed. At least larger employers.
There is even a good precedent: the social security tax. Employers pay 6.2% of an employee's salary

[wasupaloopa]

13. That is the idea behind the public option. Cover those who are not covered but also offer choice

beside private insurance.

[Gothmog]

22. Societal Savings are not tax revenues and this plan will not work in the real world

Such a plan in theory may generate societal savings but such savings would not pay for a program. Governments can only spend tax revenues and/or borrowings. This study does not say how one would pay for such a program in the real world. I note that Prof. Krugman like the concepts of such a plan in theory but notes that taxes will have to be raised a great deal to pay for such a plan
Back in 2016, here is his position Prof. Krugman compares Sanders hoped for health care savings to the GOP tax cuts. 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.

Today, Prof. Krugman says that such a plan is feasible if you are willing to pay a great deal more in taxes
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/paul-krugman-explains-why-single-payer-health-care-entirely-achievable-us-and-how

If we went to government provision of all insurance, we’d pay more in taxes but less in premiums, and the overall burden of health spending would probably fall, because single-payer systems tend to be cheaper than market-based."

The amount of higher taxes are not quantified in this article by Krugman. To pay for any such plan will require massive tax hikes

Again sanders has utterly failed in his attempts to get Vermont to adopt his magical single payer plan because the state of Vermont cannot use hypothetical societal saving to pay for this plan. Even Krugman admits that much higher taxes are needed

[andym]

24. Sanders' single-payer is not relevant to what I suggested was going to be proposed

The basic idea is that 30% of health care is already paid for by the government. 50% is paid for by mostly by companies. A new plan may just require companies to pay the government instead of private insurers (which would be the smart thing to do) and 20% is are either not covered or on individual plans (those on Obamacare are already partially covered). So new "individual" taxes are needed for just 20%.

It is the co-pays and deductibles that are an issue-- just how generous should the plan(s) be.