Medicare-for-All would cost someone earning about $100,000 annually an extra $20,000 per year in medical expenses.

I doubt most employers are just going to hand over their contribution to employees. They’ll say they no longer are obligated to pay the insurance companies and will pocket it. The employee paid piece is actually pretty minimal in most plans so that won’t be a huge gain for people.

Since there’s no way Medicare for all can ever pencil out (remember, we have roughly 50% of the country paying zero income tax), especially if it includes illegal aliens, you can expect massive tax increases from the middle class upward. There simply isn’t enough waste and profit in the current system to eliminate and pay for this, despite what some of these clueless politicians claim. Listen to guys like Ryan, Bullock, and Delaney, who have actually run businesses and know this would be an epic disaster.

Sally Vix wrote:

This is on top of someone already paying (in my case) about $15,000 a year in insurance premiums. I have coworkers who are already paying about $30,000 in insurance premiums. Can we really afford to pay for health insurance for everyone, especially for those who are her illegally? I make more than $100K but let's say I made 100k. I maybe pay about $25,000 in taxes and then we add another $35,000 for health insurance. That is $60,000 a year just on taxes and on health insurance. I live in Texas so no state income taxes which might be another 7%. How can anyone justify having citizens pay for health insurance for people her illegally? We just can't afford it.

What a load of exaggerated crap. I make way over $100k and don’t pay 25% in federal taxes. And you’re a moron if you pay $30k in premiums every year. I have several self-employed friends with families and they say they pay about $12-$18k for insurance.

Effective federal income + payroll tax for a single person making 100k is 23% buddy.

Who gave you these figures?

Nineteen forties to early 1960's we had a top marginal income tax rate of usually (90 to 95)%. F.D.R. wanted 100% top rate. F.D.R. basically forced employers to enact a wage freeze. U.S. pulled out of a depression. F.D.R. was going all out to prevent hyper-inflation. Employers could not entice prospective employees with high wages. 1940's was the start of the great benefit packages: full medical, full dental, pension, company car. The current model is not sustainable. Your employer will pay you in your pay check what you are worth with socialized medicine. Regarding non-US citizens and health care: do you want anyone here in U.S. with untreated diseases? Relax.

Sally Vix wrote:

This is on top of someone already paying (in my case) about $15,000 a year in insurance premiums. I have coworkers who are already paying about $30,000 in insurance premiums. Can we really afford to pay for health insurance for everyone, especially for those who are her illegally? I make more than $100K but let's say I made 100k. I maybe pay about $25,000 in taxes and then we add another $35,000 for health insurance. That is $60,000 a year just on taxes and on health insurance. I live in Texas so no state income taxes which might be another 7%. How can anyone justify having citizens pay for health insurance for people her illegally? We just can't afford it.

Wait, they are paying $30K in premiums? I find that hard to believe considering according to this, the avg family premium is just under $1200/month. So annually that would be $14000 . For a family companies, on avg pick up 70% of the premium. That means, on avg, the employee's contribution is just over $4K/year.

If the premium total is $30K, that must be some insurance (does it include things like dental and FSA/HSA?).

Idiocracy wrote:

Don't forget 10-15% for property taxes if you own.

All by design...to become a slave to the state. Unless you revolt. But that won't happen since most are getting dumbed down.

I have news for you, if you are renting you are still paying property tax. (It is baked into the rent you pay).

Sally Vix wrote:

Marksch wrote:

Ummm....I think you are missing a key aspect of a single payer system....there would be no insurance premiums unless you wanted to buy additional coverage.

Too, since tax law views your employees contribution as part of your compensation ( a key historical driver to work based coverage), you might expect your personal take home pay to go up by both your own contribution as well as your employer contribution....then you should consider the effect of increased Medicare cost.

So, I would have no insurance premiums? Sign me up for that!

You have no premiums, but taxes would have to go up. And the bill cannot be paid for by just soaking the 1%. In the European countries there are higher tax rates way down into the middle class (not to mention VAT).

One of the assumptions made with Medicare for All is that all doctors would be willing to be paid Medicare rates. Since those reimbursement rates are way lower many doctors will opt out.

Another possibility unless all private insurance is outlawed is that we end up with an even more uneven health care system now. Doctors will not accept M4A patients (or few of them) and only take on patients who can pay directly. We have a little bit of that now with "concierge" docs but that has not taken off like I thought it might at one time. Basically, the private insurance payments allow for docs to see Medicare patients.

One shift in savings would likely be a reduction in office staff. Doctors need people in the backroom that can code the billings and work with the different private insurance companies who each have their own codes and policies (coming up with a universal system there would be a big savings). However, the increase in federal employees to handle the claims for M4A would have to increase greatly.

Finally, every poll I have seen says north of 70% of people with private insurance like it. So let's see what can be done to get the other 30% happy rather than having government take over control of 1/6 of the US economy.

sbeefyk2 wrote:

Medicare-for-all doesn't cover illegals. Why do people think illegals get benefits? That myth has been debunked a million times. They don't get unemployment checks, they don't get health insurance, they don't get anything.

That said, medicare-for-all or any single payer system will never work in a country as big and demographically diverse as the US. The only way for it to work is if each generation is identical. If one generation is larger than another the whole system collapses. That's why the numbers don't work in the US but other more demographically equal countries it works just fine.

Well they sort of would just as they do now: if you show up at an emergency room you have to get treated whether you can pay or not. This cost has to be absorbed somewhere.

zxcvzxcv wrote:

Your estimate is absolutely absurd. Medicare for all would mean no private insurance premiums and you'd probably save a good deal, depending on how income is calculated, what is excluded, and how many family members there are.

According to Vox, "Premiums would be capped at about 10 percent of a household’s income, while lower-income families would pay less. Out-of-pocket costs would be capped at $3,500 for an individual, $5,000 for a family, with less affluent families again receiving a break."

Not sure how the arithmetic works capping the tax at 10%. The only way it works is to pay doctors, nurses, etc next to nothing. If you do that, then you will see a lot fewer docs (or docs who got their medical training in Barbados). You will see less new equipment bought.

Here are some real life numbers. At a place I used to work, we were given a $750/month "credit" for insurance premiums. That covered an individual's plan so no single person paid a penny. If the median income in the office was $45K, then any tax increase would mean paying more. Of course maybe the politicians will buy votes by slowly raising the threshold to start paying. But then if fewer people are paying then someone has to pick up the slack.

Estimates put the cost at $32 trillion over 10 years. So cutting military spending to 0 still leaves you 1.8 trillion short per year.

Also, you have the freedom to choose your doc. The question is at the rate M4A would pay how many docs would there be to see?

While it is feasible the employer does not pass along the savings, the market will likely force them to.

Let's say all employers keep the 70%-80% they currently contribute to health insurance premiums. Since most of us choose a job based largely on salary (how many compute in the benefits?), if one company raises wages then another company is going to have to match it to remain competitive. If not, it faces losing workers or getting poorer quality workers that will harm productivity (or increase turnover rate which has its own inherent costs).

Back to F.D.R. wrote:

Who gave you these figures?

Nineteen forties to early 1960's we had a top marginal income tax rate of usually (90 to 95)%. F.D.R. wanted 100% top rate. F.D.R. basically forced employers to enact a wage freeze. U.S. pulled out of a depression. F.D.R. was going all out to prevent hyper-inflation. Employers could not entice prospective employees with high wages. 1940's was the start of the great benefit packages: full medical, full dental, pension, company car. The current model is not sustainable. Your employer will pay you in your pay check what you are worth with socialized medicine. Regarding non-US citizens and health care: do you want anyone here in U.S. with untreated diseases? Relax.

Look up how many people paid that full rate. I think one year it was 5 people. We also have thousands and thousands of deductions. There is a school of thought that FDR policies prolonged the Depression. He might not be your role model.

Employers already pay you what you are worth.

Sally Vix wrote:

This is on top of someone already paying (in my case) about $15,000 a year in insurance premiums. I have coworkers who are already paying about $30,000 in insurance premiums. Can we really afford to pay for health insurance for everyone, especially for those who are her illegally? I make more than $100K but let's say I made 100k. I maybe pay about $25,000 in taxes and then we add another $35,000 for health insurance. That is $60,000 a year just on taxes and on health insurance. I live in Texas so no state income taxes which might be another 7%. How can anyone justify having citizens pay for health insurance for people her illegally? We just can't afford it.

Lots of countries do it. It doesn't nearly cost that much, and everything is fine and cool.

Don’t worry about our Russian troll Sally, if she wanted to improve everyone’s health she would post on Putin’s website & leave us alone.

Even if individuals rarely paid the full stated rate, federal income tax was much higher then than it is now. We should raise the top marginal rate back to 97% then you can brag how you do not pay anything near 97%.

Top marginal tax rate of 94% started in 1944. The economy was booming. As stated, there was reason to fear hyper-inflation thus F.D.R's goal of a wage freeze.

He was not my role model. F.D.R. was a limousine liberal. F.D.R. kissed the ass of racist southern Dixie-crats in regard to rights and social justice for people of color.

Huey Long was going to run for U.S. president. Long was going to run to the left of F.D.R. Long was advocating for Universal Government Healthcare. Long was assassinated by a medical doctor, 1935.

You get paid what you get paid due to one month vacation, company car, dental coverage, medical coverage, matching 401-K. Those workers who are productive will get paid more when employers are no longer paying into your healthcare. Marginal workers will not get paid more.

It seems to be we have a huge bureaucracy that sits between providers (doctors, hospitals) and consumers. It's the insurance industry.

The top eight insurance companies had $130 billion in revenue in one quarter in 2018. Obviously that isn't profit but each company make tens of billions in profit each year.

Couldn't we just create a national not-for-profit that performs whatever required function are needed from insurance companies, removing much of the redundancy and profit motive. This would save hundreds of billions that could be used to pay for coverage for all?

Or is that what Medicare does?

Sanders and Warren couldn’t run a lemonade stand wrote:

I doubt most employers are just going to hand over their contribution to employees. They’ll say they no longer are obligated to pay the insurance companies and will pocket it.

Of course employers are going to hand the contributions over to employees. Whenever people of means are given a little extra, they make sure that their good fortune “trickles down”, right? Surely, they wouldn’t just pocket the extra for themselves. That’s what Ronald taught me.

GBohannon wrote:

Sanders and Warren couldn’t run a lemonade stand wrote:

I doubt most employers are just going to hand over their contribution to employees. They’ll say they no longer are obligated to pay the insurance companies and will pocket it.

Of course employers are going to hand the contributions over to employees. Whenever people of means are given a little extra, they make sure that their good fortune “trickles down”, right? Surely, they wouldn’t just pocket the extra for themselves. That’s what Ronald taught me.

The top twenty percent will get more. Employers will have more money. Employers will want to keep their best employees.

Sally Vix wrote:

zxcvzxcv wrote:

Your estimate is absolutely absurd. Medicare for all would mean no private insurance premiums and you'd probably save a good deal, depending on how income is calculated, what is excluded, and how many family members there are.

According to Vox, "Premiums would be capped at about 10 percent of a household’s income, while lower-income families would pay less. Out-of-pocket costs would be capped at $3,500 for an individual, $5,000 for a family, with less affluent families again receiving a break."

I don't believe Vox. I read a reputable article saying that anyone making $100,000 would be paying an ADDITIONAL $20,000 per year in health insurance. This is on top of already what you pay. And ALL THE Democratic presidential candidates want to provide health care for the illegals. Again, they ALL want to provide health insurance/care for illegals.

So reputable that you didn't even post it.