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We currently have a single-payer system for the elderly: I believe all people aged 65 and older are eligible. I believe Medicare/Medicaid spends around $900 billion a year, if I am not mistaken, for 45 million people (elderly and disabled). Curious how much the number balloons when 300 million people are thrown on it.
We currently have a single-payer system for the elderly: I believe all people aged 65 and older are eligible. I believe Medicare/Medicaid spends around $900 billion a year, if I am not mistaken, for 45 million people (elderly and disabled). Curious how much the number balloons when 300 million people are thrown on it.
Don't confuse medicare with medicaid.
One pays into medicare their entire working life.
The other is government welfare.
You want single payer then be ready to be taxed another 8% on top of the 6% you pay now.
And you still have to pay taxes for medicaid.
We obviously can afford, in the aggregate, a higher per person cost than anywhere else, although the stats are probably a bit looser than people let on.
I don't think that single payer helps by itself anyhow. All you are doing is having a single back office for claims rather than multiple ones.
If you made me redesign the system, I'd go to the largest country with the best system and simply copy what they do. These things are complicated after all. Having said that, it would probably be a mistake to copy somebody like say, the Swiss, since the average Swiss citizen is probably better behaved and healthier than the average US one.
We currently have a single-payer system for the elderly: I believe all people aged 65 and older are eligible.
You mean VT has Medicare again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by VTHokieFan
I believe Medicare/Medicaid spends around $900 billion a year, if I am not mistaken, for 45 million people (elderly and disabled). Curious how much the number balloons when 300 million people are thrown on it.
After VT's governor conceded single-payer is abjectly unworkable even for Vermont's comparatively modest demands.
In 2011 (per .gov website), Medicare cost $549.1B for 48.7 million people, roughly $11500 per person.
You could knock me over with a feather if the average recipient put enough money into the Medicare fund to receive what is basically a lifetime annuity of close to $12k/yr at age 65. I'll bet that it's mostly subsidized by other sources.
When we get everything for free from the government why should we even work?
Everyone wants to live at the expense of the State. They forget that the State lives at the expense of everyone. - Frederic Bastiat
Really? The states going to give me a free PS4? OMG how awesome! AND pay for me to go out to the movies?
Lets be real. The vast majority of developed countries do single payer because it makes sense, and removes the middleman of insurance companies. They're getting similar results for half the cost.
How can we not afford to might be the better question.
You want single payer then be ready to be taxed another 8% on top of the 6% you pay now.
And you still have to pay taxes for medicaid.
I'm not confusing them, I was taking a look at the combined total of both. Combined they spend around $900 million. Combined it's about 45 million people.
As a side note about a single payer system, which probably implies a single health system...
If you average out the amount of care people receive, you'll likely run into the issue of decreasing benefits for those at the top of the food chain. People with excellent corporate coverage and/or government employees are going to throw a fit. The only way to keep them at all happy, and to have the same coverage for everyone, is to give everyone in the US the best coverage currently available.
That's a thing that I doubt is affordable, no matter how you slice it up.
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