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You can lower the payroll tax you suggest and add a sales tax. This way everyone is paying in instead of just some.
Exactly, but skip the payroll tax altogether and implement a national VAT (sales) tax. Since only 63% (100 million) of the labor force (160 million, total) is employed, a payroll tax won't even come close to generating enough tax revenue to fund single payer health care for all. 100 million people can't pay for health care for all 320 million people in the US.
It's probably sustainable with huge increases in taxes. As usual, just another case of letting the working people pay for those who don't or won't. Likely also a big hit on the economy and very possibly put many small businesses (such as mine) out of business. We can only afford so much in taxes before the point of staying in business would be gone.
Yes but like payroll taxes, some pay a bigger share. IMHO, we need to totally remove the payroll tax cut off.
What tax cutoff? Medicare? The Medicare tax has no cap. That's how we get the following example...
A self-employed individual (business owner, 1099 contractor, etc.) pays the full 2.9% Medicare tax, which has no cap.
Such an individual with a career average annual income of $1,000,000 (not unusual for a business owner) pays Medicare tax for 35 years.
$1,000,000 ☓ 2.9% ☓ 35 = $1,015,000
Now let's look at what a middle class employee (who pays 1.45% Medicare tax, not the full 2.9%) with a 35 year annual average income of $55,000 would have paid:
$55,000 ☓ 1.45% ☓ 35 = $27,912.50
HUGE difference in what they've paid, to receive the exact same Medicare benefits.
I should have specified paying separately, meant to private hospitals. I'm not sure if a public hospital would even take money if offered -they would probably ask you too make it a donation to a particular unit etc.
There does seem to be a bit of misinformation out there regarding health systems outside of the US -someone has been telling porkies.
They system is a bit different in Canada. A hospital whether private or public or a mix of both can not receive money from patients on anything that is covered by our universal care. So I can't open a clinic, and charge people, unless it's something not covered, such as cosmetic surgery.
What tax cutoff? Medicare? The Medicare tax has no cap. That's how we get the following example...
A self-employed individual (business owner, 1099 contractor, etc.) pays the full 2.9% Medicare tax, which has no cap.
Such an individual with a career average annual income of $1,000,000 (not unusual for a business owner) pays Medicare tax for 35 years.
$1,000,000 ☓ 2.9% ☓ 35 = $1,015,000
Now let's look at what a middle class employee (who pays 1.45% Medicare tax, not the full 2.9%) with a 35 year annual average income of $55,000 would have paid:
$55,000 ☓ 1.45% ☓ 35 = $27,912.50
HUGE difference in what they've paid, to receive the exact same Medicare benefits.
There is a tax cut-off on payroll taxes specifically Social Security. This is from SHRM
Quote:
On Oct. 15, 2015, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced that there will be no increase in monthly Social Security benefits in 2016, and that the maximum amount of wages subject to Social Security taxes will also remain unchanged at $118,500. Earnings above this amount are not subject to the Social Security portion of the payroll tax or used to calculate retirement payouts.
Social Security is financed by a 12.4 percent tax on wages up to the annual threshold, with half (6.2 percent) paid by workers and the other half paid by employers. This taxable wage base usually goes up each year—it rose from $117,000 in 2014 to $118,500 in 2015.
For 2016, the maximum someone would pay out is $14,694. It didn't matter if you made $118,501 and paid 12.4%, $120K and paid 12.2%, $500,000 and paid 2.9% or $10m and paid 0.14%, it was capped. What is so wrong with uncapping Payroll Taxes?
Capping them makes them FAR more regressive.
So, where do you think new drugs come from, the drug Fairy?
" These corporations make plenty enough of money to develop their 'drugs' on their own dimes."
They also take a very high risk.
They ARE working on new drugs "on their OWN dimes".
I get the impression that you don't have clue about the real world, any certainly NOT "objective" but, VERY biased.
You need money to develop new drugs, but pharma is one of the most profitable industries, and a lot more of the price goes toward that exaggerated margin and the rest of the world free-riding on us than on America's fair share of development.
Orphan drug act, six protected classes, ban on importation -- all of that garbage has to go. Don't need single payer to accomplish any of that of course, just fixes to a few laws and regulatory rules.
There is a tax cut-off on payroll taxes specifically Social Security.
You realize most people LOSE money on SS now, right? Higher-income earners have been losing money on SS since the 1990s. Why should the cap on SS tax be removed when they're already losing money on the deal?
Quote:
"As recently as 1985, workers at every income level could retire and expect to get more in benefits than they paid in Social Security taxes, though they didn't do quite as well as their parents and grandparents.
Not anymore.
A married couple retiring last year after both spouses earned average lifetime wages paid about $598,000 in Social Security taxes during their careers. They can expect to collect about $556,000 in benefits, if the man lives to 82 and the woman lives to 85, according to a 2011 study by the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank.
Social Security benefits are progressive, so most low-income workers retiring today still will get slightly more in benefits than they paid in taxes. Most high-income workers started getting less in benefits than they paid in taxes in the 1990s, according to data from the Social Security Administration."
You can't keep robbing Peter to pay for Paul. It's not fair to expect Peter to work for free to pay for Paul's benefits. A 25% national VAT tax, like many European/Scandinavian countries already have and will still result in some paying more tax than others, is the only reasonably fair way to raise enough tax revenue to fund single payer health care for all.
Yet you failed to remotely answer the question or explain how it could possibly be sustainable.
Comparing the U.S. to Australia and China is meaningless and a waste of time.
What is wrong with the comparison? It works in big countries, small countries and in between.
It would be a learning curve foe us Americans, but in a generation we'll wonder what the fuss was all about.
The time has come for us to move forward rather than remain fixated with the past.
There is a tax cut-off on payroll taxes specifically Social Security. This is from SHRM
For 2016, the maximum someone would pay out is $14,694. It didn't matter if you made $118,501 and paid 12.4%, $120K and paid 12.2%, $500,000 and paid 2.9% or $10m and paid 0.14%, it was capped. What is so wrong with uncapping Payroll Taxes?
Capping them makes them FAR more regressive.
1. the medicare tax is NOT capped
2. with SS if you eliminate the pay in cap..you automatically eliminate the payout cap...
None of the other suggested methods raise the ADDITIONAL $3.2 trillion per year (lefty think tank analysis/projection) cost to the Fed Gov for national health care for all.
There aren't. A 25% national VAT tax would do it. The European/Scandinavian social democracy countries have already traveled the path and know what works.
I asked you how much money employers and employees are ALREADY funding towards their health insurance, and you conveniently ignored it.
surely that makes up a VERY LARGE proportion of that 3.2 Trillion you keep talking about.
Also, that $3.2 Trillion equates to 8K per person in the US. Sounds like an exaggerated number for sure, shocking coming form an ideologue like you.
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This is from 
