Quote:
Originally Posted by PCALMike
So you want to pay taxes for both Medicare, Medicaid, VA and private insurance for all government employees, incl fire fighters, police etc, and also pay taxes for a single payer system for 325 million Americans on top of that, so huge numbers of people will be covered twice?
The typical cost for a Medicare-for-all system in the rest of the developed world is $3500 per person per year in taxes. Americans pay $10 000 per person per year for the current system...Yet here you are, talking about $80 000 per year on top of all other taxes.
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I am talking about singlepayer, which eliminates the others
medicare and Medicaid is over a trillion just at the federal level currently
let's look at the increases medicare has cost:
in 2000 medicare was 216 billion
in 2008 medicare was 456 billion
in 2016 medicare was 691 billion
Medicaid:
2000.....117 billion
2008.....201 billion
2016.....368 billion
what is even more interesting is what the predicted outlays will be in the future
in 2016 medicare was 691 billion
prediction for 2020....963 billion
prediction for 2026....1.383 Trillion
actual Medicaid 2016.....368 billion
prediction for 2020....450 billion
prediction for 2026....616 Billion
so the prediction is medicare and Medicaid is expected to be over 2 trillion dollars is less than 9 years
that's just the GOVERNMENT costs of Medicare and Medicaid... and medicare/Medicaid covers less than 1/4 of our population.. on top of that you have the VA..and then what the PEOPLE are already paying for private insurance
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singlepayer is a non-starter, until its proponents answer the questions that most are asking about it
even most republicans would be for a singlepayer
if the liberals would only answer two questions
we want real care....quality care...not care like the Dept of health horror clinics..so will you guarantee the quality of care
and
HOW are you going to pay for it
two questions the liberals avoid like the plague
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singlepayer is NOT sustainable at any level when you are talking about 320 million patients, and less than 100 million taxpayers
they (the government) cant lower much..the best the government could do is lower some prescription medicines
how are you going to control the cost of medical equipment(mri or x-ray machines, etc)??????most xray machine are made in Denmark
how are you going to control the cost of the rising electric bills the doctors/hospitals are facing????
how are you going to control the rising property tax/rent/mortgage that doctors face?????
how are you going to control the cost of supplies(gauze, plaster, silk, rubber, polystyrene( a oil product)?????especially some supplies that aren't even American
how are you going to control the cost of people salaries???? a maximum wage???
how they are going to control the employment costs for Doctors, nurses, technicians, hospital food operators, hospital linen cleaning service, custodial services, medical transcribers........are you going to 'nationalize' every profession that is even remotely connected to medicine????
how are they going to control malpractice INSURANCE COSTS?????
things are expensive
for example the average hospital uses a lot of electricity...about 500,000 a month...that's over 6 million dollars in electric costs yearly.....you are not going to cut that piece of overhead
when you go to the local doctor and pay him/her 100..its not 100 dollars going into his pocket...there are lots of other COSTS
they have lots of overhead costs:
rent/lease/mortgage
property taxes
electric costs
equipment costs(and many pieces of equipment are not even made here)
cleaning costs
supply costs
personnel costs
etc
singlepayer will not control these costs
medicine (like anyother SERVICE) costs money,,(,money that our government doesn't have)
want to know A BIG REASON why its lower in those other countries.??? salaries.....a nurse in France(actually most of europe) makes about 1500-1800 a month(in us dollars)..that's 18-20000 a year.....meanwhile according to payscale.com the average Rn makes 40-78,000 in the usa
so what is it that singlepayer supporters 'think' or 'believe' we will be able to negotiate ??? medicines maybe....salaries not likely...other supply costs not likely.....property taxes and overhead...not a chance