DNC Restructuring

[Andalusian girls]

Lieberman is the worst case scenario when primarying a safe dem

who needs actually knowing the actual history of actual things that actually happened when you have purity quips

[Andalusian girls]

i do wonder though, for you leftist liberals that believe in such how would you go about paying for Medicare for all? presumably prices would lower with a government monopoly on demand (though to what extent is difficult to say, healthcare delivery in this country is going to be more difficult than in any other first world country regardless of the model) but anyone who has gone over the projections for present entitlement programs can see our existing healthcare obligations are consuming an ever larger share of the federal budget and were we a private enterprise would be sending us to an ugly insolvency. massive tax increases are not optional, and i wonder where you would place them and how you would propose to get them through Congress with at least a few Republicans on board.

[Headspace]

who needs actually knowing the actual history of actual things that actually happened when you have purity quips

Donald Trump was elected president. I think we can ignore precedent regarding primary shitty Dems

[archibaldcrane]

Everything other than "getting them through congress with at least a few republicans on board" is eminently doable*, honestly. You start rate-setting with current medicare and/or medicaid pricing, and you include negotiations for drug pricing (which Medicare doesn't currently do because the US is stupid). Revenue comes from a combination of sources - including but not limited to higher top marginal rates, higher top marginal capital gains tax, financial transactions tax, a VAT, and higher worker/employer payroll taxes (since neither party will be paying for health insurance premiums anymore). You're killing the employer insurance tax break, and you can chop off a few others like HSAs and carried interest as well.

The US already spends per capita as much on public healthcare (medicare/medicaid/VA/ACA subsidies/CHIP/etc) as most universal healthcare countries spend per person for systems that cover everyone. Medicare (and especially medicaid) are WAY cheaper than comparable private plans, so that alone is going to significantly reduce total spending - we just have to cleave off a good chunk of the money otherwise earmarked for premiums and divert it to the government.


The annoying thing is that (at least leftists on twitter) seem to be convinced that we can simply soak the rich for all the additional taxation we need, and that's simply not true. Even if the top 1% paid twice as much in taxes, that only gets us like halfway there or less as far as additional funding needed. Leftist twitter really doesn't like to hear that, as I discovered yesterday.

*of course doing this would put every lobbyist for health insurance, all medical provider groups (other than the nurses union I suppose), all uber-rich people, etc. etc. in overdrive trying to kill it because it will be bad for them. It would rule for the bottom 80% of people though.

[Talint]

"How are you going to pay for medicare for all" he asks as we put two wars on the credit card for the past decade and a half.

[archibaldcrane]

"How are you going to pay for medicare for all" he asks as we put two wars on the credit card for the past decade and a half.

I've seen this argument (if you can call it that) a lot over the past couple weeks. If you think it's a smaller political lift to deficit finance single-payer in perpetuity, that's a thing I suppose you can believe.

I just disagree.

But I get why nobody wants to put numbers down on paper - it's easier to handwave those things away so you can't be attacked on concrete numbers during election season, and then once you finally have the numbers just ram them through in the 11th hour in some backroom deal. It's probably more viable politically, I just doubt they'll be able to keep stringing this along for another 4 years without doing so.

[Talint]

Like, we're one bad tweet away from starting world war 3, and nobody there is asking "how exactly are we going to pay for this war".

Concerns over the financial cost to the government has become one of the most disingenuous things.

[Andalusian girls]

I've seen this argument (if you can call it that) a lot over the past couple weeks.

has the argument really become 'well George Bush took us from surpluses of hundreds of millions to deficits of a trillion why don't we do the same but worse'

has the tweeting left really become so intellectually bankrupt

is this real life

or just fantasy

[Zealot]

I think a majority of people would prefer money be spent on health care instead of endless war.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[archibaldcrane]

Hmmm, it looks like Bernie actually did put forth at least some ideas he's kicking around for financing Medicare for all. It's half budgetary stuff, half political document, but it actually has some (...some) numbers in it.

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/downl...ll?inline=file

The numbers it is missing, of course, is any estimate whatsoever of what the total cost of Medicare for all would be.

[Talint]

[archibaldcrane]

Close the Gingrich-Edwards Loophole and Create Parity for Wealthy Business Owners
Revenue raised: $247 billion over ten years.
This option closes the Gingrich-Edwards loophole which allows individuals who own and run an
S-Corporation to game the system and avoid paying payroll taxes by claiming some income as
business profits. Under current law, these business owners are required to report a “reasonable”
amount of salary income and pay the appropriate amount of payroll tax. However, many times
these individuals deliberately under-report a reasonable salary in order to avoid these taxes.

rabble rabble rabble this guy is coming for my loophole, go gore someone else's ox bernie rabble rabble

[Talint]

Less glibly, there is a part of me that IS concerned about the cost of such a program. Especially when you consider that we are the most obese nation in the world and are generally unwilling to sacrifice its unhealthy habits. Giving everybody government sponsored health care, even on a program where costs are regulated (medicare), would be a pretty significant financial burden.

But budgetary concerns are the concerns of wonks, and doesn't factor in the human toll that pay-for-care has on a society. How many of those vices would be lessened knowing that getting sick isn't a death sentence? It's easy to care about dollars on a page when the human element is detached from it, but there's still 28 million uninsured in this country, and more than that are one bad illness away from bankruptcy.

Also, it does look REALLY bad when you point out that nobody cares about the cost of war. Maybe it's a disingenuous argument, but a fair one all the same.

[Andalusian girls]

I think a majority of people would prefer money be spent on health care instead of endless war.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

right, and math is hard, but you could reduce the defense budget to 0 and it wouldn't cover the projected cost increase of Medicare and Medicaid by 2040 without expanding either program. the Iraq War was expensive, but the latest estimate puts the direct cost of the war at 1.1 trillion for the 2003-2011 period (legacy costs will be far far higher but only time will tell exactly what they shall be). in comparison the federal government spent 1.2 trillion on healthcare in 2015. essentially our annual Medicare and Medicaid outlays are the cost of an entire Middle Eastern War.

this kind of "but the wars!" talk is insane. they were expensive, and economists left center or right think it was an act of inspired stupidity to finance them while cutting taxes, but their financial cost is slight compared to what healthcare currently costs, and what healthcare currently costs is slight compared to what healthcare will cost.

anyone with the slightest accounting ability should be shivering when reviewing the federal government's long-term financial outlook. it is ghastly.

But budgetary concerns are the concerns of wonks

they are, until you're Greece, then they are the concern of everyone.

[Byrthnoth]

We're going to give everyone free healthcare and they're not going to have to pay healthcare premiums anymore, so the increased spending will cause increased taxes and the plan will pay for itself.

Republogic'd

[archibaldcrane]

anyone with the slightest accounting ability should be shivering when reviewing the federal government's long-term financial outlook. it is ghastly.

we will continue to have to put the screws further to doctors and medical device companies and hospitals and start putting them to drug companies.

The bright side is, we already pay for the most expensive people to treat - the elderly, the disabled, the veterans. Kids and working-age people are much cheaper (per person) by comparison, especially if we are doing so with medicare/aid level reimbursements.

[archibaldcrane]

Estimates of single-payer run around 1.5-2.5T per year, or around 378-631 per month per person. That's lower than the 3.2T in total spending we currently engage in (all sources included).

Right now if we pay 1.05T on 120 million medicare/medicaid recipients, we're paying $729 per month per recipient for them as is. The younger employer/uninsured/private insured population will be, as I said, significantly cheaper than the medicare population of course.

[archibaldcrane]

Implementing all the taxes in Bernie's proposal is going to get us into that 1.5-2.5T range, but yeah it is a big lift.

[Zealot]

right, and math is hard, but you could reduce the defense budget to 0 and it wouldn't cover the projected cost increase of Medicare and Medicaid by 2040 without expanding either program. the Iraq War was expensive, but the latest estimate puts the direct cost of the war at 1.1 trillion for the 2003-2011 period (legacy costs will be far far higher but only time will tell exactly what they shall be). in comparison the federal government spent 1.2 trillion on healthcare in 2015. essentially our annual Medicare and Medicaid outlays are the cost of an entire Middle Eastern War.

this kind of "but the wars!" talk is insane. they were expensive, and economists left center or right think it was an act of inspired stupidity to finance them while cutting taxes, but their financial cost is slight compared to what healthcare currently costs, and what healthcare currently costs is slight compared to what healthcare will cost.

anyone with the slightest accounting ability should be shivering when reviewing the federal government's long-term financial outlook. it is ghastly.



they are, until you're Greece, then they are the concern of everyone.

Did I say anything about that motherfucker? You made a statement trying to equate endless quagmire spending (which you're now retconning to "defense") to health care spending on an intellectual level. I responded based on that. If you want to get into policy and numbers I'm always happy to.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[kuronosan]

Wow.