Bernie's plan would replace the same decade long, $52 trillion already predicted Americans will spend if no new plan is introduced at all. That's why $52 trillion (OMG!) is misleading, which is to be expected from ZH.
"Not One Penny In Middle-Class Tax Increases" - Warren Unveils Plan To Cover $52 Trillion Medicare-F
- Thread starter Banjo
- Start date
What is not said about Elizabeth Warren's $5.2 trillion Medicare for All is that she is imposing a 42% sales tax which will be probably closer to 60-70% when tax receipts fall and it will! Take note tens of millions will be laid off with her proposal, businesses will suffer losses which they will deduct from their corporate taxes resulting is lower taxes collected, taxes on salaries of workers who lost jobs will be lost and those still with jobs will not make up the difference! The sales taxes will be highly inflationary and the cost of everything will go thru the roof! Food, medicine, car repairs, cost of new cars, cost of houses for sale, rents, property taxes, etc. All of us will be poor and miserable, while, Elizabeth Pocahontas Warren would be a billionaire at the top owning all the state assets! Of course, other top Communists might go after her scalp as they fight for who owns what! The US as a country would be finished because we will have become a communist shithole of a country!
Not only that it has transaction tax there as well of some kind. How about to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, to undo what free market champions GOP (Bush) have done. This alone will provide gargantuas savings.
I'm with you. The U.S. already pays significantly more per capita for healthcare than other developed countries with universal healthcare. We don't need to collect trillions in new taxes. We need to find a way to fix our existing problems.
lol... ya think?
The big moneyed CEOs and Hedge Funds will be going after Elizabeth Pocahontas Warren's scalp if she is still in the race after the first few primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire! What she is facing now is a complete cake walk with the voting public questioning her Common Core Math on paying for healthcare. It only gets worst from here. Would be great entertainment though.
Prescribing pharmacists would save a huge amount. You'd no longer have to go to an MD for poison ivy or colo guard (or whatever it's called) and about 1000 things that are simple to diagnose and simple to treat. This is how practically all other countries save a ton. They save their physicians for the more difficult to treat stuff. And don't jam there examining room with runny noses and pink eye. Of course if your costs are lowered that means someone else will make less money , so this can't happen without us being told how many more are goin'a die if we do this. Way too dangerous, like getting your drugs from Canada -- way too risky!!!
it's double the next most expensive, Switzerland. So take the 52 Trillion and make it 26 Trillion.
As it is now in the U.S., Medicare has tight controls on costs, bills come in two, three, four, five times,... or more what Medicare will pay. Medicare says sorry hospitals and doctors, that's all your getting. The ridiculous bills keep coming anyway. Medicare is too generous as it is. there is nothing more totally fucked up about the U.S. then it's medical care. If the government protected cartel is ever broken then of course costs would go down to what they are in other countries and the quality of care would go up to what it is in other countries.
Please read the following. (source:https://www.investopedia.com/articl...0615/6-reasons-healthcare-so-expensive-us.asp )
The note in bold following item #3 is my own addition.
"...
Why is the U.S. paying so much more for care and not appearing at the top of the rankings? Here’s a look at six key reasons the U.S. is failing to provide adequate health care at reasonable prices.
1. Administrative Costs
The number one reason our healthcare costs are so high, says Harvard economist David Cutler, is “the administrative costs of running our healthcare system are astronomical. About one-quarter of healthcare cost is associated with administration, which is far higher than in any other country.”
One example Cutler brought up in a 2010 discussion on this topic with National Public Radio was the case of the 1,300 billing clerks at Duke University Hospital, which has only 900 beds. Those billing specialists are needed to determine how to bill to meet the varying requirements of multiple insurers. Canada and other countries with a single-payer system don’t require this level of staffing to administer healthcare.
2. Drug Costs
Another major difference in health costs between the U.S. and every other developed nation is the cost of drugs. In most countries, the government negotiates drug prices with the drug makers, but when Congress created Medicare Part D, it specifically denied Medicare the right to use its power to negotiate drug prices. The Veteran's Administration and Medicaid, which can negotiate drug prices, pay the lowest drug prices. The Congressional Budget Office has found that just by giving the low-income beneficiaries of Medicare Part D the same discount Medicaid recipients get, the federal government would save $116 billion over 10 years. Think of what the savings might be if all Medicare recipients could benefit from Medicaid-negotiated drug prices.
3. Defensive Medicine
Yet another big driver of the higher U.S. health insurance bill is the practice of defensive medicine. Doctors are afraid they will get sued, so they order multiple tests even when they are certain they know what the diagnosis is. A 2010 Gallup survey estimated that $650 billion annually could be attributed to defensive medicine. Everyone pays the bill on this with higher insurance premiums, co-pays, and out-of-pocket costs, as well as taxes that go toward paying for governmental healthcare programs.
Note added: The reason given above for defensive medicine is only partly true. The main reason is defensive medicine is hugely profitable!
4. Expensive Mix of Treatments
U.S. medical practitioners also tend to use a more expensive mix of treatments. According to a 2019 OECD report, 17.1% of the United States' GDP was spent on health in 2017. In comparison, Turkey allocated around 4.2% of its GDP in the same year. Further, more people in the U.S. are treated by specialists, whose fees are higher than primary-care doctors when the same types of treatments are done at the primary-care level in other countries. Specialists command higher pay, which drives up the costs for everyone.
5. Wages and Work Rules
Wages and staffing also drive up costs in healthcare. Specialists are commanding high reimbursements, and the over-utilization of specialists through the current process of referral decision-making drives health costs even higher. The National Commission on Physician Payment Reform was the first step toward fixing the problem; based on its 2013 report, the commission adopted 12 recommendations for changes to get control over physician pay. The Commission has gone on to work with Congress to find a way to implement some of these recommendations, although tangible policy outcomes have not yet followed.
6. Branding
“There is no such thing as a legitimate price for anything in healthcare,” says George Halvorson, the former chairman of health maintenance organization Kaiser Permanente. “Prices are made up depending on who the payer is.”
Providers who can demand the highest prices are the ones who create a brand everyone wants. “In some markets, the prestigious medical institutions can name their price,” says Andrea Caballero, program director at Catalyst for Payment Reform, a nonprofit that works with large employers to get some control on health costs.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has pushed back to some degree against the high costs created by branding. In central Florida, for example, one of the top brands is Florida Hospital. In 2018, ACA policies offered by Humana did not include services provided by this brand. Similar types of contract negotiations knocked out top hospitals in other locations. It remains to be seen whether this will cause those hospitals to reduce prices to get those patients back.
The Bottom Line
Most other developed countries control costs, in part, by having the government play a stronger role in negotiating prices for healthcare. Their healthcare systems don’t require the high administrative costs that drive up pricing in the U.S. As the global overseers of their country's systems, these governments have the ability to negotiate lower drug, medical equipment and hospital costs. They can influence the mix of treatments used and patients’ ability to go to specialists or seek more expensive treatments.
So far in the U.S., there has been a lack of political support for the government taking a larger role in controlling healthcare costs. The Affordable Care Act focused on ensuring access to healthcare but maintained the status quo to encourage competition among insurers and healthcare providers. This means there will be multiple payers for the services and less control over negotiated pricing from providers of healthcare services.
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Nancy knows that Medicare for all is a loser for 2020. I really hope that Warren gets the Dem nomination. She will be incredibly easy to defeat.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...?utm_source=google&utm_medium=bd&cmpId=google
Nancy Pelosi Says She’s ‘Not a Big Fan’ of Medicare for All
“I’m not a big fan of Medicare for All,” she said. “I welcome the debate. I think that we should have health care for all. I think the affordable care benefit is better than the Medicare benefit.”
Democrats should keep their focus on winning in the 2020 election, and that means promoting ideas that can draw wide support throughout the country, she said.
“Remember November,” Pelosi said, referring to the next election.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...?utm_source=google&utm_medium=bd&cmpId=google
Nancy Pelosi Says She’s ‘Not a Big Fan’ of Medicare for All
“I’m not a big fan of Medicare for All,” she said. “I welcome the debate. I think that we should have health care for all. I think the affordable care benefit is better than the Medicare benefit.”
Democrats should keep their focus on winning in the 2020 election, and that means promoting ideas that can draw wide support throughout the country, she said.
“Remember November,” Pelosi said, referring to the next election.