Opinion How to pay for Medicare 4 all

[drstrangelov]

So an extra 4% tax on everything over 29k a year when it’s already hit twice for federal income and ss tax? Nice, lay all the fucking burden on people like me in that 30-60k range.

I’d think the 30-60k people would make out pretty well. Considering health insurance premiums are flat costs, you’d likely be paying less for healthcare through Sanders’s plan. 25-1225 annually is a pretty good price for comprehensive health coverage. Your deductible alone is gonna be higher than that, even if you aren’t paying anything for premiums.

 

[Gregolian]

I’d think the 30-60k people would make out pretty well. Considering health insurance premiums are flat costs, you’d likely be paying less for healthcare through Sanders’s plan. 25-1225 annually is a pretty good price for comprehensive health coverage. Your deductible alone is gonna be higher than that, even if you aren’t paying anything for premiums.

So, the basics of my health plan is I’m on I high deductible plan as it allows me access to an HSA that I put $500 a year into.

My copay is like, $30 and even though I need insulin my prescription costs never eclipse like $65 for a month supply. Barring like me catching pneumonia or some shit I’m talking chronic constant prescriptions.

Im just worried I guess how I get taxed on my 44k a year already for ssa and fed income tax to the tube of like 183 in federal taxes a check and another 24 in fed Medicare and another 106 in some other federal deduction my check goes from like 1700 gross and to just under 1300 take home or net.

And now he wants to drop another 4% tax on me for everything I make after 29k gross? I’ll lose probably like $600-$700 a check then cause my medical is all employer covered.

 

[drstrangelov]

So, the basics of my health plan is I’m on I high deductible plan as it allows me access to an HSA that I put $500 a year into.

My copay is like, $30 and even though I need insulin my prescription costs never eclipse like $65 for a month supply. Barring like me catching pneumonia or some shit I’m talking chronic constant prescriptions.

Im just worried I guess how I get taxed on my 44k a year already for ssa and fed income tax to the tube of like 183 in federal taxes a check and another 24 in fed Medicare and another 106 in some other federal deduction my check goes from like 1700 gross and to just under 1300 take home or net.

And now he wants to drop another 4% tax on me for everything I make after 29k gross? I’ll lose probably like $600-$700 a check then cause my medical is all employer covered.

So at 44k, you’d be taxed 4% on the 15k above the exemption threshold. So you’d be in for 600 a year, if you’re paid biweekly thats 23 dollars a check, half that if you’re paid each week. I think for you, with active diabetes, you’d end up paying much less, since you wouldn’t shell out a dime for any of your physician bills. You’re exactly the person Sanders is appealing to, its in your financial best interests to support his plan.

 

[Sano]

Right. It's easy for us to make fun, but what is the ACTUAL plan?

I have been reading up on this because I thought maybe I was being unfair. So I figured, I will look at this from a politically neutral position and just see if it makes sense.

There's NO information on how he plans to actually do this. The argument is 'the US spends X dollars' per person and other countries spend less. But there's no explanation of how they came to these numbers.

If people are paying for their own health insurance, then 'The US' isn't spending anything...

It seems they are cooking up these stats disingenously by saying any money spent anywhere in the US by anyone is 'the US.'

This doesn't account for the fact that very wealthy people might choose to spend a fortune on health insurance to ensure the best, most comprehensive coverage possible.

So that's not in any way an apples to apples comparison with someone in Canada who just pays whatever taxes the government tells them to and gets the same level of care as everyone else.

The argument being 'The US spends this much and it's going to be cheaper per person to do it Bernie's way' doesn't explain the fundamental question:

Who pays for it? Where does the money actually come from? How much will a family of four living on $70k a year be expected to pay and how much more will a millionaire pay?

And of course, Congress is expempt right? As usual? So that's a massive pool of millionaires getting out of paying their fair share.

I just want someone to break it down. Where does the actual money come from?

If you really have spent time looking into this, and you still don't know where they got the numbers that the US pays twice the OECD average for healthcare per capita, how Bernie would pay for M4A (which saves money btw), as well as how many years the plan will take to transition to, then you should get a refund on your education tuition.

Literally every single question you put forth here has been answered 10 times.

 

[Gregolian]

So at 44k, you’d be taxed 4% on the 15k above the exemption threshold. So you’d be in for 600 a year, if you’re paid biweekly thats 23 dollars a check, half that if you’re paid each week. I think for you, with active diabetes, you’d end up paying much less, since you wouldn’t shell out a dime for any of your physician bills. You’re exactly the person Sanders is appealing to, its in your financial best interests to support his plan.

My brain still struggles with the numbers, partially cause I took my current job as it’s a pay raise over where I used to work like 3 states away but now I feel like I’m getting bent over a chair for trying to make more money.

 

[Gregolian]

If you really have spent time looking into this, and you still don't know where they got the numbers that the US pays twice the OECD average for healthcare per capita, how Bernie would pay for M4A (which saves money btw), as well as how many years the plan will take to transition to, then you should get a refund on your education tuition.

Literally every single question you put forth here has been answered 10 times.

I went to public school so.........

 

[Gregolian]

Also, I know Bernie has preached the same thing since, well, forever so I trust HIS convictions..... I just don’t trust the people he’d have to work with to implement some of this or the college loan forgiveness.

 

[drstrangelov]

My brain still struggles with the numbers, partially cause I took my current job as it’s a pay raise over where I used to work like 3 states away but now I feel like I’m getting bent over a chair for trying to make more money.

Well, this would be good for you, you should vote for Bernie. Anybody telling you otherwise isn’t really looking out for your best interests, so they’ll try to get you mired in ideological worries.

 

[Gregolian]

Well, this would be good for you, you should vote for Bernie. Anybody telling you otherwise isn’t really looking out for your best interests, so they’ll try to get you mired in ideological worries.

I also to be fair start to go cross eyed when looking into tax stuff and anything to do with numbers like this:


And I took AP Physics and shit in high school. There’s also my above stated issue. I mostly trust Bernie that he wants to do what he says. I don’t trust the people in both parties he has to work with to do it.

 

[drstrangelov]

I also to be fair start to go cross eyed when looking into tax stuff and anything to do with numbers like this:


And I took AP Physics and shit in high school. There’s also my above stated issue. I mostly trust Bernie that he wants to do what he says. I don’t trust the people in both parties he has to work with to do it.

Even if, and that’s a big if, he gets elected, Bernie won’t accomplish everything he’s setting out to do. Realistically, he’ll enact a huge tax on high earners, and implement one of the tentpole campaign promises, most likely Medicare for all. The benefit of that being that Medicare is already a massive program, with clearly defined processes, it would just need to be scaled.

Is there anything Trump is promising that you particularly want to see enacted? I’m having a hard time discerning what his platform is, so it’s easier for him to deliver, but for you his best case scenario is just the status quo.

 

[Gregolian]

Even if, and that’s a big if, he gets elected, Bernie won’t accomplish everything he’s setting out to do. Realistically, he’ll enact a huge tax on high earners, and implement one of the tentpole campaign promises, most likely Medicare for all. The benefit of that being that Medicare is already a massive program, with clearly defined processes, it would just need to be scaled.

Is there anything Trump is promising that you particularly want to see enacted? I’m having a hard time discerning what his platform is, so it’s easier for him to deliver, but for you his best case scenario is just the status quo.

Honestly I’m very much in that “undecided” category right now.

I know I would never vote for that can Bloomberg, I’m technically a registered republican but I don’t like Trump and wrote in my primary candidate as Charlie Brown so.....

 

[Sano]

I went to public school so.........

In Denmark we have this expression "do burde få dine skolepenge tilbage", which directly translates to "you should get your school money refunded". However, we don't pay for education here so it's an odd one in context lol.

I hope you know I wasn't talking to you, although the math @drstrangelov put forth for you is pretty straightforward. You'd pay 600 dollars more a year in taxes under M4A and you would have very little, to no other medical expenses. Sanders version of M4A has a cap of 200 dollars a year on prescription drugs in shared payment. So at most, under his plan, you would pay 800 dollars a year in healthcare with no co-payments on visits and full coverage, including your insulin.

Even with your relatively cheap healthcare now, you pay 500 dollars in your HSA, up to 780 dollars for your insulin (65 dollars a month) and various copayments for visits to the doctor right? So you're paying at least what, 1200-1400 dollars a year now?

You'd save 400-600 dollars a year in that scenario and your coverage would be better. You also wouldn't be at any risk if your employer changed your plan. Btw, if you're unionized you'd probably see at wage increase somewhere down the line as you'd be in a better bargaining position as your employer would save on the premium fees.

 

[Gregolian]

In Denmark we have this expression "do burde få dine skolepenge tilbage", which directly translates to "you should get your school money refunded". However, we don't pay for education here so it's an odd one in context lol.

I hope you know I wasn't talking to you, although the math @drstrangelov put forth for you is pretty straightforward. You'd pay 600 dollars more a year in taxes under M4A and you would have very little, to no other medical expenses. Sanders version of M4A has a cap of 200 dollars a year on prescription drugs in shared payment. So at most, under his plan, you would pay 800 dollars a year in healthcare with no co-payments on visits and full coverage, including your insulin.

Even with your relatively cheap healthcare now, you pay 500 dollars in your HSA, up to 780 dollars for your insulin (65 dollars a month) and various copayments for visits to the doctor right? So you're paying at least what, 1200-1400 dollars a year now?

You'd save 400-600 dollars a year in that scenario and your coverage would be better. You also wouldn't be at any risk if your employer changed your plan. Btw, if you're unionized you'd probably see at wage increase somewhere down the line as you'd be in a better bargaining position as your employer would save on the premium fees.

Not unionized but a public employee.

I also would hang back on saying union employees will see a wage increase. I used to be in one but they bargained for the employer to cover all medical expenses so we paid nothing out of our check..... then raised our dues so we saw no paycheck increase.

 

[Sano]

Not unionized but a public employee.

I also would hang back on saying union employees will see a wage increase. I used to be in one but they bargained for the employer to cover all medical expenses so we paid nothing out of our check..... then raised our dues so we saw no paycheck increase.

Yeah I get what you're saying. M4A will reduce medical expenses for employers, but what they choose to do with that extra capital is up to them. I hope most of it will be put towards wages, as one of the primary explanations behind stagnant wages has been the increase in employer expenses on premiums, but who knows for sure.

Btw, a few graphs in that regard:

https://1businessworld.com/2019/08/...ickly-theyre-devouring-your-salary-increases/

Also deductibles has risen at completely unacceptable rates and really screws you over if you do happen to get sick:

https://www.kff.org/health-costs/report/2018-employer-health-benefits-survey/