• Bernie Sanders releases Medicare - For All Plan.
    222 replies, posted
[QUOTE]CHARLESTON, South Carolina, Jan 17 (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders released details late on Sunday about his "Medicare-for-all" universal healthcare plan and how he would pay for it. The plan was released just hours before Sanders is set to square off for a presidential debate against Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and front-runner for the Democratic nomination, and former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley. Clinton's campaign took aim at Sanders last week over his healthcare plan, saying the U.S. senator from Vermont had not said how he plans to pay for it.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-universal-healthcare_569c343be4b0ce496424df13?section=politics[/url] Actual Plan: [url]https://berniesanders.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Medicare-for-All.pdf[/url]
[quote]People would be able to start new businesses, stay home with their children or leave jobs they don’t like knowing that they would still have health care coverage for themselves and their families. Employers could be free to focus on running their business rather than spending countless hours figuring out how to provide health insurance to their employees. Working Americans wouldn’t have to choose between bargaining for higher wages or better health insurance. [/quote] Yes please. Never understood this tie between health insurance and employment here in the US. Employment should have absolutely nothing to do with one's healthcare.
[QUOTE=icantread49;49554165]Yes please. Never understood this tie between health insurance and employment here in the US. Employment should have absolutely nothing to do with one's healthcare.[/QUOTE] Quite a few wealthier people seem to view the poor as parasites. Its a really strange thing
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;49554171]Quite a few wealthier people seem to view the poor as parasites. Its a really strange thing[/QUOTE]When you view people as parasites it makes it easier to set up systems to exploit them/exploit existing systems + the ones with philanthropic/social means are still working within that system
[QUOTE=icantread49;49554165]Yes please. Never understood this tie between health insurance and employment here in the US. Employment should have absolutely nothing to do with one's healthcare.[/QUOTE] You say that, but its so fucking beneficial I dont even know where to begin. Employment shouldnt be fined or required to give healthcare, but healthcare from employment is generally a huge reason why anyone gets certain jobs here in USA.
A Dem debate is happening in 45 minutes btw and you can watch it globally on YouTube [media]https://youtu.be/ti2Nokoq1J4[/media]
Not really a fan. 2.2% tax increase on everyone. And those at the top get even higher tax increases. Granted no one cares about the very top but $250,000 household income isn't as amazing as you would think in big cities in America. I'm all for increasing taxes but it has to be done smartly and federal taxes aren't. Even state taxes aren't. You should peg taxes to the cost of living of the area. This is going to make expensive places already harder to live in. And these expensive places are already predicted to get more expensive as more people move into cities. And I doubt my wages would go up because employers would now have a set 6.2% tax on them for my health care... Personally I think he should focus more on getting costs down. How about making things like a 500% profit illegal? Or making it so that if I spend the night in the ER and just get some water via IV that I don't spend $5,000? He just seems to hope that going to a unified system + subsidize everyone's health care will just bring costs down. I hate to say it but I'm getting more right leaning. Just look at the defense industry. A large industry paid for completely by the government that is bloated and not worth the money. Probably what this will turn into.
[QUOTE=Amiga OS;49554198]I'm quite happy with the British system, and I've never been bothered about the unemployed people benefiting from the NHS, as far as I'm concerned I'm paying into a system that will support me fully should I ever need medical care of any severity, and helping out others is just an added bonus.[/QUOTE] Ive always wondered. How does your healthcare hold up if you need ICU+ongoing cancer treatment for a few months? Is it REALLY free? And regardless if its free, is the care any good?
[QUOTE=HoodedSniper;49554207]You say that, but its so fucking beneficial I dont even know where to begin. Employment shouldnt be fined or required to give healthcare, but healthcare from employment is generally a huge reason why anyone gets certain jobs here in USA.[/QUOTE]Isn't that just a symptom of the issue? There should be no connection between having a certain job and having insurance under a universal health care system
[QUOTE=thrawn2787;49554212]Not really a fan. 2.2% tax increase on everyone. And those at the top get even higher tax increases. Granted no one cares about the very top but $250,000 household income isn't as amazing as you would think in big cities in America. I'm all for increasing taxes but it has to be done smartly and federal taxes aren't. Even state taxes aren't. You should peg taxes to the cost of living of the area. This is going to make expensive places already harder to live in. And these expensive places are already predicted to get more expensive as more people move into cities. And I doubt my wages would go up because employers would now have a set 6.2% tax on them for my health care... Personally I think he should focus more on getting costs down. How about making things like a 500% profit illegal? Or making it so that if I spend the night in the ER and just get some water via IV that I don't spend $5,000? He just seems to hope that going to a unified system + subsidize everyone's health care will just bring costs down. I hate to say it but I'm getting more right leaning. Just look at the defense industry. A large industry paid for completely by the government that is bloated and not worth the money. Probably what this will turn into.[/QUOTE] You do realize that you won't be bothered paying premiums or any other medical expenses, right? 2.2% is 7% less than what the average American spends on premiums. You'd be saving about $1,500. [t]http://i.imgur.com/i6n04O4.jpg[/t]
[QUOTE=thrawn2787;49554212]Not really a fan. 2.2% tax increase on everyone. And those at the top get even higher tax increases. Granted no one cares about the very top but $250,000 household income isn't as amazing as you would think in big cities in America. I'm all for increasing taxes but it has to be done smartly and federal taxes aren't. Even state taxes aren't. You should peg taxes to the cost of living of the area. This is going to make expensive places already harder to live in. And these expensive places are already predicted to get more expensive as more people move into cities. And I doubt my wages would go up because employers would now have a set 6.2% tax on them for my health care... Personally I think he should focus more on getting costs down. How about making things like a 500% profit illegal? Or making it so that if I spend the night in the ER and just get some water via IV that I don't spend $5,000? He just seems to hope that going to a unified system + subsidize everyone's health care will just bring costs down. I hate to say it but I'm getting more right leaning. Just look at the defense industry. A large industry paid for completely by the government that is bloated and not worth the money. Probably what this will turn into.[/QUOTE] I agree with lowering costs first. People dont realize much that hospitals can just buy a trashcan for $5 a pop at walmart. They have to buy SPECIAL trashcans that are more like 50-100$ a pop yet are exactly the same. Apply this to like absolutely anything in a hospital. Thats the type of shit ASIDE from actual pharmaceutical work that costs a fuckload. Little metal trays that should be $10 can be $200 because they are special medical ones, yet at the end of the day, means fuck all. And yes, while I am for a free market majorally, I am not for a free market in Medicine/Food/Water, being able to jack up medical prices by 500% should be as illegal as murdering someone if that medicine is needed for serious reasons. And yeah, ER costs need to go way down. Id rather some politician fix all that, before touching insurance.
As a small business owner, and someone who has to have private health insurance I would welcome this healthcare program gladly. Healthcare isn't free, my father works at a hospital and even then still has to be $13,000 a year, through his employer, for healthcare. It's insane.
It seems like most of the cost-saving he's talking about is derived from the change to single-payer. But what about how healthcare costs are actually determined? If the classic fee-for-service model is retained, there really won't be that much in the way of cost savings for healthcare services - only the government will be paying for them, not the patient and their insurance. What we do here in Australia is something similar to what the U.S. calls bundled payments - our Medicare will agree to pay the healthcare provider up to $x for a specific service (the 'bundled payment'), and the patient will pay the rest (if any) - the 'gap cost'. I don't see any mention of anything like moving toward bundled payments in this plan except the government will 'negotiate fair prices', but that's very ambiguous. Another point of concern is how it will be funded. It mentions that dividends and capital gains will be taxed the same as 'income from work'. U.S. companies are notorious for barely paying out dividends anyways, and part of that is the double-dip tax regime the U.S. already uses. Even qualified dividends can be taxed at up to 51% - 35% company tax first up, followed by 23.8% dividend tax on the post-company tax amount. Even if dividends were taxed at 37% (after 35% company tax), that's a total effective tax rate of 59.05%. With his proposed highest marginal rate of 52%, the total effective tax rate on dividends jumps to 68.8%. Shareholders would be begging companies to not release dividends at all. And I don't think foreign investors would be very attracted to American investments either. Then there's also the additional 6.2% tax on employers and 2.2% tax on employees. Perhaps they should have looked at cutting as much waste as possible (such as from fee-for-service), before raising more revenue?
[QUOTE=LoganIsAwesome;49554230]You do realize that you won't be bothered paying premiums or any other medical expenses, right? 2.2% is 7% less than what the average American spends on premiums. You'd be saving about $1,500. [t]http://i.imgur.com/i6n04O4.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] Okay that info graphic helps a lot. Guess I kind of forgot that I was already paying medicare. If this really is 0.75% more (aka that $466) than who cares. I'll take back what I said. edit: but also keep in mind that I'm 24 and not paying healthcare expenses at the moment. I have a high deductible health care plan and just put money into my hsa. Right now my plan is cheaper for my employer and maybe for me. Don't remember how much I put into my hsa.
[QUOTE=benzi2k7;49554219]Isn't that just a symptom of the issue? There should be no connection between having a certain job and having insurance under a universal health care system[/QUOTE] Well, hard to really talk much about insurance since my state is one of the few that was 100% required to have health insurance(think Obama care except like 15 years early lol, and Obama care is aids just like my state) So employment being connected with Health Insurance in my state is extremely common. But you should realize, employment insurance for medical is generally only a con for the actual employer, for employees its very beneficial. It ends up costing way less, and you can put multiple people on the plans, and its extremely good if you have children under 18. A lot of people in USA take basic state labor jobs, or postal jobs, because of the absurdly secure medical healthcare(its also pretty damn good) The benefits are so good that generally only 1 person per family(extended past immediate) can even work for the United States Postal Service, and trust me, a lot of those jobs are as basic as you can get. What IS a problem, is people getting jobs solely for healthcare instead of needing the job itself, or wanting to do it. Ive never heard of an employeer giving health insurance or any insurance as a negative where I am from, aside from costing the employeer more money. Its also not that widespread. A LOT of companies that offer benefits try the hardest to not give you them. Good luck getting benefits at a retail store even if they advertise them like crazy. Universal healthcare is also pretty garbage in the USA, its impossible to work how everythings set up right now. Obama Care, which is universal to a degree, jacked my premiums by over $1000 a year, thats fucking insane, AND I got less coverage lol.
I'm courious where he's getting his numbers. A similar plan in congress was estimated to cost ~$15 trillion, but Sanders is saying that it will save $6 trillion. A $21 trillion difference is a pretty big deal.
[QUOTE=HoodedSniper;49554269]Well, hard to really talk much about insurance since my state is one of the few that was 100% required to have health insurance(think Obama care except like 15 years early lol, and Obama care is aids just like my state) So employment being connected with Health Insurance in my state is extremely common. But you should realize, employment insurance for medical is generally only a con for the actual employer, for employees its very beneficial. It ends up costing way less, and you can put multiple people on the plans, and its extremely good if you have children under 18. A lot of people in USA take basic state labor jobs, or postal jobs, because of the absurdly secure medical healthcare(its also pretty damn good) The benefits are so good that generally only 1 person per family(extended past immediate) can even work for the United States Postal Service, and trust me, a lot of those jobs are as basic as you can get. What IS a problem, is people getting jobs solely for healthcare instead of needing the job itself, or wanting to do it. Ive never heard of an employeer giving health insurance or any insurance as a negative where I am from, aside from costing the employeer more money. Its also not that widespread. A LOT of companies that offer benefits try the hardest to not give you them. Good luck getting benefits at a retail store even if they advertise them like crazy. Universal healthcare is also pretty garbage in the USA, its impossible to work how everythings set up right now. Obama Care, which is universal to a degree, jacked my premiums by over $1000 a year, thats fucking insane, AND I got less coverage lol.[/QUOTE]This genuinely seems like a different world to me, the NHS is just.. the NHS compared to all these crazy tiers of insurance Not that our system is perfect (severely underfunded by the current gov) but the foundation is strong
[QUOTE=sgman91;49554283]I'm courious where he's getting his numbers. A similar plan in congress was estimated to cost ~$15 trillion, but Sanders is saying that it will save $6 trillion. A $21 trillion difference is a pretty big deal.[/QUOTE] Depends on what numbers. Sander's pdf says it will cost the government 1.7 trillion a year (so that 15 over 10 years) but save the people (not the government) 6 trillion. So all these numbers talk about different things. I kind of doubt his touted savings though. And I suspect costs would rise. Also its pretty dangerous to implement because once you do you can't undo it. Even if the economy goes to shit and the program becomes unaffordable.
[QUOTE=Amiga OS;49554285]Yes it is free, and the UK is ranked #18 by the WHO compared to the USA's #38. The elderly and those with special needs are even eligible for social assistance by the NHS. The thing is, I know that if I ever do become so ill I have to stop working, the state will handle my medical treatment. You guys fretting over medical insurance is such an alien concept to me.[/QUOTE] Its less fretting over medical insurance, and more fretting over serious shit that insurance most likely wont cover. Like a 3+ month stay in the ICU for cancer treatment. Like no wait? I can just go to the ER, say I have cancer, and if it was ICU worthy, I could get a free ride in the ICU+cancer treatment all for free? Is it REALLY a free ride? I dont think you realize how alien THIS sounds to America. 3+ stay in ICU for cancer would be well over $100,000 regardless of most insurance honestly.
[QUOTE=HoodedSniper;49554303]Its less fretting over medical insurance, and more fretting over serious shit that insurance most likely wont cover. Like a 3+ month stay in the ICU for cancer treatment. Like no wait? I can just go to the ER, say I have cancer, and if it was ICU worthy, I could get a free ride in the ICU+cancer treatment all for free? Is it REALLY a free ride? I dont think you realize how alien THIS sounds to America. 3+ stay in ICU for cancer would be well over $100,000 regardless of most insurance honestly.[/QUOTE]It is 100% free at point of delivery There's things like prescription costs which are universally £8.20 an item (cheaper if you're getting like 3 months worth) but £8.20 seems like a blessing [URL]http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/about/Pages/nhscoreprinciples.aspx[/URL] I think it's genuinely one of the best things the UK has ever produced
[QUOTE=thrawn2787;49554300]Depends on what numbers. Sander's pdf says it will cost the government 1.7 trillion a year (so that 15 over 10 years) but save the people (not the government) 6 trillion. So all these numbers talk about different things. I kind of doubt his touted savings though. And I suspect costs would rise. Also its pretty dangerous to implement because once you do you can't undo it. Even if the economy goes to shit and the program becomes unaffordable.[/QUOTE] I'm just confused about the numbers in his PDF. He clearly says, in underlined text, "Bernie’s plan will cost over $6 trillion less than the current health care system over the next ten years." That seems to be a claim about government, not everyone as a whole. It's also in context that's talking about specifically government spending. I'm also not sure about what the marginal tax rates are referring to. Does he mean those are total marginal rates when the new healthcare tax is added to current income tax rates or are those additional rates added on to current rates? It seems to be the latter because the income numbers he listed don't like up with current tax brackets. If that's the case, then anyone making $250,000+ would pay 70%+ in income taxes with people making $10 million paying ~90%.
[QUOTE=HoodedSniper;49554303]Its less fretting over medical insurance, and more fretting over serious shit that insurance most likely wont cover. Like a 3+ month stay in the ICU for cancer treatment. Like no wait? I can just go to the ER, say I have cancer, and if it was ICU worthy, I could get a free ride in the ICU+cancer treatment all for free? Is it REALLY a free ride? I dont think you realize how alien THIS sounds to America. 3+ stay in ICU for cancer would be well over $100,000 regardless of most insurance honestly.[/QUOTE] It's able to be free to the citizen because the healthcare industry isn't able to run rampant and charge insane costs to the patient because those costs eventually get negotiated down by the insurance agencies and hospitals behind closed doors, but the patient if they have to pay out of pocket don't get to negotiate. My mother is a professor of Nursing, and my dad is a 20 year ICU nurse, who is now a nursing instructor. They can talk all day about the horror stories of what things are billed for in hospitals, it's absolutely criminal. A 12oz can of coke gets billed for $13. A pair of latex gloves? $25. It goes on, and gets crazier as it gets more specialized. If we had socialized healthcare it would put an end to that, as hospital operating costs would be transparent to the citizens. I had my lung collapse, and I had to have an emergency chest tube operation. I spent 5 days in the hospital recovering. It cost my family $8k out of pocket, even though we have full healthcare coverage, and the cost of my time in the hospital was $49k.
[QUOTE=benzi2k7;49554318]It is 100% free at point of delivery There's things like prescription costs which are universally £8.20 an item (cheaper if you're getting like 3 months worth) but £8.20 seems like a blessing [URL]http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/about/Pages/nhscoreprinciples.aspx[/URL] I think it's genuinely one of the best things the UK has ever produced[/QUOTE] Thats honestly fucking unreal. Im not even kidding, in some cases concering cancer, it would be cheaper to. Become UK citizen. Buy a house(not an apartment, but a house) And then get cancer treatment.
It still astounds me that the US considers itself one of the "best countries" in the world yet it still cannot find a way for everyone to have fair and easy access to healthcare.
[QUOTE=HoodedSniper;49554339]Thats honestly fucking unreal. Im not even kidding, in some cases concering cancer, it would be cheaper to. Become UK citizen. Buy a house(not an apartment, but a house) And then get cancer treatment.[/QUOTE]You could join NATO then get cancer while you're here maybe, exploit the system bro
[QUOTE=Amiga OS;49554359]The only real exception to all of this is that dental isn't free for people over 18 years old.[/QUOTE] Lol, dude, if you have dental as am American, then you are pretty well off. No one has dental if they arent decently well off here. It fucking blows, Dental is retardely expensive here. As in, most people can only go for 1 clean up a year at most.
[QUOTE=Amiga OS;49554359]The only real exception to all of this is that dental isn't free for people over 18 years old.[/QUOTE] Most opt-in surgeries aren't covered either. Cosmetic things, dental, optometry, etc. Interestingly you can just rock up to the NHS with minor problems that aren't affecting your life and get them fixed. I've had a weird bone growth removed from my leg (actually somewhat annoying, but non-problematic in the end), had a quick ball-lump scan (just a fluid collection it turns out, can totally have that fixed for free if I want a needle in my sack). Fractured both my elbows at the same time when I was 18, a hour or two in A&E and I was given slings and shitloads of painkillers (for the normal collection fee). Basically the NHS is literally the only way I can conceive a healthcare system working and being fair. No matter who you are, young or old, poor or rich, British or not, you can get emergency treatment for free or next to nothing. [editline]derp[/editline] Oh yeah. Also had a tooth pulled for ~£60, with aftercare. Dental check ups are like...£15? At a NHS run dentist. The one I go to acts privately too, and even explained "yeah just go with the NHS one it's fucking cheaper than us lol".
[QUOTE=Source;49554356]It still astounds me that the US considers itself one of the "best countries" in the world yet it still cannot find a way for everyone to have fair and easy access to healthcare.[/QUOTE] No country is without faults, you are silly to believe that a country of 330+ million people 5 times that of the UK, won't be without faults
This is a great plan, especially on the funding part. I find it to be quite fair in terms of taxation.
Bernie sticking to his message.
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