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Warren's new Medicare For All Plan

astonmartin708

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Apr 17, 2012
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After getting bashed at last month's debates for her lack of a true plan to pay for a single payer option, Warren released a new plan recently. Lots of misinformation being thrown around about the plan on news media.

I think the most important piece of information regarding her paying for medicare for all was a study that she commissioned from Mark Zandi, the Chief Economist of Moody’s Analytics; Betsey Stevenson, the former Chief Economist for the Obama Labor Department; and Simon Johnson Former Chief Economist, International Monetary Fund and Ronald A. Kurtz (1954) Professor of Entrepreneurship Sloan School of Management, MIT: https://assets.ctfassets.net/4ubxbg...edicare_for_All_Revenue_Letter___Appendix.pdf

Her proposal to pay for medicare for all includes 8 funding avenues, all projected to fun the 20.5 trillion in new federal spending she argues will be needed to fund the new program (when considering previous studies by the Urban Institute on costs to implement medicare for all). She also argues that the government will already be on the hook for in the range of $34 Trillion if we do nothing. If I'm reading her proposal right, the $20.5 Trillion is in addition to the $34 Trillion we will be paying no matter what.

1. Employer medicare contribution ($8.8 Trillion): This will essentially be a payroll tax taking the place of what employers pay for their employees private insurance now. As an added note, small businesses with less than 50 employees would be excluded from the mandated Employer Medical Contribution unless they already are paying employee healthcare.​

2. Federal Taxes on Increased Takehome Pay from Eliminated Premiums ($1.4 Trillion) : Her plan is said to eliminate premiums / copays to insurers. That extra money in taxpayers pockets would now be taxed by the government. So if you're saving $3K in premiums every year you would be paying federal taxes on that.​

3. Targeted taxes on financial firms ($0.9 Trillion) - More on this later
4. Taxes on large corporations ($2.9 Trillion) - More on this later
5. Taxes on the top 1% ($3 Trillion) - More on this later​

6. Immigration reform ($0.4 Trillion) - They argue that a pathway to citizenship will add that 400 Billion in new net revenue.​

7. Eliminating Overseas Contingency Operation Fund ($0.8 Trillion) - Many argue that this is acting as a slush fund for the Pentagon. It was created by Bush to fund the War on Terror and was effectively used to fund the wars in Iraq / Afghanistan and subsequent operations in the region. It was excluded from Congress' budget control measures in 2011. The CBO just came out with a plan outlining the need to seriously alter the fund.​

8) Improving Tax Enforcement / Collection ($2.3 Trillion): Narrowing the gap between what's owed and what's paid.​

There are certainly some questions that come along with Warren's plan:

A) How are hospitals going to react in the short term to the federal medicare system only paying 110% of the current medicare rate for procedures (Warren's proposal) when private insurance is currently paying nearly double? Will it force closures to medical institutions? Consolidations? Diversification? Increased Competition?​

B) How will Employers respond to payroll taxes being implemented instead of their current insurance payments and will those payroll taxes remain in line with what they're already paying?​

C) How will raising her current "wealth tax" proposal from 2% on net worth above $50 Million and 3% over $1 Billion to 2% over $50 Million and 6% over $1 Billion effect business investment and tax avoidance.​

D) How would her proposed modification of the capital gains tax effect the stock market: She proposes modifying the capital gains tax from being due at the time of sale to being due annually.​

E) I think one VERY important point on Warren's plan to tax large corporations. She plans to eliminate accelerated cost recovery (accelerated asset depreciation) from the tax code, which I have long been a proponent of. She also proposes a minimum tax on foreign earnings of 35%. So, if a corporation reports $1 Billion in profits with $0 in taxes in the Cayman Islands, they would be required to pay 35% on that to the US. (Or the difference between the 35% and the % of the taxing foreign country)​

I think there needs to be a further study done on how these changes to taxes on profits, investments, and depreciation will effect GDP and unemployment.
 
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Can someone explain to me how allowing millions of largely uneducated and unskilled people with large families into the country is revenue positive as far as federal and state tax collections/outlays?
 
Can someone explain to me how allowing millions of largely uneducated and unskilled people with large families into the country is revenue positive as far as federal and state tax collections/outlays?
Fair question. I was surprised to see that included as well... although it's not a huge part of the proposal. They're apparently basing it on the 2013 CBO analysis of the immigration reform bill. It's kind of a byline to be honest.

From the CBO analysis:

How Would the Legislation Affect the Federal Budget for 2024 Through 2033?
CBO and JCT generally do not provide cost estimates beyond the standard 10-year projection period. However, S. 744 would cause a significant number of people to become eligible for certain federal benefits in the decade following 2023, so CBO and JCT have extended their estimate of the effects of this legislation for another decade.

The additional amount of federal direct spending stemming from enactment of S. 744 would grow after 2023 as more people became eligible for federal benefits as a result of the bill. The additional amount of federal revenues owing to the legislation also would increase after 2023 as the labor force continued to increase. On balance, CBO and JCT estimate that those changes in direct spending and revenues would decrease federal budget deficits by about $700 billion (or 0.2 percent of total output) over the 2024–2033 period. In addition, the legislation would have a net discretionary cost of $20 billion to $25 billion over the 2024–2033 period, assuming appropriation of the necessary amounts. According to CBO’s central estimates (within a range that reflects the uncertainty about two key economic relationships in CBO’s analysis), the economic impacts not included in the cost estimate would further reduce deficits (relative to the effects reported in the cost estimate) by about $300 billion
over the 2024–2033 period.
 
I'm also not sure how we're going to collect over $2T in additional taxes through the Feds doing their job better without more resources (money) put into said collections? My general rule of thumb is to take the projected cost of a government project and multiply it by 50% to get a realistic cost.

I don't see how you can reduce revenue to the health care providers and not have drastic effects to hospitals, doctors, clinics, etc.
 
I'm also not sure how we're going to collect over $2T in additional taxes through the Feds doing their job better without more resources (money) put into said collections? My general rule of thumb is to take the projected cost of a government project and multiply it by 50% to get a realistic cost.
I didn't mention that in detail. The plan does outline some more money going to the IRS (which has seen major cuts in the last couple decades) to sure up enforcement / compliance as well as some other items. Keep in mind Warren has adopted the plan, but it's being proposed by a few high level economists that aren't fools.

Much of this tax gap is attributable to individual income tax avoidance by high-income taxpayers, who have more opportunities for avoidance. The data show that the net misreporting rate as a percentage of income is above average for the wealthiest 5% of taxpayers and below average for the bottom 90%.31 America’s tax laws have been underenforced, the IRS budget has been cut,32 and the agency today “has only about the same number of revenue agents (auditors who tend to audit the most complex returns) as it had in the 1950s when the economy was one-seventh its current size.”33 IRS enforcement resources have also been mistargeted at low-income taxpayers rather than wealthy taxpayers.34
You asked us to review a proposal to substantially increase funding for tax enforcement and adopt “best practices” that the Treasury Department’s Inspector General and other tax experts have suggested.35 Specifically:

Substantially increasing funding for the IRS, including the Criminal Investigation Division. The Treasury Department estimated that for every $1 invested in IRS enforcement in FY 2017, there would be a nearly $6 direct return in terms of additional revenue collected — not including an indirect deterrence effect three times the direct return.36
● Expanding third-party reporting and withholding requirements. Research shows a 5% tax misreporting rate for income with information reporting (and just a 1% tax misreporting rate for income with information reporting and withholding), compared to as high as a 55% misreporting rate for some income without these measures.37
● Strengthening enforcement of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). Under FATCA, foreign financial institutions must automatically report the holdings and income of US taxpayers. But the IRS is not currently using these reports for systematic tax enforcement (i.e., these reports are not matched to tax returns, except in the specific context of some operational audits), which reduces the usefulness of FATCA and reduces tax collection.38 You propose developing the infrastructure to automatically match FATCA reports to tax returns and instituting sanctions for non-compliant foreign financial institutions to encourage more reporting.
● Simplifying tax filing obligations in line with other developed countries with lower tax gaps,39 including by adopting the Tax Filing Simplification Act40 and using “smart returns” to improve honest reporting.41
● Redirecting resources away from tax enforcement for low-income taxpayers towards high-income taxpayers.
● Increasing resources for the nonfiler compliance program.42
 
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It's interesting that, in order to implement her plan and pay for a single payer system, it seems that she has a number of associated big-ticket bills that would have to pass first. (corporate tax changes, personal tax changes, immigration reform, financial regulation)

It would probably be really hard to achieve this plan because of all the other moving targets that would inevitably be hung up by the opposition party and by lobbyists as well as pork barrel crap from her own party.
 
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Fair question. I was surprised to see that included as well... although it's not a huge part of the proposal. They're apparently basing it on the 2013 CBO analysis of the immigration reform bill. It's kind of a byline to be honest.

From the CBO analysis:

How Would the Legislation Affect the Federal Budget for 2024 Through 2033?
CBO and JCT generally do not provide cost estimates beyond the standard 10-year projection period. However, S. 744 would cause a significant number of people to become eligible for certain federal benefits in the decade following 2023, so CBO and JCT have extended their estimate of the effects of this legislation for another decade.

The additional amount of federal direct spending stemming from enactment of S. 744 would grow after 2023 as more people became eligible for federal benefits as a result of the bill. The additional amount of federal revenues owing to the legislation also would increase after 2023 as the labor force continued to increase. On balance, CBO and JCT estimate that those changes in direct spending and revenues would decrease federal budget deficits by about $700 billion (or 0.2 percent of total output) over the 2024–2033 period. In addition, the legislation would have a net discretionary cost of $20 billion to $25 billion over the 2024–2033 period, assuming appropriation of the necessary amounts. According to CBO’s central estimates (within a range that reflects the uncertainty about two key economic relationships in CBO’s analysis), the economic impacts not included in the cost estimate would further reduce deficits (relative to the effects reported in the cost estimate) by about $300 billion
over the 2024–2033 period.

I would need a lot more information before I can buy into these numbers. Seems like a lot of assumptions imo. Since most of the additions won't likely pay federal or state income tax I'm assuming we're projecting they will spur GDP growth which will trickle down into more tax revenue. The cost of healthcare for the large families along with schooling and other federal and local handouts seems extremely costly given the education, skill set and family size.

She's also proposing trillions upon trillions of additional spending on the Green Deal. What could possibly go wrong here :)
 
I would need a lot more information before I can buy into these numbers. Seems like a lot of assumptions imo. Since most of the additions won't likely pay federal or state income tax I'm assuming we're projecting they will spur GDP growth which will trickle down into more tax revenue. The cost of healthcare for the large families along with schooling and other federal and local handouts seems extremely costly given the education, skill set and family size.
I don't disagree with you. That was probably the line item for increased revenue that I considered most odd. I think you might have to come up with $400 Billion somewhere else, if for no other reason than immigration reform is going to be hard to pass ON TOP OF everything else she's trying to do. That's not even to speak to the validity of that revenue projection.
 
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Honestly I'd rather see Medicare For All passed than the Green New Deal if I was the one prioritizing the issues that the left seems to be most interested in. I don't know why. Maybe it's just because I fell like we're a bit too far gone with the climate to fix it, and that us doing things alone may cause more harm by allowing India / China / Nigeria to grow faster using more fossil fuels. This in an alternate reality with infinite funding.
 
I would also point out that if any of these additional taxes, reductions in payments of health care providers, capital gain treatments, etc..or government regulations related to the Green Deal.....result in a hit to economic growth then tax revenue will decrease which in turn will require more taxes.

Agree with your priorities btw. Universal health care is actually a real thing which we can see results that are in our control. We can institute the Green Deal and sit back and watch India, China, etc...continue to increase their emissions rendering our cuts useless per the stated baseline.
 
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I would also point out that if any of these additional taxes, reductions in payments of health care providers, capital gain treatments, etc..or government regulations related to the Green Deal.....result in a hit to economic growth then tax revenue will decrease which in turn will require more taxes.

Agree with your priorities btw. Universal health care is actually a real thing which we can see results that are in our control. We can institute the Green Deal and sit back and watch India, China, etc...continue to increase their emissions rendering our cuts useless per the stated baseline.
I agree. That's why I would need to see more numbers on the GDP / Unemployment before I would be on board with the plan, although I think she has some really good ideas in terms of leveling the playing field for everyone. I don't know if implementing them all in a short period of time will allow the economy time to adjust. I do think this is the best plan that I've seen on the issue thus far in terms of actually attempting to balance revenue with expenditures for a single payer system.

Another thing that's not accounted for is how the demise of the medical insurance industry is going to effect the economy. That's a lot of jobs going *poof* in an instant.

I always try to keep in mind that, like it or not, politicians (at least ones up for reelection) aren't going to intentionally implement programs that are going to tank the economy. They might not fully grasp what they're bills will do, but I feel that if Warren is shown numbers while in office that the plan just won't work and will lose her reelection, she probably wouldn't do it. But maybe I'm wrong. I'm guessing in office, she would see projections that read like, "This line item will lose 1 million jobs in Wisconsin / the midwest" and she'll know that she needs Wisconsin to be reelected.
 
I agree. That's why I would need to see more numbers on the GDP / Unemployment before I would be on board with the plan, although I think she has some really good ideas in terms of leveling the playing field for everyone. I don't know if implementing them all in a short period of time will allow the economy time to adjust. I think this is the best plan that I've seen on the issue thus far in terms of actually attempting to balance revenue with expenditures for a single payer system.

Another thing that's not accounted for is how the demise of the medical insurance industry is going to effect the economy. That's a lot of jobs going *poof* in an instant.

You're certainly going to have a huge amount taken out of the "taxable revenue" area by eliminating those jobs as well as the reduction of revenue to hospitals and other health care providers. I don't think her play is taking into account the economic and tax base hit which will follow nor the elimination of health services which is sure to follow as the revenue into the system decreases.
 
You're certainly going to have a huge amount taken out of the "taxable revenue" area by eliminating those jobs as well as the reduction of revenue to hospitals and other health care providers. I don't think her play is taking into account the economic and tax base hit which will follow nor the elimination of health services which is sure to follow as the revenue into the system decreases.
That's fair. But I haven't seen anything from the other side that's looking to realistically temper rising costs and reduced coverage / availability. We really need to sets of people in a room two tackle this problem together. It's too bad they hate each other so much. I think this one might be solvable with cooperation and compromise.

If nothing else, some of these revenue increasing items should be considered whether or not they're used to fund a healthcare plan.
 
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That's fair. But I haven't seen anything from the other side that's looking to realistically temper rising costs and reduced coverage / availability. We really need to sets of people in a room to tackle this problem together. It's too bad they hate each other so much. I think this one might be solvable with cooperation and compromise.

If nothing else, some of these revenue increasing items should be considered whether or not they're used to fund a healthcare plan.

Agree. you know my argument. You can't put an industry where you can't price or service shop into a capitalistic model and expect it to work.
 
Will those who have paid into traditional Medicare and/or on it now have their benefits reduced.
 
Does it trouble anyone else that we're entrusting one of the most financially irresponsible entities this world has ever seen with trillions upon trillions of more revenue and spending?
 
Does it trouble anyone else that we're entrusting one of the most financially irresponsible entities this world has ever seen with trillions upon trillions of more revenue and spending?
Not any more than it troubles me that they make decisions for us regarding, economics, trade, warfare, etc....

At least we might be able to vote some people out in this situation. You can't vote anyone out of a corrupt private insurer who is puppeteering governmental policy and market rates at the same time.
 
Will those who have paid into traditional Medicare and/or on it now have their benefits reduced.
Can you clarify your question? I don't think I fully understand what you're asking.
 
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Not any more than it troubles me that they make decisions for us regarding, economics, trade, warfare, etc....

At least we might be able to vote some people out in this situation. You can't vote anyone out of a corrupt private insurer who is puppeteering governmental policy and market rates at the same time.

While that's true those haven't or won't likely subject our future generations to an amount debt which we can't comprehend whose servicing cost will eventually consume an unsustainable percentage of our tax revenue. I can easily see a scenario where for every dollar our grandchildren pay in taxes 40 cents goes to servicing the debt our generation created....and we don't care. The idea of fiscal responsibility and paying down what we owe is a thing of the past....if it ever existed.
 
While that's true those haven't or won't likely subject our future generations to an amount debt which we can't comprehend whose servicing cost will eventually consume an unsustainable percentage of our tax revenue. I can easily see a scenario where for every dollar our grandchildren pay in taxes 40 cents goes to servicing the debt our generation created....and we don't care. The idea of fiscal responsibility and paying down what we owe is a thing of the past....if it ever existed.
Well, some of those programs might help alleviate that, but it's going to be really hard to get voters to increase taxes when they don't see any immediate benefits, and when it will involve taxing the rich who will assuredly be lobbying against it. If we were to implement some of these revenue generating items in order to pay cheaper programs unrelated to healthcare, what would those items be? What smaller beneficial programs would people vote for in order to get these necessary tax revenue generators through congress?

I think Student Loan Debt might be one. Outstanding student loan debt only accounts for around $1T. You could pay that off and finance debt free public universities while still making some money by implementing some of these other items. Items 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 on Warrens list to pay for the medicare-for-all would equal around $10T in increased revenues over 10 years. Pay off student loan debt and you'd have (optimistically) $9T left over to pay for public institutions, and anything on top of that would be gravy. And you'll bolster the economy in terms of consumer spending, and you'll further increase tax revenues while providing education and technology advances for future generations.

That's in a scenario where you leave healthcare relatively unchanged and try to tackle the deficit. Somebody should campaign on "Getting rid of debt to get rid of debt"
 
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The transition is the hardest part. Every other industrialized country has demonstrated that they can cover 100% of the population for 50 to 60% of what the US spends and gets better outcomes. However our current system is so complex and entrenched that the losers (insurance, big pharma, etc.) will fight tooth, nail, and nuclear devices to prevent it.

Here's an example of why our expenses are so high and a group that is getting fat off misuse of our current system: Air ambulances bankrupting people.
https://zdoggmd.com/air-ambulance/

It would probably be really hard to achieve this plan because of all the other moving targets that would inevitably be hung up by the opposition party and by lobbyists as well as pork barrel crap from her own party.
 
Well, some of those programs might help alleviate that, but it's going to be really hard to get voters to increase taxes when they don't see any immediate benefits, and when it will involve taxing the rich who will assuredly be lobbying against it. If we were to implement some of these revenue generating items in order to pay cheaper programs unrelated to healthcare, what would those items be? What smaller beneficial programs would people vote for in order to get these necessary tax revenue generators through congress?

I think Student Loan Debt might be one. Outstanding student loan debt only accounts for around $1T. You could pay that off and finance debt free public universities while still making some money by implementing some of these other items. Items 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 on Warrens list to pay for the medicare-for-all would equal around $10T in increased revenues over 10 years. Pay off student loan debt and you'd have (optimistically) $9T left over to pay for public institutions, and anything on top of that would be gravy. And you'll bolster the economy in terms of consumer spending, and you'll further increase tax revenues while providing education and technology advances for future generations.

That's in a scenario where you leave healthcare relatively unchanged and try to tackle the deficit. Somebody should campaign on "Getting rid of debt to get rid of debt"

Increasing taxes to pay of the national debt is a loser on the campaign trail Politicians get elected by promising more take home pay or promising to take from those who have more than you and give it to you (free stuff). It's truly a broken system as far as it relates to fiscal responsibility of those who run the same. Politicians want power/control over those they supposedly serve. There is no better way to consolidate said power than control the subsistence of those you govern. Government has little control over those who aren't dependent on the government for food, housing, healthcare, etc...
 
Increasing taxes to pay of the national debt is a loser on the campaign trail Politicians get elected by promising more take home pay or promising to take from those who have more than you and give it to you (free stuff). It's truly a broken system as far as it relates to fiscal responsibility of those who run the same. Politicians want power/control over those they supposedly serve. There is no better way to consolidate said power than control the subsistence of those you govern. Government has little control over those who aren't dependent on the government for food, housing, healthcare, etc...
Oh, I agree. But I think you might get a lot of positives from really campaigning to pay of student loan debt and make college attendance free. That's a significant program for both those in debt and for parents who will be helping pay for college. It's basically a stimulus package but with the added benefit of improved education for various industries.
 
Oh, I agree. But I think you might get a lot of positives from really campaigning to pay of student loan debt and make college attendance free. That's a significant program for both those in debt and for parents who will be helping pay for college. It's basically a stimulus package but with the added benefit of improved education for various industries.

Would that only apply to those who attend public universities? Seems like such a program would be a threat to private universities like TU.
 
Would that only apply to those who attend public universities? Seems like such a program would be a threat to private universities like TU.
IDK. I think it would depend on cost of the debt free program overall. I don't know how much it would cost to fully fund every student in America I'm not sure if you could get by with $9T over 10 years. You also might have to put some bargaining power in the hands of the government as to how much they're willing to pay a university for the cost of the education. Also, every student doesn't need tuition paid for due to things like scholarships. I think education would be its own giant to slay similar to healthcare, but it might end up being a cheaper alternative that could kickstart the economy so you could actually undertake things like healthcare / the green new deal when the country was in a better place to afford them.

That idea was more of a spitball. You wouldn't want to eliminate student loan debt without doing something about cost of education at the same time though.

It might make sense for private universities to cut back their sticker prices if they were guaranteed a government check for every student of XYZ thousand dollars every year rather than having to give out scholarships, or rely on foreign students etc... Maybe the government could make it work for less than $9T in 10 years. I'm not sure. One way would be to only do public institutions. (As sad as that would make me for our alma mater)
 
No one has mentioned the tax on the "net worth" of billionaires. That would be a hard law to enforce as it's likely unconstitutional due to Article 1 Section 9 on direct taxation.
 
I don't know why. Maybe it's just because I fell like we're a bit too far gone with the climate to fix it, and that us doing things alone may cause more harm by allowing India / China / Nigeria to grow faster using more fossil fuels.

My vote is for the Green New Deal as it is an existential threat while single payer health care is an economic and equity issue. The USA used to be the leader of the free world; our opposition to doing anything about climate change guarantees that our kids will never think of us as 'greatest generation'. Quite the opposite.

Pointing fingers at China, India, etc. is the deniers' latest in a long line of excuses for doing nothing.
 
So ew wants medicare for all.

I worked for 50 years and the government took money from my paycheck for medicare and ss.

Now she want to give it free to everyone.

O.k. then GIVE MY F---ING MONEY BACK!!!!
 
My vote is for the Green New Deal as it is an existential threat while single payer health care is an economic and equity issue. The USA used to be the leader of the free world; our opposition to doing anything about climate change guarantees that our kids will never think of us as 'greatest generation'. Quite the opposite.

Pointing fingers at China, India, etc. is the deniers' latest in a long line of excuses for doing nothing.

Rainbows and unicorns. The climate sheep want to spend all our resources on a plan which mathematically is guaranteed to fail. A path which will leave us precious little left to deal with a warming climate. If it weren’t such a dangerous choice it would be comical. I’m all for green energy. However, wasting trillions of dollars on the false promise of keeping us below the stated red line instead of investing in ways to reduce the coming impact is foolhardy. Yet...here we are.
 
I heard an interview with Jane Fonda today on NPR, she's still a hoot. Still getting arrested for whatever protest. Going on about how she's not ever going to buy any more coats or clothes, for the rest of her life as part of this last protest for the environment and also against consumerism.

I'm like you're 82, I'm sure your 18 dining room sized closets have enough crap in them that you wouldn't even remember wearing the first thing you put on by the time you get to the last clothing item.(Like 2 or 3 years later.) I know she won't be naked when she dies, unless she sleeps in the raw. She can't wear out all that sh!te in her closet in 5 or 10 years when she only wears it on the average 4 or 5 times for the rest of her life.

Then the interviewer asked her TUME's favorite question, did you fly to the protest? She's gonna fly there every Friday for something like two months and get arrested again every friday like clockwork, to bring attention to the issue. It's just your drama of thinking your life means anything beyond your acting.

The reason she calls it the last protest is because we only have 11 more years, and then there won't be a democracy, there won't a society, there won't be a market, it will just be anarchy. No it is the last protest, because you'll probably be dead in 11 years.
 
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So ew wants medicare for all.

I worked for 50 years and the government took money from my paycheck for medicare and ss.

Now she want to give it free to everyone.

O.k. then GIVE MY F---ING MONEY BACK!!!!

Oh stop your whining I’ve put in money to both and am unlikely to see 20% of what I put in and I’m not whining.

I’m pissed that the country bought into SS as a long-term retirement plan and that the government claimed it to be as such but nevertheless I’ve accepted it for what it is, an increased tax without “increasing taxes”.
 
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Can you clarify your question? I don't think I fully understand what you're asking.
This new program has been given the title "Medicare for everyone." But it is really simply single payer medical insurance. Many people have paid for it already and are now on Medicare. Is this the death of the original Medicare?

There have been many efforts for single payer. So far all have failed. Will this make any provision for those who have paid payroll withholding for many years for the real Medicare.
 
Oh stop your whining I’ve put in money to both and am unlikely to see 20% of what I put in and I’m not whining.

I’m pissed that the country bought into SS as a long-term retirement plan and that the government claimed it to be as such but nevertheless I’ve accepted it for what it is, an increased tax without “increasing taxes”.
At $10,000.00/year for 50 years that is $500,000.00, and with interest its over $1,000,000.00.

I dont know about you but that's a nice chunk of change that I could use.
 
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Insurance companies running the show these days, not your MD. Isn't this the death squad that many were complaining about?

https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/campbells-scoop/82886 (may require free registration)

Excerpt:
..."Who are insurance executives to decide who needs or does not need a procedure? Who are they to determine the appropriateness of a procedure? Did they go to medical school? Have they ever looked a patient in the eyes and told them they cannot have a life-saving procedure done because it costs too much?

Worse than the pre-authorization is the peer-to-peer consultations. As an electrophysiologist I spent nearly a decade training at Duke in order to become an expert in the implantation of pacemakers and ICDs and performing ablations. When I have a pre-auth denied, I have to get on the phone and argue my case for the procedure -- which is based on ACC and HRS guidelines -- to someone who has NEVER even seen a pacemaker, and almost always does not even understand how a pacemaker functions! Often these are retired pathologists, pediatricians, or other non-specialists that are making decisions about MY clinical judgment. In fact, an EP colleague of mine recently told me that he had to do a peer-to-peer consult to argue the appropriateness of an ICD implantation. When he began the consultation, the insurance company representative, who was supposedly an MD, said that he could not justify putting ACID into a patient. The trick here is that this guy did not even know that it was an AICD or a defibrillator and not ACID. This just illustrates the level of incompetence of the reviewing doctors that insurance companies hire to review the appropriateness of procedures...."
 
why is it when it comes to taxpayers and tax reform, the left cries pay your fair share.
but when it comes to giving tax money away, the left is silent on pay your fair share.
 
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This new program has been given the title "Medicare for everyone." But it is really simply single payer medical insurance. Many people have paid for it already and are now on Medicare. Is this the death of the original Medicare?

There have been many efforts for single payer. So far all have failed. Will this make any provision for those who have paid payroll withholding for many years for the real Medicare.
I'm sure those who have paid for medicare over the years would continue to receive the same service.
 
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I'm sure those who have paid for medicare over the years would continue to receive the same service.
I hope you are right. But in government, both parties often promise things that don't work out the way they are promised. ;)
 
There have been many efforts for single payer. So far all have failed.
Because neither party could contain themselves from taking money from the large insurance companies to keep the system largely status quo. While there are many provisions of ACA I agreed with, the lack of a single-payer option while still allowing insurance companies to dictate the actual cost of health care versus the market is a part I hate. The cost to see the doctor should be the cost to see the doctor. My insurance company doesn't pay my doctor what a person without insurance pays her. Plus all the managed care systems now (Omni, Utica Park Clinic, etc.) are all manipulating the system and their rates and costs get jacked up by having umpteen thousands of administrators. It's similar to why costs of higher education have skyrocketed. The system is inefficient at best. And make no mistake, your insurance is not health insurance...it's catastrophe insurance. If you go to the doctor when your sick, your premiums go up. What's the point?
 
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Insurance companies running the show these days, not your MD. Isn't this the death squad that many were complaining about?

https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/campbells-scoop/82886 (may require free registration)

Excerpt:
..."Who are insurance executives to decide who needs or does not need a procedure? Who are they to determine the appropriateness of a procedure? Did they go to medical school? Have they ever looked a patient in the eyes and told them they cannot have a life-saving procedure done because it costs too much?

Worse than the pre-authorization is the peer-to-peer consultations. As an electrophysiologist I spent nearly a decade training at Duke in order to become an expert in the implantation of pacemakers and ICDs and performing ablations. When I have a pre-auth denied, I have to get on the phone and argue my case for the procedure -- which is based on ACC and HRS guidelines -- to someone who has NEVER even seen a pacemaker, and almost always does not even understand how a pacemaker functions! Often these are retired pathologists, pediatricians, or other non-specialists that are making decisions about MY clinical judgment. In fact, an EP colleague of mine recently told me that he had to do a peer-to-peer consult to argue the appropriateness of an ICD implantation. When he began the consultation, the insurance company representative, who was supposedly an MD, said that he could not justify putting ACID into a patient. The trick here is that this guy did not even know that it was an AICD or a defibrillator and not ACID. This just illustrates the level of incompetence of the reviewing doctors that insurance companies hire to review the appropriateness of procedures...."
Isn't this essentially what "The Rainmaker" by John Grisham is about?

Good story...I was once charged $800 for a titanium screw used to anchor my new ACL in place. Why? Because the medical coder at the surgery center didn't know what to call it. So she coded it as a prosthetic. Prosthetics were only covered at 50% under my insurance at the time. What's worse is that any reasonable person would ever simply accept that a surgical grade screw is really worth $1600. Thank god my wife is not a reasonable person to deal with when it comes to $.
 
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I'm sure those who have paid for medicare over the years would continue to receive the same service.
The challenge would be the lack of doctors and nurses to meet the increased demand for medical services. Our medical system would have to offer more complete preventive care to reduce demand for treatments and ER visits.
 
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