I think most people have no idea how much taxes would have to be increased to expand Medicare to everyone. Medicare has an unfunded liability of roughly $50 trillion. That's right, trillion. And because Medicare and Medicaid pay less than cost, there's an implicit tax embedded in private insurance premiums. That would have to be explicit. As someone said, 'regulatory capture'. Speaking as someone who ran a hospital-physician joint venture that provided service to Medicare beneficiaries, there is tremendous waste in Medicare, not to mention outright fraud. Providing 'free' healthcare through Medicare expansion would be a fiscal disaster. You'd have to change the model to direct governmental provision of care.sycasey said:DiabloWags said:Cal88 said:DiabloWags said:
Young people can be pretty naive.
Nothing is FREE.
Even Medicare is $175 a month.
Basic healthcare is free in nearly every industrialized country around the world. In the US, it is privatized and its costs are inflated due to endemic corruption and regulatory capture by special interests.
It's not FREE in other countries.
The Govt makes up for the FREE part by TAXING EVERYONE UP THE ASS!
PS. In California, healthcare is FREE for anyone that makes less than $16,000 a year.
Those with family incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level.
It's called Medi-Cal.
In 2022, over 15 million people were enrolled in Medi-Cal.
About 40% of CA's population.
How do you think that Sacramento pays for that?
Please stop being so naive.
Correct, in every other wealthy country the government guarantees and subsidizes basic levels of coverage well above what we have in the US. I think the US should be doing this too and would be very much willing to pay taxes for that.
And as to health outcomes, once you factor out drug use, obesity and violent crime, the comparison isn't so rosy.
