Matthew Yglesias: Sanders' $18 trillion in proposed spending is more affordable than it sounds

[portlander23]

Bernie Sanders's $18 trillion in proposed spending is more affordable than it sounds

So what about this $15 trillion business? Well, Sanders is proposing to have the federal government pay for everyone's doctor visits, hospital stays, and medical procedures, just the way it currently does for people over the age of 65. Obviously that's an expensive undertaking. But right now private health insurance plans are projected to spend $14 trillion over the next 10 years, and people are forecast to incur $4 trillion in out-of-pocket expenses. Turning $18 trillion of private spending into $15 trillion of government spending while also expanding access to insurance would actually be an incredibly impressive trick. If you financed it with a broad-based payroll tax (the way Social Security is financed), people with job-based insurance plans wouldn't even notice the difference — today's insurance premium line on your pay stub would become a tax line.

[Human101948]

1. And cut out the insurance companies who are in the business of denying health care...

because the big boss needs to make $20 million and the stockholders need an ample return on their investment. And you are just the vehicle for them to achieve all that.

[upaloopa]

2. When they deduct health insurance from your

paycheck it is the same amount for people with the same plan no matter what you make. You don't do that with taxes. You will have to tax people with higher incomes more to pay for people with lower incomes. That is a tough sell in 2015.

[AgingAmerican]

4. Medical costs would be about half of what they are now under a single payer system

It is far cheaper than what we have now. It's only a tough sell to brainwashed RW hacks.

[portlander23]

5. People all over the world hate their expensive single payer healthcare

Yes, a tough sell.

[upaloopa]

7. This isn't the world

I am not against single payer. I think we need to include all the perameters when we talk about it.

[portlander23]

8. January 19, 2015 Majority still support single-payer option, poll finds

Majority still support single-payer option, poll finds

More than five years after the single-payer system was scrapped from ObamaCare policy debates, just over 50 percent of people say they still support the idea, including one-quarter of Republicans, according to a new poll.

The single-payer option – also known as Medicare for all – would create a new, government-run insurance program to replace private coverage. The system, once backed by President Obama, became one of the biggest casualties of the divisive healthcare debates of 2009.

The idea remains extremely popular among Democrats, with nearly 80 percent in support, according to the poll, which was shared first with The Hill by the Progressive Change Institute.

“There is a hunger in America for big progressive ideas," spokesperson TJ Helmstetter wrote in a statement. "The state of our union is progressive, and the president would be smart to give America the big, popular, progressive economic ideas that people have been crying out for.”

Turns out America is in fact part of the world. I think Mr. Sanders popularity is showing us that we don't have to be timid about saying what we believe.

[AgingAmerican]

3. Except he isn't proposing spending 18$ trillion

nt

[DanTex]

6. Yes, it is, but it's still $18 trillion in spending, and outside of the DU bubble, that's not going

to go down well with the electorate.