Bernie's medicare for all will SAVE Americans Money

[Skwmom]

which is a very good thing.

In 2013, total premiums for private health insurance cost Americans $962 billion, individuals and families paid $339 billion out of their own pockets and “other private revenues” accounted for another $121 billion of health care (data here). That’s $1.4 trillion of health care spending, paid for by families and businesses, most of which would be replaced by Sanders’s plan. Project that out for 10 years, add health care inflation, and you’re talking about a lot more than $15 trillion.

I’m pretty sure — and I’m speaking partly from personal experience — that most businesses would be happy to have the federal government take the health care headache off of their hands once and for all. Rising health care premiums are a major reason why companies find it hard to give their employees generous raises. This is a real problem for, say, profitable technology companies (Apple, Google, etc.) who have to compete with unprofitable startups who can offer big raises without worrying about the bottom line.

Many people would be happy to stop paying private insurance premiums (either in the individual market, or the employee contributions in the employer-sponsored market) and instead pay a higher payroll tax to support expanded Medicare. Many people would also be happy separating health insurance from their work status permanently. Some other people would prefer the current system — primarily rich people whose payroll taxes would exceed their current insurance premiums. That’s a distributional issue, and it comes down to whether we want a policy that favors rich people or one that favors poor people.

http://billmoyers.com/2015/09/19/bernie-sanders-wants-to-spend-18-trillion-so-what/

[Human101948]

1. Can you correct your headline so folks are not confused?

http://www.incontinenceproductsplus.com/Medi-Air-Biological-Odor-Eliminator-p/55434a.htm

[portlander23]

2. Price tag is a distraction

The key point made here is that fighting on terms of the "cost" or the "size" of the program is irrelevant if it delivers better heath care outcomes and does it at a lower cost that the private sector.

Bernie is right, and what makes him such a great messenger is he's not going to argue inside the conservative frames of "cost" and "size".

[MisterP]

3. THAT is the crux of Sanders: he won't beat around the bush apologizing for the program

and giving in to every demand that the righties have and adding mandatory secondaries so Delaware's delegation doesn't say mean things at cocktail parties about the next piece of "signature legislation," which in turn is designed as a distraction from corporate giveaway #12,104

[portlander23]

4. The Era of Big Government

Clinton's Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union
January 23, 1996

We know big Government does not have all the answers. We know there's not a program for every problem. We know, and we have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic Government in Washington. And we have to give the American people one that lives within its means. The era of big Government is over.

Focusing on the price tag or the size of a program instead of its efficacy is a conceding to operate in the world view of the other side. Mr. Sanders does not concede this point.