Sanders proposes tax hike to pay for universal health care
Many people today have Medicare/Medicaid as their health insurer… but … all too many chronic painers and others with subjective diseases… are unable to find HEALTH CARE. Having health insurance does not necessarily mean getting healthcare ?
CHARLESTON, S.C. – Vowing to achieve universal health care, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders released a sweeping proposal hours before Sunday’s Democratic presidential debate to create a new single-payer health care system in the United States paid for by a variety of higher taxes.
Sanders’ “Medicare for all” plan was poised to play a starring role in the final Democratic debate before the leadoff Iowa caucuses and came as rival Hillary Clinton has ramped up her critique of Sanders’ health care plans.
Clinton has pressed Sanders for details on whether middle-class families would face a higher tax burden under his plan, which she has warn would undermine President Barack Obama’s signature health care overhaul.
Her campaign did not immediately comment on his proposal, which was released at little more than two hours before the debate.
Sanders’ campaign said his system would provide health care coverage to all Americans, eliminate co-pays and deductibles, and bring health care spending under control.
“Universal health care is an idea that has been supported in the United States by Democratic presidents going back to Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman,” Sanders said in a statement. “It is time for our country to join every other major industrialized nation on earth and guarantee health care to all citizens as a right, not a privilege.”
His campaign said the plan would cost $1.38 trillion a year, but would save $6 trillion over the next decade compared to the current health care system, citing an analysis by Gerald Friedman, an economist at University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
But much of the cost would be paid for through a 6.2 percent payroll tax paid by employers and a 2.2 percent “health care premium” on workers. It also relies on taxing capital gains and dividends on families earning more than $250,000 a year, eliminate deductions for wealthy Americans and raising the estate tax.
The plan would also raise income taxes on Americans making more than $250,000 a year, including a top tax rate of 52 percent for those earning $10 million annually or more.
While Sanders’ proposal is similar to the single-payer health care plan that he has introduced nearly a dozen times since joining Congress in 1991, it is a reversal of his campaign rhetoric.
In December, he promised to raise taxes on the middle class only to pay for a plan to provide paid family leave. His other programs, like tuition-free college and health care, would be paid for with higher taxes on the wealthy.
“I think it is appropriate to ask the wealthy and large corporations to start paying their fair share of taxes,” he said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”
Some liberal activists said Sanders’ plan, like other federal programs such as Social Security, would deliver a better value for low and middle income taxpayers.
“If you had a universal health care plan people wouldn’t have to pay premiums. They would gain far more than they would shell out in taxes,” said Roger Hickey, a co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future. “Social Security wouldn’t have existed if FDR had said, ‘I’m not going to raise anyone’s taxes.'”
Filed under: General Problems
Just remember that there is no free lunch, that the government does not generate wealth; all it can do is take earned resources from one (tacitly at gunpoint) and give it to another. I don’t care what side of the aisle one favors, if a given politico promises the people “something” that will be provided by the State, the money will be taken from one and given to another to accomplish whatever the political agenda du jour might be. Most of the rhetoric that one hears coming out of the Beltway is prevaricative, i.e., a lie or some sort of deception.
One of the big deceptions is that the rich and the corporations must pay their fair share and the resulting revenues taxed from said entities will pay for this program or that program. The truth is that the so-called rich don’t generate enough wealth to cover these programs. The truth is that once this symbolic bleeding of the wealthy starts, most of these folks will find a way to move their assets and wealth-generating machinery outside of the purview of the Infernal Revenue Service. The truth is that “making the wealthy pay their fair share” is yet another prevarication that will be fulfilled by redefining who the rich and who the wealthy are.
I keep hearing this $250,000 number bandied about. The truth is that this amount is fairly close to what many middle class families earn in places like where I live in California. While that may be veritable King’s Ransom in some states, if one wishes to live in a middle-middle class or upper-middle class (mind you, not rich, not wealthy) neighborhood in many cities in California, this is the price for admission. On top of that, one has to save for college tuition for their children as this income level that I mentioned puts most families out of the range of what financial aid is available for even a public university system like the UC or the CSU system. The bottom line is that here in California (and I suspect in New York, certain states in New England, Florida, et. al) that number is really a middle class standard of living because of the cost of purchasing even a modest home and providing for the future educational opportunities of one’s children and such, not to mention the higher cost of living across the board. So the “soak the rich” is targeting the middle class in selected areas of the country.
There is no free lunch and the Beltway bunch will utilize every bit of deception to get the middle class to go along with the taxation required to pay for someone else’s free lunch. The middle class is always the demographic that ends up paying for these grandiose entitlements that fill the public trough. The fact of the matter is that the middle class is dwindling on account of the State playing these economic “Three-Card Monty” games; soon there will not be enough of the middle class remaining to pay for the largess. If one thinks that the economic situation is bad now, wait another five to ten years when the money runs out and the State shifts the printing presses into overdrive to cover up the ever increasing short falls. The resulting inflation and loss of confidence in the dollar, where global markets are concerned, will bring this country to it’s knees economically.
Trump is CRAZY!
Go Bernie!
What a lot of people aren’t yet looking at is even if income taxes are raised 6% across the board, it would still be less then what people are paying out for health insurance premiums, Co-pays and deductibles. After that putting price caps on medical costs to the public, including big pharma and the corporate jug heads that are charging $1000 per dose for something that costs them $6 to manufacture. The sick have been being raped long enough and Burnie sees that.
Can you imagine what’s going to happen if Trump gets elected? First he’s going to repeal Obama Care to save his rich ass whole friends money.
Next he’s going to attempt to deport all illegals, even if they have children who are natural citizens.
Then he’s going to build a wall from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to the Pacific Ocean, at the cost to tax payers and if it works there then next along the Canadian boarder. Starting to sound a little bit like a Russian premier right?
So with him going to be spending all his time and effort putting the screws to the sick and the poor plus putting troops on the ground in every middle eastern country to rid the world of evil. Plus remember, he’s probably going to attack New Jersey too because, remember that he heard that there were Muslims across the river cheering when the Plains hit the towers. So all of us should start digging our own graves because we won’t have enough money to pay for our funerals if Trump gets in.
I would far rather have a.Cruz, Rubio or Trump than be taxed to death at 80% ( which he has quoted in the past) by Bernie and live under a Socialist regime like Europe. All anyone hears from Burnie is FREE FREE FREE….but someone has to pay for it because it’s NOT FREE by any means and I am sick of paying for other people’s freebies. I worked hard to EARN MINE. I should not be punished for my success. And for the record I am not rich by any means, I am struggling right now jobwise (I am one of the way underemployed not counted in the employment rate to make Obummer look good) but choose not to live off the government dole. And I am a pharmacist most likely who is most likely being discriminated against in hiring due to my age because every job I have applied to I have the experience and more. Every non pharmacy job tells me I am OVER qualified so thanks for applying but no thanks. I am livid that companies are firing older workers and importing HB-1 visa foreigners to take their jobs as then making those fired American workers train them on those jobs!!! That is INSANE while we have workers like me who want and need full time work in our professions