But listen to what Senator Sanders is saying. A family of four will pay $8000 more in taxes per year BUT eliminate their $12,000 to $15,000 health insurance premiums per year.
The math problem there though is that most people aren’t paying that $12K-$15K/year for health insurance. Their employer (or the government) is paying most of it.
Less than 15% of the U.S. population pays for health insurance on their own. (~55% of the U.S. population gets their insurance through their employer and their employer pays a share of that ranging from 50% to 100%. Another 20% get their insurance through government paid or subsidized systems (Medicare/Medicaid/Military/VA, etc..).)
So that family of 4 would see a tax increase of $8,000 but their employer would no longer be contributing to their health insurance costs. Even in a case where the employer pays 50%, the employee might break even. In any situation where the employer (or government) pays more than 50% of the cost, the employee looses.
If my health insurance costs $15K/year and my employer is paying 90% of that, my cost is only $1,500/year. Under the Sanders plan, I’d drop that $1,500/year cost but pay $8,000 more in taxes for a net cost increase of $6,500 out of my pocket.
The Sanders plan taxes employers at a rate of 6.2% of the employee’s salary but that still leaves people employer-dependent. It also encourages employers to automate and eliminate human beings in order to reduce their payroll costs. He should have just included a provision that requires employers to increase employee wages by the amount they currently contribute towards their health insurance and then gotten employers completely out of the picture.
Americas will be better off eliminating the for profit health insurance companies who are merely acting as moneychangers who cause grief after every doctor visit and letting the government deal directly with all providers.
Why limit that to just the for-profit health insurance industry? That’s just making the government the money changer. It’s moving deck chairs on a sinking ship.
We’d be better off skipping “Medicare For All” and going straight to “VA Care For All”. Let the government own the medical care facilities and employ the health care providers directly. That eliminates the profit motive through the entire system. Let the Federal government run the medical schools and eliminate student debt for medical professionals. It would also eliminate medical malpractice insurance and a host of other costs that drive up the fees providers currently charge the insurance providers (and government) for.
