That makes no sense and is completely missing the point of the argument - the difference is you're paying the insurance you currently pay to your employer to the government instead of to the insurance agencies. What does it matter what it cost me out of pocket - the real deal is what it cost me and my employer combined to pay for the insurance that covered it.Embar Angylwrath wrote:How many times you been to the doctor last year Dd? Once, twice? Maybe none? That's the norm for most people without serious health issues. So say you go an average of three times, and get, oh, I don't know, 3 prescriptions. Depending on the plans out there currently offered with the co-pays.. you're going to pay what... $50-200 bucks maybe? You think that will be an economic wash for whatever tax system, payroll or otherwise, a government must impose to pay for the services? No way.
You pay for it anyway now. Do you think all unemployed people die in the streets without emergency care? Nope - they go to the emergency rooms, rack up costs that the hospitals then pass on to the rest of their patients (ie you). It's also far more expensive to treat people this way as not only are you choking up emergency rooms from issues that *should* have been treated much earlier at a far lower cost but you're also bringing in debt collection and the whole mess of writing off losses for care that you are legally required to provide whether the person can pay or not.If not a payroll tax, then what.. income tax? If its an income tax, its still linked to payroll, isn't it? The more you make, the more you pay? If its "universal" healthcare, you certainly can't tax a person with no job, because they have no income.
Tell me, how do you expect to pay for the program? If the common lament is not enough people have health care, then the solution is.. give healthcare to everyone who doesn't have it. So if you're going to increase the service demand, how do you pay for the increase in service?
In short, giving everyone access to basic health care is far cheaper for a society than it is to NOT give it to them. As a result, the upper bound of costs (assuming government inefficiency is approximately equivalent to the god-awful profits that health insurers make) is the current system. If you really want to make it somewhat fairer, you have to cap the tax levels so the top 5% aren't paying for everyone else, but that doesn't mean that the total cost of a system that gives universal health care is going to be more expensive than the mess you currently have.
Dd
