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Behind the Curtain of Medicare for All

4/17/2019

 
Bernie Sanders was recently asked if he’d be willing to lead by example and pay the tax rate that he’s proposing for people making more than $1 million dollars a year. He was asked this because he has brought in more than a million dollars from his book sales. Keep in mind that the IRS allows citizens to pay in as much money as we want (they take donations), if we pay the required amount; so, the question posed to him was legitimate. The question threw him for a loop, and he stalled as he tried to figure out what he would say. It was an embarrassing moment for him as he refused to pay the tax rate he’s pushing. The Boston Globe had an article about Bernie’s response to this question which wasn't flattering to him. 
 
An extremely critical area to our economy that Democratic/Socialists like Sanders leave out of their discussions about Medicare for all, is the inevitable financial crisis that will occur in the stock market. There are hundreds of crucial stocks that revolve around private healthcare insurance which in turn affects healthcare in general (i.e. emergency care facilities, hospitals, medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, etc.). Just feeling a potential momentum shift into a government sponsored healthcare program, has caused many healthcare stocks to decline while the other sectors of the stock market have been performing well. If these stocks tumble, these companies tumble, it’s basic economics.  
 
What people like Sanders are pushing would lead to citizens not having the right to choose their healthcare coverage.  We might have greater needs than what Medicare for all provides but wouldn’t have the right to do anything about it. Medicare for all means no private insurance for anyone. The U.S. is a destination country for specialized medicine and surgical procedures. Wealthy people from other countries spend a lot of money in the U.S. They would no longer have a reason to come here. Countries with socialized medicine aren’t typically the leaders in the field of healthcare. The reason of course being that governments don’t spend money to innovate. Research and development are costly. When the government is involved, there’s always rationing.

There’s always modifications made in government healthcare plans to where healthcare coverage changes as you get older and not for the better as the government figures investing in older people isn’t a good spend. The fact is, in a public sponsored healthcare plan, older people are a severe drain as they cost more to take care of and they aren’t in most cases paying into the system. There are medical tests and procedures that many seniors won’t be able to receive. Even for other people, annual tests to catch issues such as cancer, become limited meaning mammograms and colonoscopies will be offered, but the age at which we can begin being tested annually, becomes higher and higher to lower government spending.
 
There will be significant collateral damage including over 600,000 citizens who make a living through working in the private healthcare industry who will be out of work. How will they maintain their car payments, mortgages, etc.? Whereas governments at all levels were getting money from these people, they will no longer have the tax revenue income stream they had been enjoying. The private sector will be hurt, and the public sector will be hurt, details these Democratic candidates are conveniently leaving out of their sales pitch. Candidates who are pushing Medicare for all aren’t telling the whole story. They stick to their mantra that healthcare is a right not a privilege which certainly isn’t mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, and then push the bells and whistles of getting rid of private insurance without truly addressing the costs and who will be paying for it. 
 
Democrats are upfront telling us they will raise taxes but not in most cases how much and what will be the income brackets. They know that as soon as they throw it out there, it will be easily challenged. There’s only one direction tax increases  will take our economy and that’s south; good luck finding a credible economist at this point state that raising taxes will help our economy.

If you and I have less discretionary income it hurts the economy, more importantly, our local economy. We wouldn't have as much money to donate to our churches and other non-profits. Our state taxes would need to go up something Bernie doesn't discuss. He has been forced to admit, based on IRS numbers, that the “rich,” can’t pay for Medicare for all and that people in the middle-class will need to pitch in more tax revenues. Remember when he said the top 1% would pay for it?  He's not a complete idiot, he knew the numbers didn't add up, he was willing to lie about who would pay for it. I’ve run the numbers using public information from the IRS’s database, and there’s no doubt in my mind that to pay for what some of these Democrats are promising, everyone who is currently paying taxes will experience a significant tax increase. If they don’t increase the taxes on the middle-class for political reasons, they’ll bury us in debt substantially, kicking the can down the road but eventually everyone will have to pay up and it won't be pretty.    
 
Some Democrats who are pushing this program say that although we’ll pay more in taxes, we’ll save money overall. Where in the world is this evidence? We have more discretionary income by far than other countries let alone the Nordic countries they often use as an example of effective healthcare. Even our “poor,” have better living standards than other countries. Americans are more giving because of our higher level of discretionary income. We have the highest GDP. We use this leverage every day on the world stage. Our current economy is why Trump has been able to stop countries from gouging us in import taxes like Canada was doing with a 60% tax on our dairy products. The NAFTA trade deal caused us to go in the hole every year. The attractiveness of our growing buying power has led to a better economy for  everyone, not just those at the top.   
 
Obama Care costs were increasing at times in double digits. Democrats promised costs would go down in healthcare including pharmaceuticals, and they didn’t.  There are areas in the country that don’t even offer Obama Care because it wasn’t working; another point that Democrats don’t dare to raise. The federal government is not the best option in most cases. They’re not efficient. They’re wasteful. They’re slow to respond. They wait until the last minute to make necessary changes. They foster no innovation. They end up being more costly as an average federal government employee makes close to 30% more than an typical employee in the private sector.  The private sector is and has always been, way more effective than the public sector; it’s why we’ve become the superpower that we have.
 
People like Bernie Sanders have an easy sell as their pushing “freebies,” that sound good, especially if someone doesn't understand economics. Many young people are eating the propaganda up and now prefer socialism over capitalism. Many of them haven’t experienced Uncle Sam reaching into their wallets. When they reach the age of 30 and are saddled with the debt the U.S. will be in at that point, cuts to Medicare and Social Security will be drastic. The age at which we can collect Social Security will go up and the payments will go down. There’s no other place in the federal budget that they could collect money as quickly, other than taxing people even more and at this point, just like every over country in the history of the world, the people will put their foot down and say no more. The masses won’t care that seniors get penalized as long as they don’t get hit with even higher taxes. Retirement income won’t be a problem until it’s their problem especially with the mentality that's out there today. Our healthcare system isn’t perfect, and it needs some major work, but Medicare for all will be a disaster. 

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    Author: John Mann

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