patrick.net

Heraclitusstudent says

"the average American spent $9,596 on healthcare"

Heraclitusstudent says

So let's see: for a family of Americans with 2 children, that's $38,000. Let's say the median household income is $60K. So that's potentially a tax of 63% IN ADDITION to the taxes you pay.

It doesn't work like that. Healthcare costs are highly skewed. Averages in healthcare are a flawed measure of normal. The median family spends nowhere near that much. Now if your kid has epilepsy or if your brother catches HIV, you will have $8k/month meds to pay for.

A normal kid does one wellness exam per year ($200 value) and maybe goes to urgent care once ($200 value) plus some antibiotics for $50. Those are actual costs w/o insurance.

Price of that family's insurance policy will vary based on ages and location. It used to be possible to get healthy underwriting and lower your premium, but Obamacare threw that out. So now, even healthy families of 4 are forced to pay between $20 to 30 thousand for annual premiums. Allowing for UW to get lowered premiums is part of Trumps plan, which does call into question the preexisting condition issue under this new administration.

At the very least trump is opening competition within short term medical carriers and removing the individual mandate nonsense.

MisterLefty says

CBOEtrader says

This is why most gainfully employed people dont realize the extent of the problem. Try pricing out an Obamacare policy without a subsidy. Prices are absurd.

Indeed and that data is available, too.

I have a quote engine if you'd like to price out Obamacare policies.

Ex: I'm looking at a family of 4, 40yo father, 33 yo mother, 8 yo son, and 4 yo daughter in johnnson county TX. The lowest priced silver plan is $1786/month. This includes a $15 copay, 1700 (5100) individual (family) deductible, and a 7350 (14700) individual (family) max out of pocket risk per year.

That means the family pays $21432 in premiums. If one person has large health issues they will pay up to $28782 for the year. If multiple family members have problems this family could pay as much as $36132 for the year.

CBOEtrader says

It doesn't work like that. Healthcare costs are highly skewed. Averages in healthcare are a flawed measure of normal. The median family spends nowhere near that much. Now if your kid has epilepsy or if your brother catches HIV, you will have $8k/month meds to pay for.

Yes but my point remains: the cost is totally disproportionate to American households incomes. And it will become worse.
So you can't simply say "Europeans pay more taxes meaning they pay more in an inefficient government system." They pay much less.

Take a look at https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s&showYear=2018

5 out of the top 10 lobbyists are lobbying for more expensive healthcare. They simply bribe our supposed "representatives" with "campaign contributions", who then happily represent them, and not us.

The essence of the situation is that prices for healthcare are crazy high because no one in Congress actually wants prices to be any lower. That would displease lots of their top donors.

MisterLefty says

bob2356 says

Average employer premium last year was 18,000 according to NCSL. That's money you don't get paid. You contribution isn't the total cost of the plan. plus you kick in on top of that out of pocket.

I think you should read your own links. As previously posted, for an average family, employee pays roughly 1/3, employer 2/3. So employer's contribution is $18k-minus employee's contribution, which is around $12k. Why is it that the empty barrels always make the most noise?

I thought that it would be obvious to almost anyone that only the employer part was the part you don't get paid so that the point didn't need to be made. I was wrong. . I will spell it out next time.

MisterLefty says

In France, I'd be paying 17% more income tax, and there seems to be some sort of pesky wealth tax there, too.

You would? Do you know how it's calculated? You divide the income by the number of people in the household and thats the amount you use to determine the rate. Being single is a real tax disadvantage. Like I said french tax law is very complex.

You'd honestly be paying 17% more including fica, state income tax, and the difference in property taxes? Remember police, fire, and education are paid out of the income tax in france, not property taxes. Plus getting health care and college at 180 euro per year for tuition. Want to back a lifetime of health care premiums and your kids college tuiiton into that number?

I've lived and paid taxes over seas for 15 of the last 30 years. America isn't much cheaper when you put in all the taxing bodies and you don't get as much for it. The money for military spending that is more then the next 20 countries combined has to come out of somewhere.

Like I said all these think tanks and research groups that people believe so devoutly in exist to create political spin for who ever is paying them. They start with the conclusion then develop the methodolgy and carefully selected data points to support it. Unfortunately actually thinking and drawing your own conclusions is much to much work for a big percentage of people. They want someone who will tell them what they want to hear and how to think no matter how obviously the information is skewed.

CBOEtrader says

Averages in healthcare are a flawed measure of normal.

Indeed. And if you want to look at employee costs for healthcare as a percent of income (a tax), $5,000 on $60k earnings is 8.3%, but only 1.67% of $300,000. And likewise, if that cost goes away, a better tax cut, percentage-wise, for the lower earner. The unknown is where the resulting balance will reset under socialized medicine. Will that 1.67% go up to 6% or greater? And don't doubt that there would not still be out-of-pocket expenses under socialized medicine, as there are under Medicare. Even in the UK, one can buy supplemental insurance.

But I do think it is disingenuous to flatly state that everyone will pay less, that the employer will return their contribution to the employees its "their money', etc. Inflexible rigidity on the part of liberals, associated with TDS, means they lose again and again.

Also, the USA is still leading the world in pharma and biotech, a relatively clean and high-paying industry. Someone must pay, and it is disproportionately US citizens versus socialized medicine countries that do. Will implementing socialized medicine in the USA cause a rise in prices around the world? Will it continue the trend of an ascendant Chiner in this field? And will Bernie get elected on 2020?

MisterLefty says

Indeed. And if you want to look at employee costs for healthcare as a percent of income (a tax), $5,000 on $60k earnings is 8.3%, but only 1.67% of $300,000

What percentage of workers earn 60k vs 300k? That's why you use averages in the first place.

MisterLefty says

But I do think it is disingenuous to flatly state that everyone will pay less, that the employer will return their contribution to the employees its "their money', etc. Inflexible rigidity on the part of liberals, associated with TDS, means they lose again and again.

What is disingenuous is pretending spending twice as much on health care as a society while leaving so many people poorly cared for is good somehow. The cost of health care isn't the same as the cost of health care insurance. That ignorance is what managed to give us obamacare. The extra money spent on US health care is a giant trickle up scheme. The profits built into every nook and cranny of health care system in the US goes directly into the pockets of the .1%. The billions the health care industry has spent bribing (oops my bad, constitutionally protected free speech) politicians to maintain/extend the present system and brainwashing the public has returned trillions in profits.

Which is why there will never be any substantial changes that actually reduce the cost of health care. It would reduce profits and campaign contributions .

MisterLefty says

But I do think it is disingenuous to flatly state that everyone will pay less

Nobody said that. I said that for sure some number of people will pay more, but the overall cost to Americans will be 1/2 of what it is now. Anyone arguing that is a bad thing is ridiculously selfish or short sighted.

MisterLefty says

Also, the USA is still leading the world in pharma and biotech, a relatively clean and high-paying industry

Primarily supported by taxpayer funded research. The high cost of drugs in the US is strictly because they can. Pharma spends more on lobbying (money very well spent) than research. and more on advertising than research. Most of pharma research is on extending patents on existing drugs.

LeonDurham says

I said that for sure some number of people will pay more, but the overall cost to Americans will be 1/2 of what it is now.

I doubt that you'd find any bona fide analysis to back up your POV. You can of course assume the costs will be similar to costs in EU countries with socialized medicine, i.e., 1/2, but that analysis is very simplistic, and leaves out other possible costs, e.g., increased taxes, etc.

Please consider that socialized medicine was even a third rail issue to Hillary and the Democrat party in general. Bernie was an outsider, and you saw what happened to him.

If this becomes a presidential campaign issue, here is the rhetoric against:

Higher taxes.
Longer wait times.
Death panels!
Look at the UK.
Illegal alien magnet.
Work harder, deadbeats.

For:

Much lower cost.
More money in your paycheck.
No more medical bankruptcies.
More competitive businesses.
Hand it over, fat cats.