patrick.net

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.