[Xist]

Originally Posted by Shaneajanderson

I'm not computer savvy, and have never figured out how to post pictures here, but there is a chart out there showing inflation of various products, and the trend you'll find is the items that are most unregulated (electronics, etc.) have greatly fallen in price, while simultaneously rising in quality and extravagance. there are products that have some regulations in place, but not too crazy that have stayed pretty much static in price while quality has improved (new cars), and then there is healthcare, probably the most heavily regulated industry in America, and low-and-behold the prices have gone through the roof, and some would argue certain aspects of the quality (think nurse: patient; doctor: patient ratios) have fallen.

Can you link the chart or give me enough information to find it?

Some people were swooning over that old guy with crazy hair that just had a heart procedure. "he's the `President we need but don't deserve.' Clear-cut plans with hard-to-hear side effects aren't as nice as vague generalizations."
I asked "What is his clearcut plan for paying for his program?"

Of course, I was downvoted!

He doesn't have a plan. He has seven pages of ideas: https://www.sanders.senate.gov/downl...ll?inline=file

I was falling asleep, but I did not hear Biden--no, it was something called a "Klobuchar." One of my battle buddies went to the aid station with Klobuchar. They told him to drink water and take ibuprofen.

Anyway:

At least Bernie's being honest here and saying how he's going to pay for this and that taxes are going to go up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...te-transcript/

So sleepy...

Anyway! Sanders and Warren want healthcare that will cost more than the U.S. brings in in taxes. What could possibly go wrong? Occasionally Coherent has come up with all kinds of crazy plans that would cost tens of trillions of dollars. When people ask how she would pay for it she links articles claiming that the national debt does not matter.

"The federal government’s total debt stands at $22.023 trillion."
The gross domestic product was an estimated $21.06 trillion in the first quarter of 2019. If Welfare for All cost 3.26 trillion a year, it would consume 15.5% of the GDP.
"Net interest payments on the debt are estimated to total $393.5 billion this fiscal year, or 8.7% of all federal outlays."
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...national-debt/

if Bernie or Elizabeth raised taxes to cover half of Medicare for all and added the rest to the national debt, which we doubled in eight years, interest payments would roughly double.

When I searched for "how much does the us spend in healthcare" Google said "The United States spends more on health care than any other country in the world, and a large share of that spending comes from the federal government. In 2017, the United States spent about $3.5 trillion, or 18 percent of GDP, on health expenditures – more than twice the average among developed countries."

https://www.crfb.org/papers/american...federal-budget

Would Medicare for all replace that? That is supposed to cost 32.6 trillion over ten years. 3.26 > 3.5, but medicare pays 80% as much as private insurance. "In general, hospitals lose money on Medicare and Medicaid patients, but make up for that by charging private-sector insurers more." "Medicare currently only pays hospitals 87 percent of the costs of caring for patients."

So, hospitals lose 13% of all expenses covered by Medicare, profit 8.75% on patients covered by private insurance, and need for at least 60% of their patients to have private insurance to afford to treat the Medicare patients.

Anyway, the only way to make healthcare costs go down is to stop subsidizing it?