28% increase in health insurance rates!!

You do realize that wealth and high income are two different things?

At what income do you personally consider someone wealthy?

I really meant a flat tax but with some adjustment based on earnings. I do think high earners should pay more and the lower  earners less. I think our lowest earners should get some sort of eic to encourage working above using social programs.  I don’t think it should be a take from the rich tax system. 

Yes I do. And high incomes, taxed too lightly, lead to insane wealth accumulation.

Boy you would get along great with my sister and her two friends.  We use to get into heated arguments about this very subject.  I was the odd man out.  You guys have what I call Robin Hood Syndrome.  Tax the rich to subsidize the poor.

Don’t get me wrong I think  corporations and the wealthy should pay more but by closing loopholes and not by increasing their tax rate up to 52% as Bernie is suggesting to pay for his single payer plan.  I don’t think it’s sustainable as a cash cow. 

I also looked at his white paper on how he plans to pay for it and I believe his numbers are flawed.  What is not included in his calculations are all the people in the red states that did not expand Medicaid under the ACA. Logic dictates a lot of them have health issues that when they have a way to pay for it they will seek medical care.  Underestimating the number of sick people. is one of the reasons there are now problems in the ACA. 

California tried to come up with a plan to provide medical coverage for all of us citizens.  Problem was they couldn’t figure how to pay for it.  One number for the cost was twice the annual budget for the state.  They pulled the bill much to the dismay of the local Bernie Bros.

I’m not against single payer medical care but it needs to be done the right way.

What I think should be done is the ACA be fixed.  Medicaid is expanded to all states and individuals don’t have a choice if they buy insurance or not.  Either have insurance or bunches of money to pay for their medical care or no care.

That will give time to figure out how much it will cost to provide medical care for 326M folks and a substainable way to pay for it.

In the mean time the Democrats should mount a serious attempt to move people from low income to the middle class.  This can be done by getting people off drugs and give them the skills they need for middle class jobs.  The jobs are there, they just need the drug free skilled workers to fill them.  Make more money they will be able to pay more toward the plan but it still must be a 
a reasonable amount. 

I think  it’s way better to do this for the country and the people  than taxing the hell out of corporations and the rich.  It’s kind of like this saying. “ Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. 

Anyway that’s how I see it.

Judging from her avatar, I think Compwalla and I use the same hair products.
You must have a "type."

I keep seeing estimates of how much it will cost to insure people under a single payer system, and those costs are usually along with "this is xx much higher than the current budget."  But wouldn't people be paying more money in to the government under a single payer system?  The money that they are currently paying towards their premiums would be going towards the new insurance (hopefully at a much lower premium cost)?   I'm not good with the numbers aspect so am genuinely asking a question.  Not sure if I am missing something?

That's exactly how Colorado positioned it's universal care bill.  Colorado's current income tax is 5% - it proposed an additional 10% payroll tax for single payer with the rationale that you would no longer be paying $10,000-15,000 for health care.  It failed overwhelmingly (80% rejection).  Part of that was concern with how it was combine with Medicare, a big part of it was people on private, employer plans didn't want to lose them.  Another concern was that the rationale that if your employer is currently paying $12,000 in medical premiums, they would pass that on to you as higher salaries and there was a lot of concern that it wouldn't happen, and people would be left with the same salary and an additional 10% tax.

 

That is it exactly. Instead of paying to the for-profit insurers, you would be paying more to a single admin system w/o profit - just like most developed countries have in some form or other.  So, yes, your taxes would probably go up for some people and and your premiums would go away.  And we'd get billions in duplicative admin costs, marketing costs, and profits out of the system.

I don't disagree about the need for something drastically different. I've been reading a few proposals about universal high deductible policies paid through taxes paired with private insurance for those that want them.  It may get people more comfortable as they will have options for their day to day needs, but there is a backstop ensuring universal coverage for a major medical event.

I don't think that high deductible is the way to go. Too many people don't have money to cover a catastrophic event or pay for care that would possibly prevent bigger expenses in the future. Possibly if people had very low premiums and were able to put the money that they are currently paying into an HRA, but I think a lot of people would just spend it.

In this case the premiums for the high deductible plan would be paid through taxes and you could buy an additional policy that covered more - or your employer could - for those who wanted one.  I'll see if I can find one of the plans floating around.

Which is also not true.  Do some research on other systems.  Or don't use "like most developed countries"  - it's factually incorrect.

Again - universal health care and a single entity paying is NOT THE SAME THING.  The fact that it's government subsidized does not make it a single paying entity.  Germany, Switzerland, France, Netherlands systems are not single administrative or paying.  The Nordic countries are all done on the municipality level - NOT federal.  Several systems are multiple tiered so some services are paid for through different entities and some are not, depending on the service.    

They are also not single administrated.  Show the graph for "a single admin system w/o profit - just like most developed countries"  NOT a graph for universal coverage.