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sporksable t1_j1m02h6 wrote

Reply to comment by Dark-Myst in Congress adds $1.7 billion for U.S. Space Force in 2023 spending bill by Corbulo2526

Last estimate is universal care in the US would cost about 4 Trillion 1.5 Trillion a year more than what we spend now on healthcare (which is substantial). You'd need 4.5 1.5 DoD budgets to cover that, and I ran out of fingers and toes counting how many space force budgets.

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Sufficient_Matter585 t1_j1mb9b4 wrote

Thats if you pay health care providers the rate they ask for. We can strong arm em.

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sporksable t1_j1mbo1h wrote

Actually that cost figure assumes present medicare rates, which are 70% of private insurance reembursement.

Health policy is extremely complex, and there are trade offs for everything. But I do not believe it's realistic to assume providers will take a 30% reduction in payments and not have that have knock-on effects through the industry. Again, trade offs.

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Sufficient_Matter585 t1_j1mfxjf wrote

Well we nationalize health care. This is what happens when you free market everything. only the rich can afford. They make more money treating then curing

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Dark-Myst t1_j1mbta3 wrote

I would think that's a bloated amount considering insurance costs.

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sporksable t1_j1mdanw wrote

People smarter than you or I have crunched the numbers. The costs assume present Medicare reimbursement rates, which are already around 60-70% of private insurance rates. Naturally, such a reduction would have knock on effects. If you wanted to reimburse more to better cover that gap, costs would probably increase.

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Dark-Myst t1_j1me0sq wrote

People smarter than you or I.....I'm going to go get some coffee. Merry Christmas to you.

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pugofthewildfrontier t1_j1m2qc0 wrote

Gonna need to see your estimate that shows universal health care (not public option) would cost 8-9 trillion per year, since we’re already above 4 trillion per year.

A recent study by Yale epidemiologists found that Medicare for All would save around 68,000 lives a year while reducing U.S. health care spending by around 13%, or $450 billion a year.

Medicare for All spending would be approximately $37.8 trillion between 2017 and 2026, according to a study by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. That amounts to about $5 trillion in savings over that time. These savings would come from reducing administrative costs and allowing the government to negotiate prescription drug prices.

Other studies by think tanks and government agencies have analyzed single-payer proposals at the state and federal levels. Most found Medicare for All would reduce our total health care spending.

Even a study by the Koch-funded Mercatus Center found that Medicare for All would save around $2 trillion over a 10-year period.

https://www.citizen.org/news/fact-check-medicare-for-all-would-save-the-u-s-trillions-public-option-would-leave-millions-uninsured-not-garner-savings/

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sporksable t1_j1mb4ft wrote

I was wrong, it was about 1.5 Trillion/yr over present spending, an average of 3 Trillion a year (we spend about 1.5 trillion already to cover around half of residents, so that jives fairly well). Which is substantially less than 4 trillion/yr.

The fact remains, though, that DoD budgets, even with the bloated one we have right now, doesn't begin to cover the expenses accrued under the M4A proposals. And that also does not take into account the fact that purely medicare (without medicaid, CHIPS, Tricare, IHS etc) is responsible for more than half of the deficit we have right now (with social security making up the rest). FedGov runs a surplus without these mandatory programs.

But that is getting in the weeds a little bit. Point is, the entire DoD budget doesn't begin to cover M4A. There would need to be substantially more offset.

Oh, and the Mercatus Center study is a really poor one to use, since the author himself states that cost savings are unrealistic. It pretty much assumes that providers will take a 40% cut to reimbursement rates with no knock-on effects.

To be clear here, I'm not saying that M4A or universal healthcare is a bad thing. But I am saying that "stop buying bullets, buy bandages" isn't a realistic way to look at healthcare policy, or paying for universal care.

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bojackhoreman t1_j1n9vqo wrote

The EU spends about 11% of its GDP on healthcare for 447M people at 16.6 trillion GDP. US gdp is at 22 trillion at 332M people. Equivalent cost would be between 1.4 -2.4 trillion for universal healthcare which is nearly half of what Americans pay now at 4.3 trillion.

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