Please don’t drag this into the Pit or Debates. I just want to know numbers. I don’t like Obama or McCain, and my political viewpoint has no room for elections, so don’t be partisan, please. I just need numbers, and I’m sure that they’re out there.
Question: How large a percentage of personal income, across the board, to have the same kind of insurance that the US military, civil service, etc… has?
I believe that if the states can have such hot insurance, then everybody else can, as long as the funds aren’t raided as every administration/congress since FDR has done.
Can’t it be done economically, or will a common fund just not be large enough without exorbitent taxation?
I’m not exactly clear on the question. And even if it were clear, you still wouldn’t get a clear dollar amount that’s beyond dispute.
Are you talking about changing everyone’s current employer-based insurance so that everyone’s insured the same way, like a single-payer system? Or are you talking about subsidies for everyone to try to get insurance? Or what? One of the problems with the health care debates is that there are so many potential reforms, there are too many variables to get precise answers about costs.
The NHS budget for the UK is about £100B. America has 5x the population, so you’re looking at £500B or about US$700B. That’s about US$2350 each. Call it US$10K for a family of 4.
As far as I can make out, the OP is not asking how much it would cost to replicate the UK NHS in the US. He is asking how much it would cost to extend either the US military healthcare package or the US civil service healthcare package to the entire country.
Presumably, there is a per capita dollar cost which can be identified for, e.g., the healthcare provided to members of the US military. Allowing for a suitable adjustment to reflect demographic differences between those currently benefiting from military healthcare and the nation at large, can we estimate the cost of extending the plan to cover the entire nation? I think that’s what is being asked but, unfortunately, I have no idea what the answer is.
Just working with Caldazar’s numbers, that works out to roughly $4,315 per person, so covering the total US population would cost about $1.27 trillion per year, assuming that the people covered by the military plan are a good sample of the population, of course, which may not be true.
For comparison, it appears that the total expenditure on health care was $2.4 trillion in 2007 (same year as Caldazar’s cite).
Your comment about sample population is worth exploring.
I am in the Navy, and I am very pleased with the medical and dental services provided to us everywhere in the world. Not sure about efficiency, but the system in place for us is effective, quick, and free to the user. No co-pay. No fees. Nada.
While on active duty, service members perform physical training almost daily. My unit PTs for an hour every morning at 0630 Monday through Friday, and after work most of us hit the weights in the gym, also free. I don’t know how the DOD’s cost of health care is affected by the younger average age and constant physical conditioning versus the many injuries we seem to sustain.
Do Joe and Jane Average live a healthier lifestyle than the military? My guess is no, they do not.
How the active duty compares to the general population, or how the retired military compares to the civilian retired is good question.
Per that same article, “the government spends $35 billion per year on FEHBP benefits.”
Per the above Wiki link,
So if those numbers are all talking about the same things, then we can estimate that the govt. is paying $35 billion to cover the first 72 percent, and individual enrollees are paying $13.6 billion for the remaining 28 percent, giving us a total of $48.6 billion, or a bit over $6300 per enrollee.
Caveats: I don’t know that the lawmaker’s “benefits” is the same as the Wiki article’s “premiums”; “benefits”, for all I know, could refer to costs that are in ADDITION to premiums.
Likewise, I don’t know if “enrollees” means individual govt. employees, or if it means every insured person (i.e., the employee plus dependents).
If enrollees = insured persons, then for a country of $300 million, you’re looking at about $1.89 trillion.
Checking some other sources online seems to indicate that the “enrollees” figure does, indeed, include all dependents, etc. Though I’ve seen the number of current FEHBP enrollees listed as anywhere from 7.7 million to 8 million+ to 9 million. All of which only implies that the final total for the nation as a whole could be lower than what I listed above. (As low as $5400 per person, or about $1.62 billion total.)
And just so people understand, FEHBP is not run by a single insurance company or a government bureau. Enrollees get to choose from among about a dozen commercial insurers, and (as mentioned above) the Feds pick up around 72% of the cost of the premiums.
Some round numbers that often get used to talk about the cost of healthcare in the US are $2,500 per year up to age 18, $5,000 per year 18-64, and $15,000 per year after age 65. Alternatively, you hear $14,000 to cover the average family. On average, this needs to get paid, whether that’s by the government, employers, or individuals. This turns into about $500,000 per person over the average lifespan. The numbers aren’t quite as round, but this site offers some figures consistent with what I’ve described. http://www.kff.org/newsroom/ehbs092408.cfm Remember that their $12,680 doesn’t include any deductibles or copays, which could bring it up to $14,000 for a family of 4.
Its done in dozens of countries much poorer than the US. Its ridiculous to think the worlds richest country cant afford it.
Lets look at the UK’s NHS. It spent 94 billion last year. 60 million people, thats 1566 pounds per head. So almost $3,000. Now if the US spent that you’d be looking at 900 billion annually. Right now Im paying more than the 3 grand annually (what I pay plus my employer plus stuff it doesnt cover) and I get Humana care, which is several levels below the NHS. So yes, its 100% doable.
For reference:
Cost of Iraq war: 674 billion. So that’s 2/3rds of a year of universal healthcare.
The poster asks a good question, but I have a better one, why not give all Americans the same benefits as the President and Congress and the Supreme Court has.
OR leave those offices to purchase their plans on their own
>keep in mind also that we all foot the bill for your policy too by giving your employer a fat tax subsidy for the health insurance they provide.
Yes, but we also have several layers of middle-men that contribute to healthcare costs. A national program can get better pricing via its massive collective buying power. If socialized you can expect NHS type pricing. I dont see why not.
I think you may have interpreted my comments to disagree with you - I’m suggesting that by nationalizing healthcare, you wouldn’t have to incur those “tax costs” so the affordability question is further enhanced.
I find it extraordinary that some Americans are satisfied with a health care system that costs twice as much per capita, and yet leaves many citizens uncovered, and many more with poor coverage.
“You could pay less and leave no-one out in the cold.” “But I don’t want to pay for that guy!”
