Let’s say we implement universal health care in the US. How much are our individual tax bills likely to go up per person? In other words what’s my annual “health tax” going to be?
According to this health care costs in the US are over 6,000 per person annually, which frankly seems astounding. Will my effective tax be something like Astro + 2 kids = 18,000 annually?
From what I’ve been told, the whole “baby boomers are now senior citizens” thing is going to keep health costs climbing steadily. And we’re just getting started.
The $6,000 figure sounds reasonable to me. For every 10 people like me (who didn’t make a trip to the doctor last year), there’s someone with a $60,000 surgery. Just an example that I made up shamelessly, but I’m sure that the folks on the upper end of health care spending are raising that average dramatically.
I’ve been wondering about this myself lately. I’ve also wondered, if it was ever emplimented, how it change the business landscape. I mean, right now, one incentive to choose one work place over another sometimes is the benefits package, but if healthcare is now picked up by the tax payer, now what? Also, would there be an increase in part time work? Since full time status would no longer be required to receive health insurance, I’m sure there would be plenty of people who would figure that they could make a decent living, and pay all the bills with a part time job. Right?
As it stands about 50% of healthcare costs are paid for by the government, as opposed to the 70-90% you see in countries with universal healthcare.
We spend 16% of GDP on healthcare, so assuming 80% is spent publicly in a public system that means 13% of your gross income will go to healthcare (as opposed to the 8% that you currently pay). That sounds like alot but theoretically (theoretically at least) you’d get a raise because your employer wouldn’t have to take money out of your salary to pay for private healthcare anymore.
plus there are issues like ‘would universal healthcare cut down on costs’, which some feel it would by lowering overhead and negotiating precription drug prices. So there is no simple answer. The generic answer is just 16% of your income, but the real answer is more complex.
Birdmonster - I’ve heard the statement that 80% of healthcare spending is spent on 20% of people, the majority of us use little healthcare most of the time. I don’t know if it is true or not though, and don’t have time to google it.
You’d have to examine other nations to see as they all have universal systems arelady. I know that the Europeans have alot more leisure and vacation time than we do in america (we average about 10 days a year, they get 20-40), but I don’t know if it is tied into healthcare in any way.
It would depend on your health care system, your tax system, and your individual circumstances, but if properly done, an everyman’s tax bill should go down a tad. Ne shitteth vous pas.
It is possible to argue that on average, you pretty much have to come out even.
Currently, the typical employer-insured person does the following:
-Contributes toward premiums of health insurance.
-Receives lower wages than would be paid w/o health insurance
-Pays taxes which support health care for the needy and elderly
-Private health insurance premiums (and probably some taxes) are higher due to -the costs of providing services to those not covered by private or gov’t plans.
With universal health insurance, the only additional group that would be paid for is uninsured people currently forgoing needed medical care. I’m not sure how much it is, but surely a small number compared to the categories above.
And even if you are healthy now, it is not fair to take a short-term perspective on this. Most health care expenses are incurred at the end of life, and none of us can predict who will have an expensive death.
There is the potential for savings with universal insurance, and it might also increase the efficiency of our economy if employers could get out of the health insurance business. Employer health insurance is reportedly one of the main things that is sinking GM, for example.
“Experts agree that our health care system is riddled with inefficiencies, excessive administrative expenses, inflated prices, poor management, and inappropriate care, waste and fraud.”
Now - put the federal government completely in charge of the system, and ask yourself what the impact will be on all of those problems. :eek:
These are only humble predictions, but I think the average family that currently has poor to no health care coverage will generally save money or break even. The family with decent coverage will pay more under “universal health care”, sometimes for less coverage than it’s getting now.
This is not to say that major changes are not needed to the current system, and some type of universal health care is probably inevitable. But based on the fed’s record (of service and of estimating the cost of programs), you can take any predictions of cost and at least double them, even in the short term.
The government will be tougher than insurance companies in mandating lower costs? The government will crack down on unneeded procedures and drugs?
Eva’s point is well made. That plan is close to what I have been touting for years. My one proviso is that insurance companies be required to offer the same plan for the same price whether you buy as part of megaconglom or a an individual. I’d toy with reducing the payroll tax benefit and shifting those dollars into further subsidizing the purchase of insurance by lower to low middle income non-poverty individuals.
Universal health insurance does not necessarily mean a universal payor or specifically a federally run system. We can use the systems we have by creating indivdual mandates coupled with graduated supports allowing indivuals to buy on their own with the same advantages of megacorp group purchasing power. It may actually save money. Moreover, if it reduces the healthcare burden on businesses, it may stimulate the economy.
Bear in mind that compared to the rest of the world, American doctors pull in huge salaries. Everywhere else, being a doctor is an honest yet unexceptional middle-class job - a decent way to support a family, but don’t expect to buy a yacht. I have a feeling a great deal of the difference in health-care expenses comes from that.
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A single payer system, with efficiency like Canada’s, would save all of us a lot. And for those who say the government can’t do anything efficiently, consider Social Security.
In addition, letting people without insurance today have better access to preventative care will save lots of money in catching problems before they explode into bigger, more expensive problems.
So how much do Canadian doctors make? Your quote doesn’t tell me that.
Look, you misunderstand where I’m soming from. Here in Israel we have a much more efficient healthcare system the US, or most anywhere else in the world for that matter. However, from my personal experience it seems that Israeli doctors make less money than their American counterparts, both in absolute terms and relative to the rest of the job market. This can’t be a coincidence.
US docs probably do make a good bit more than the rest of the world’s docs, but a good chunk of that gross income for doctors in US private practice is eaten up in the administrative costs of running an office, paying off college loan debts (which is often hundreds of thousands of dollars) and malpractice insurance which can run from a few thousand for low risk specialities to well over a hundred thousand dollars annually for higher risk specialities like obstetrics.
On 60 minutes this week they stated that GM’s employee healthcare premiums added $1400 dollars per car. One of the main factors hampering their global competitiveness.
I can’t figure out for the life of me why companies aren’t screaming for gov’t sponsored healthcare.
And note that the US still spends more tax per capita than many such countries, without even achieving universality!
Given the absence of statistics showing comparably better health results from this money (except, I think, slight improvements in long term survivability for certain types of cancer), something is seriously wrong cost-benefit-wise with the US health system.
However, I suspect it’s rather like a city which has grown solely using private roads for its transport infrastructure compared to others with a fully integrated and state-subsidised metro, tram and rail system. That city can’t just make the switch and become as efficient as those other cities without spending vastly more money in the necessary radical overhaul. As this excellent article suggests, the US can see the illness but cannot face the cost of the cure.
It would probably come in handy just to cover the recently passed Medicare prescription drug benefit.
The latest projection is for this program to cost 720 billion dollars over 10 years. That’s 300 billion dollars more than the original cost estimate made in 2003.
$1 trillion sounds like it might be semi-realistic.