[gravelly Mafia-esque voice]
“Ya’d better keep pumping the funds into this base, or the mom-and-pop down the road gets it!”
[/]
:dubious:
Maybe I don’t understand your question. If we pay the same drug prices under M4A as we would anyway, what’s the advantage of M4A?
The premise of the report previously cited was
[ul][li]We dramatically cut payments to health care providers[/li][li]We dramatically cut drug prices[/li][li]We cut administrative costs[/li][li]We charge the same in taxes that people now pay in premiums[/ul][/li]
The alleged effect is that we then save $2T over ten years, which is offset by the fact that it will increase the federal budget deficit by an undetermined amount, and also doesn’t account for increased utilization.
Just saying “well somebody will pay for it anyway” is AOC thinking.
Regards,
Shodan
It doesn’t matter because your point, that we’d lose out on drug advances if we don’t buy potentially effective expensive drugs, defies reality in two ways. Private insurance is already reluctant to pay for those drugs and there’s plenty of pharmaceutical research in countries with universal health coverage.
I am saying that even if drug prices stay the same, there are other benefits to M4A. Why does not cutting drug prices invalidate the whole thing?
IOW, in comparing single payer to private insurance, set aside for the moment the things that will be needed for both. In this case, drugs. Then only consider the cost reductions for things that can be gotten rid of, like profit, some administrative costs, and the like. Then, even if drug prices stay the same, there will still be economic benefits for the insured.
If only there was some way to Google where she got her figure of $21 trillion of missing money from.
In Shodan’s defense, the number is from both Defense and HUD.
Dude, for one you are citing the Daily Caller. That is Tucker Carlson’s outfit i.e. sheer propaganda. It might be useful as toilet paper except I am getting the digital version. Fox and the GOP promote the idea that tax cuts for the wealthy increase revenues because they are owned by the same wealthy interests. Tax cuts btw are the sole legislative achievement of full Fox control of Congress and the WH. Your people have lost the right to lecture anyone about finances.
For two, the claim that it Has to increase the deficit is a bare assertion. Pubbies have all apparently forgotten that revenues can be set to match expenditures, and then there is a balanced budget. So, socialize medicine And balance the budget and the deficit does not increase.
For three, your link covers the same ground we have already covered. She asks, “How do you pay for something that is cheaper?” Because, we are already paying for it.
OK. All I want is better cites for the costs of the current system and the M4A system. Don’t cite Tucker Carlson if you want to be taken seriously.
There was a guy a couple decades ago who got the deficit down to nil (perhaps even into positive territory) and managed to do it while getting head. Lamentably, that guy also signed the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Thanks for this. It was getting really frustrating when it was indeed so obvious.
He did it with an assist in the form of a tax hike by H W. Who then got creamed in the next election, teaching the GOP a valuable lesson: the best interests of the country are for suckers. Better to team up with our adversaries to cheat at elections.
After this past year, and looking at how Trump and the Republicans deliberately blew up “the deficit” (which is bullshit anyway) with their own personal tax give-away to themselves, and then tried to use that as an excuse to gut everything that doesn’t line their pockets, all I can say is
Fuck them and their deficit hawk bullshit.
it is also apparently Trump thinking, because apparently “somebody will pay for it anyway” is why he signed the massive tax gift to corporations and the wealthy.
you miserable piece of shit.
Is that a “through the bank” conversion, or localized? US salaries are higher in a direct exchange rate than those in most other countries, but that’s for every profession and like I said, direct exchange. Once you take cost of living into account, or look at “after taxes and other unescapable expenses” (such as the amount paid monthly for healthcare insurance, which depending on the country is a tax or not), the difference isn’t anywhere near as large.
Don’t know- the article doesn’t say.
Another benefit of universal healthcare not usually discussed is that it could take away the need for a lot of litigation. If there’s no medical costs to recover, there’s a lot less reason to sue someone for an injury.
This is completely untrue. You are paying far more for the SAME drugs; the exact same drug, from the exact same manufacturer.
Have a look at insulin, where in the US prices for the latest slow release versions have gone up by a factor of 6 in 12 years.
Monthly supply of Lantis in the US - $3300*
Monthly supply of Lantis in the UK - $460**
Same drug. Same manufacturer. 9 times the cost.
Or to use your example, statins:***:
“The cost of statins in the US is radically higher than the costs paid for the same brands in the UK, and many more insured Americans are prescribed statins, raising the overall costs in that country [1]. According to Dr Hershel Jick (Boston University School of Medicine, MA) and colleagues, who used 2005 numbers for their analysis, statin costs were as much as 400% higher in the US than in the UK”
You have decided to take a politician to task for not being able to properly check their sums, and then done the very same thing yourself.
There is no challenge for the US to pay for universal health care. As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, as a nation you are already paying far more, for a lower grade of service. Please would you stop making demonstrably untrue claims (that you would get worse drugs, or somehow a lower cost to the country would increase your deficit) purely because your ideology finds the idea of UHC repugnant.
*https://www.goodrx.com/blog/why-is-lantus-so-expensive-and-how-can-you-save/
**http://gmmmg.nhs.uk/docs/cost_comparison_charts.pdf
***https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/756771
I suspect the weed that Shodan is smoking is the “If the U.S. wasn’t paying high prices for these drugs, pharmaceutical R&D would grind to a halt. Therefore the US is subsidizing the rest of the world’s cheaper drugs.” type.
Perhaps he should try smoking this article. According to it, only 17% of the pharmaceutical dollar goes to Research. Larger shares go to ‘Marketing,’ ‘Profit’ and ‘Other.’ (AFAICT truecostofhealthcare is a respected, frequently-cited site.)
And, as the article points out, Research is defined broadly. Pay a doctor to prescribe a drug to his patients as part of a s’study’ and the fees paid to doctor are counted as ‘research.’ And of course some of the ‘research’ is to find patentable replacements for nearly-equivalent off-patent drugs.
No. No it wasn’t. The OP correctly points out a pretty mind numbing error by AOC.
Shodan’s error was perhaps misreading a sentence.
AOC’s error was having such a lack of familiarity with the budget that she could make a statement like that. She needs to spend a little more time familiarizing herself with the guts of governing, I’m sure she’ll get there.
She is going to keep putting her foot in her mouth but ultimately her point is that we can afford medicare for all if we are willing to reduce other spending (or heaven forbid, increase taxes).
With that said, I am rooting for her. I particularly liked how she called out the establishment Democrats for letting Wall Street and the Chamber of commerce effectively run their freshman orientation. The cozy relationship between wall street and the democrats should have ended in 2008.
Defense spending is more than medicare OR Medicaid but not as large as medicare and medicaid combined.
Sure, I suppose if we got rid of all defense spending we could afford all the nice shit that European countries have like universal health care and free college tuition but SOMEBODY’S got to defend Europe.
If we reduced our military to the same percentage of our GDP as China, we would save over 300 billion per year. Go back to a Clinton tax regime and you end up with enough money for European style socialism.