Suggested Answers to the Second Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

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Suggested Answers To The Second Short Quiz - Elizabeth Warren’s Fraudulent Estimate


Editorial Comment:

Over our 14 years of existence, we have prided ourselves in being a non-partisan public-policy study/action group.

Which, for example, is why we have studied on 4 occasions since 5/10/2017 the topic of “Authoritarian Rule By Our Intelligence Services”!!!

In other words, we have viewed THE DEATH OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY as a public-policy issue because “Authoritarian Rule By Our Intelligence Services” can become permanent and, in any event, it can exist regardless of what political party happens to appear to be in charge in the Kabuki Theatre run by the Intelligence Services!!!

Similarly, our public-policy action campaigns (the 43 e-mail campaigns initiated over our 14 years of existence and posted in the first section of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org) are focused on good public policy and ignore politics.

Except, of course, that in taking into account what is good public policy, we do take into account what pol or other decision-maker can put our recommendation into effect.

And then address that pol or other decision-maker with our e-mail campaign.

And either s/he puts our recommendation into effect, or s/he doesn’t.

So why does this Short Quiz focus on Elizabeth Warren’s fraudulent estimate of the “cost” of Medicare For All???

Because Elizabeth Warren’s fraudulent estimate is DEFRAUDING the American public into falsely believing to its detriment that enacting Medicare For All will cost the American economy $52 TRillion over 10 years (the standard measurement period for legislation to prevent the pols from playing the game they used to play with horrendous costs in “the out years” that used to be ignored).

So Elizabeth Warren’s fraudulent estimate has become an obstacle to good public policy!!!

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Question 1

Did our 7/12/2017 e-mail campaign to Sen. McCain calculate CORRECTLY that enactment of Medicare For All should SAVE the American government more than $300 billion/YEAR, or more than $3 TRillion over 10 years?

Answer 1

Yes.

Question 2

What would be the annual SAVINGS if that 2017 calculation were revised to take into account that the U.S. corporate income tax rate was subsequently reduced from 35% to 21% - so that the revised calculation reflects a reduced cost to the U.S. government in terms of lost tax revenue vis-à-vis the 55.7% of the American population that has employment-based health insurance?

Answer 2

The original calculation was –

19.6% = Percentage of US population covered by Medicaid in 2015 per US Census Bureau
16.3% = Percentage of US population covered by Medicare in 2015 per US Census Bureau
4.7% = Percentage of US population covered by Military/VA in 2015 per US Census Bureau
******
40.6% = Subtotal
******

To this was added the cost (lost tax revenue) from employment-based health insurance being deductible for the employer and exempt for the employee –

55.7% = Percentage of US population covered by employers in 2015 per US Census Bureau
x 35% = Lost income tax revenue from employers at 35% corporate rate
******
19.5% = Percentage of US population covered by lost corporate income tax revenue
******

40.6% = Subtotal (above)
19.5% = Percentage of US population covered by lost corporate income tax revenue
******
60.1% = Total percentage of US population covered by US Government
50.0% = Percentage of wasted US healthcare costs*
******
10.1% = Percentage of legitimate US healthcare costs available to be saved*
x $3,174 Billion/Year – Annual US healthcare costs per http://www.cia.gov
******
$320.6 Billion/YEAR – Annual savings from implementing Medicare For All
******

* As explained in the first paragraph of our 7/12/2017 e-mail campaign to Sen. McCain, The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports that the percentage of American Gross Domestic Product (GDP) spent on healthcare is MORE THAN TWICE THE AVERAGE of the other 34 members of the OECD. And we know that the healthcare feature that all of the world’s other 34 civilized countries share is a single-payer healthcare system (e.g., Medicare For All) that does NOT tolerate the high level of nonsense that prevails in the U.S.

BTW, as also explained in the first paragraph of our 7/12/2017 e-mail campaign to Sen. McCain, the UN’s World Health Organization ranks “the health system performance” of the US as only 37th in the world -- which means that since there are only 35 members of the OECD, American healthcare is outranked by at least two third-world countries!!!

PAYING DOUBLE FOR THIRD-WORLD PERFORMANCE!!!


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The subsequent reduction in the U.S. corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21% –

19.5% = Percentage of US population covered by lost corporate income tax revenue @ 35%
11.7% = Percentage of US population covered by lost corporate income tax revenue @ 21%
*****
7.8% = Reduction in percentage covered by lost corporate income tax revenue @ 35%
x $3,174 Billion/YEAR – Annual US healthcare costs per http://www.cia.gov
*****
$247.6 Billion/YEAR = Reduction in savings caused by reduction in corporate tax rate
$320.6 Billion/YEAR = Annual savings before corporate tax rate change (above)
*****
$73.0 Billion/YEAR = Annual savings after corporate tax rate change
*****

Or $730 BILLION for the 10-year standard Congressional period for measuring the impact of legislation.


Question 3

Had Elizabeth Warren been proposing Medicare For All for almost a year while refusing to explain how it would be financed?

Answer 3

Yes.

Question 4

Had it been widely reported in recent months in such publications as Forbes (10/25/2019) that her plan would “cost” $32 TRillion over 10 years?

Answer 4

Yes.

Question 5

Because of the pressure of those reports, did Elizabeth Warren announce that she would announce what Medicare For All would “cost” and how she would pay for it? [NB: “announcing” a future “announcement” is NOT redundant.]

Answer 5

Elizabeth Warren also took quite a bit of criticism during the 10/15/2019 Democratic Presidential Debate for her refusal to explain how her Medicare For All proposal would be financed.

Question 6

Did Elizabeth Warren announce on Nov.1 how she would finance Medicare For All?

Answer 6

Yes.

Question 7

Did Elizabeth Warren’s Nov. 1 announcement claim that the “cost” of Medicare For All would be $52 TRillion over 10 years?

Answer 7

Yes!!!

Question 8

Did any members of the media seem to notice that the $52 TRillion “cost” over 10 years was $20 TRillion higher than the previously-prevailing estimated “cost” of $32 TRillion over 10 years?

Answer 8

Apparently not!!!

Question 9

Would it be reasonable to accept the testimony of someone who won the Silver Medal for ranking 2nd in the U.S. out of 28,788 candidates on the Fall 1971 Uniform CPA Examination and who has taught tax law part-time for both NYU Law School and Fordham Graduate School of Business – that Cost Accounting 101 defines the “cost” of doing something as the INCREMENTAL total taking into account all the pluses and minuses?

Answer 9

That would be the testimony of Yours Truly.

I’ll leave it to you to decide whether accepting that testimony would be reasonable.

After all, if somebody asks you what is the cost of a car wash at Whatever Service Station, sticklers might include the cost of driving to/from Whatever Service Station as part of the “cost” of obtaining the car wash BUT IT WOULD NOT BE LEGITIMATE TO INCLUDE THE COST OF BUYING A CAR IN ORDER TO OBTAIN A CAR WASH.

It is assumed that you already have a car!!!

Just like it SHOULD BE realized that the U.S. government already covers the healthcare costs of a majority of the American population.

And, accordingly, the “cost” of implementing Medicare For All should only take into account any ADDITIONAL expenses or savings from doing so.

Question 10

If so [i.e., the A-9 testimony is accepted], would it be reasonable to accept our exhaustively-vetted 7/12/2017 estimate that implementing Medicare For All should produce an INCREMENTAL cost SAVINGS to the U.S. government of more than $300 billion/YEAR?

Answer 10

Absolutely!!!

Question 11

And would it be reasonable to accept the revision to that estimate occasioned by the fact that the U.S. governmental subsidy (lost tax revenue) from employment-based healthcare declined because the U.S. corporate tax rate was subsequently reduced from 35% to 21% -- that implementing Medicare For All should still produce an INCREMENTAL cost SAVINGS to the U.S. government of $730 BILLION over 10 years?

Answer 11

Absolutely!!!

Question 12

Accordingly, does Elizabeth Warren’s nonsense give Medicare For All a bad name???

Answer 12

What do you think???

Question 13

BTW, did our 7/12/2017 Medicare For All e-mail campaign to Sen. McCain say (after noting in its first paragraph that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports that the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) spent on healthcare “is more than twice the average of developed countries”) that in trying to fight “the outrageous and wasteful practices” of the American healthcare system “without a single-payer system (e.g., Medicare for All) will continue to be the equivalent of fighting a raging forest fire with a squirt gun. After all, what all 34 of the other OECD countries (which all deliver health-system performance that is superior to the U.S. at an average of half the cost) have in common is a single-payer healthcare system that does not tolerate such nonsense”???!!!

Answer 13

Yes.

Question 14

Is that why our estimate of the SAVINGS from implementing Medicare For All took credit for reducing American healthcare costs by 50% to bring them into line with all other civilized countries???

Answer 14

Of course!!!

Question 15

BTW, have we irreverently often called the waste in the American healthcare system of more than 10% of GDP “fake GDP”???

Answer 15

Yes!!!

Question 16

Is the only reasonable explanation for the $32 TRillion 10-Year COST Estimate of implementing Medicare For All that prevailed before Elizabeth Warren’s announcement THAT IT IS BASED ON AN ASSUMPTION THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT WOULD CONTINUE (UNLIKE THE WORLD’S OTHER 34 CIVILIZED COUNTRIES) TO CONTINUE TO TOLERATE 10% OF ITS ECONOMIC OUTPUT BEING WASTED BY A CORRUPT HEALTHCARE SYSTEM???

Answer 16

Nobody has ever accused Elizabeth Warren of not being brilliant at everything!!!

Accordingly, she must have known what she was doing!!!

Question 17

And doesn’t Elizabeth Warren’s $52 TRillion (vs. $32 TRillion) imply that she is willing to TOLERATE AN ADDITIONAL $20 TRILLION OF WASTE???

Answer 17

So it would appear.

Question 18

Would it be “politically incorrect” for us to remember that while Obamacare was making its way 2009-2010 through a Congress, both of whose houses were controlled by Democrats (including a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate), the media reported widely and often that the healthcare industry was lavishing “campaign contributions” (aka bribes in the language of ordinary citizens) ON DEMOCRAT MEMBERS OF CONGRESS AND NOTHING ON REPUBLICAN MEMBERS???!!!

Answer 18

Yes, we would be accused of being “politically incorrect”!!!

Question 19

Would it be TOO CYNICAL of us to wonder whether Elizabeth Warren’s EXTRA $20 TRILLION OF WASTE comprises INCREASED “campaign contributions” (aka bribes) for President Warren and a permanent Congressional majority of her cronies???!!!

Answer 19

Do you have a better explanation???

Question 20

Should we apologize for appearing to attack a pol when, in our view, we are merely defending good public policy from being defamed by a pol???

Answer 20

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!