REPRISE: Saving The Gov $86 Billion/YEAR - Medicare-For-All

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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

REPRISE: Saving The Gov $86 Billion/YEAR - Medicare-For-All

Post by johnkarls »

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Dear Friends,

We take great pride in our Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail campaigns to decision makers which, with only a few computer keyboard key strokes, can be sent by each of our members (1) to the decision maker, and (2) to all of the member's friends and acquaintances requesting them to do the same in an unending chain.

[Indeed, these campaigns are what make us more than an unimportant self-edification group of patriotic policy wonks.]

Accordingly, we also take great pride that each of our recommendations has been approved unanimously at one of our meetings (minimum quorum of 6 though average attendance is 10-11) or, at most, received only one dissent.

HOWEVER, when the time arrives for the same e-mail campaign to be merely up-dated and directed to other decision makers, we list the campaign in Sec. 1 of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org as a “REPRISE” since we deem another meeting to be unnecessary.

The original version of the following e-mail entitled “Saving the U.S. Government $300 Billion/YEAR – Medicare-For-All” was officially approved at our 7/12/2017 meeting and directed at Sen. John McCain, a mere 16 days before he made his iconic “thumb down” vote against “Repealing and Replaceing” of Obamacare, causing “Repeal and Replace” to fail by one vote.

ACCORDINGLY, in the light of Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren recently issuing a DEFAMATORY STATEMENT (defamatory toward Medicare-For-All) that it would COST the U.S. Government $52 TRillion over 10 years RATHER THAN SAVING IT MONEY, it was understandable (and perhaps inevitable) that the attendees at our 11/13/2019 meeting would vote for a review of this issue at our 12/11/2019 meeting.

Among the issues listed in the Proposed Discussion Outline and discussed at the 12/11/2019 meeting were –

1. Updating the information, particularly since the U.S. corporate tax rate had been recently reduced from 35% to 21%, so there was a reduction in the INDIRECT cost to the U.S. government from the majority of the U.S. population being covered by employer-provided health insurance which is deductible for the employer BUT NOT taxable to the employee (a reduction in “lost tax revenue” or, in Washington-speak, “tax expenditure”).

2. Deciding on a decision-maker to whom the e-mail campaign would be directed.

3. Whether to address the IRRESPONSIBLE statement being made by quite a few Presidential Candidates that additional people should be permitted to “buy in to Medicare” – IRRESPONSIBLE because no explanation is ever offered --

3(A). whether the “buy in” price would be the pittance per participant currently in The Medicare Trust Fund which would produce a horrendous cost to the U.S. government to make up the difference; or

3(B). whether the “buy in” price would be the actual projected cost for “buying in” which would be unfair to the new participant.

[Either way, the “buy in” proponents exhibit no stomach for reducing American healthcare costs!!!]

The unanimous decisions of the 12/11/2019 attendees --

1. Use the most-currently available information with source references for transparency.

2. Just make it “To Whom It May Concern” since the current crop of Presidential Candidates is hopeless – and let each person send it to whomever might use it to move the ball down the field.

3. Ignore the “buy in” issue since it is only the proverbial “teat on the whale” and “the whale” is Sen. Warren’s defamation of Medicare For All.

Accordingly, everyone is respectfully requested to consider sending the following e-mail to everyone for whom the information might be useful, both in influencing decision makers and in passing the word to others so they will to do the same.



-------------------------- Updated Email --------------------------
To Whom It May Concern:

Dear Friend(s):

Re: Saving The U.S. Government $86 Billion/YEAR By Enacting “Medicare For All”

As you may be aware --

(1). The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports that the percentage of American Gross Domestic Product (“GDP”) spent on healthcare is approximately twice the average of the other developed countries!!!

(2) The U.N.’s World Health Organization ranks “the health system performance” of the U.S. as only 37th in the world -- which means that since there are only 35 other members of the OECD, American healthcare is outranked by at least one third-world country!!!

None of the ideas discussed recently in Congress would significantly impact this sad state of affairs.

Which is no surprise because the $500 million/year spent by lobbyists for the healthcare industry (which is about four times the amount spent on lobbying by the next-most-active industry -- oil & gas) is aimed at perpetuating and expanding the outrageous practices described in such classics as “The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care - And How To Fix It” by Johns Hopkins Surgeon and Professor of Health Policy Marty Markary (Bloomsbury Publishing 9/10/2019), “An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back” by Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal (Penguin Press 4/11/2017), and “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End” by Harvard Medical Prof. Atul Gwande (Metropolitan Books 10/7/2014).

These were the focus books for the 12/11/2019, 7/12/2017 and 1/11/2017 meetings of a monthly 14-year-old patriotic public-policy study group in Salt Lake City with 169 members including numerous scientists.

The three focus books catalogue all of the outrageous and wasteful practices that have resulted from the failure for decades to enforce the existing anti-trust laws and patent-law requirements as well as other wasteful policies and practices that permeate the healthcare industry.

So trying to fight those practices without a single-payer healthcare 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 35 of the other OECD countries (which 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.

Why should any other approach, such as the enactment of any new laws, be expected to have any effect in the light of all of the existing anti-trust laws and patent-law requirements that have been ignored for decades???


*****
WHY TRUE CONSERVATISM REQUIRES ENACTMENT OF “MEDICARE FOR ALL”

As noted above, what all 35 of the world’s other industrialized countries (which have better healthcare at half the cost) have in common is a single-payer healthcare system that does not tolerate the waste/illegalities described in our focus books.

Accordingly, it should be possible to cut healthcare costs in half to bring them in line with the rest of the civilized world, while improving the quality of U.S. healthcare to bring it line with the rest of the civilized world.

The key, according to the model of all 35 of the world’s other industrialized countries, is to provide single-payer healthcare.

Which should be possible while REDUCING U.S. Governmental expenditures by $86 Billion/Year --


(1) The U.S. Census Bureau documented that as of 2018, 55.1% of the American population has employment-based insurance. Since the cost of such insurance is deductible to the employer and non-taxable to the employee, then a good estimate of the cost of this insurance to the U.S. government would be the 21% corporate income tax rate * 55.1% of the population = 11.6% of the economy’s total current healthcare costs.


(2) The percentages of the U.S. population whose healthcare is covered DIRECTLY or INDIRECTLY by the U.S. Government (and the sources of that information) --

17.9% - Medicaid – As of 2018 per U.S. Census Bureau
17.8% - Medicare - As of 2018 per U.S. Census Bureau
3.6% - TRICARE/VA - As of 2018 per U.S. Census Bureau
1.5% - Current Active-Duty Military & Their Families - per U.S. Department of Defense - their healthcare is provided by Active-Duty Military Doctors/Dentists
*****
40.8% – Sub-Total
11.6% - Percentage of economy’s total healthcare costs financed by reduced employer taxes (please see No. 1 above)
*****
52.4% - Total percentage of the U.S. population whose healthcare is covered by the U.S. government
*****


(3) U.S. healthcare-cost savings by bringing them into line with the other 35 members of the OECD, all of whom have single-payer systems (e.g. Medicare For All) --

17.10% - Percentage of 2018 U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) spent on healthcare – per OECD (http://www.cia.gov’s latest estimate, for 2017, agrees)
8.56% - Percentage of 2018 GDP spent on healthcare by the other 35 OECD countries – per OECD
*****
8.54% - Percentage of U.S. GDP that is wasted (which could be called “Fake GDP”)
*****

$21.54 TRillion/Year - Current Level of GDP per U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis 11/27/2019
x 8.56% - Percentage of US GDP for healthcare if brought into line with the other 35 OECD countries
******
$1,844 Billion/Year - Annual US healthcare costs if brought into line with the other 35 OECD countries
******

$21.54 TRillion/Year - Current Level of GDP per U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis 11/27/2019
x 17.10% - Percentage of 2018 U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) spent on healthcare – per OECD (http://www.cia.gov’s latest estimate, for 2017, agrees)
******
$3,683 Billion/Year - Actual US healthcare costs
x 52.4% - Total percentage of the U.S. population whose healthcare costs are covered by the U.S. government (please see No. 2 above)
******
$1,930 Billion/Year - Annual US healthcare costs of percentage of the U.S. population whose healthcare costs are covered by the U.S. government
$1,844 Billion/Year – Total annual US healthcare costs if brought into line with the other 35 OECD countries
******
$86 Billion/Year – Annual US healthcare savings following the “blueprint” of the other 35 OECD countries
******

It is respectfully suggested that if true conservatism means reducing the cost of government (even if achieved by expanding a program to eliminate waste), then true conservatism requires the enactment of “Medicare For All.”

Thank you for your consideration.

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