Free Health Care Plan Costs Add Up

Dave: Yes docs are a supply/demand just as everything else. But we are not where the money sinkhole is. You suggest if we just crank out more doctors then the price of seeing a doctor will go down. But already, the number of doctors going into primary care is vanishing, because they are not paid ENOUGH. Hmm let's see... I can go to school for 12 years post-high school, rack up $200K in debt, and then become a family doc and make 150K/yr (and bust my butt) or become a dermatologist and make 300K/yr AND work half as hard (ain't no dermatological emergencies). And if I keep my standard of living to the same as I would have if I were the family doc, I have my loans paid off in 2 years instead of 10-30 years.

So yes, study your economics. You can't simply drive the price down by flooding the market with supply in this instance. What is cost to you is income to the MD, which is going to have its own supply/demand curve.

This seems like the same type of problem the U.S. faced with oil under the Carter Administration. We're too focused on the demand side (patients) and not even considering the supply side (doctors and researchers).

Has it occurred to anyone that only 5% of the bachelors degree's handed out in the U.S. are in a science area? Does that sound like a problem to anyone? Is it not true that if we had more doctors, the price to go see a doctor would go down? This is an economics website. I would hope you would be able to complete the logic.

Oh wait, in government the bottom line is votes, not dollars. Ohhh... That's why they want to give so many more people "free" coverage... Na, they aren't buying votes. Hell, tax those rich people at 90% and give everyone a job and healthcare. Problem solved. No more recession, no more healthcare costs for Americans, unless your rich. But who cares, the rich can't out-vote the rest of us.

How did we become the wealthiest nation in the world again? Oh yeah, the government did it for us. (The government gave the business world the Microsoft operating system and the car manufactures the assembly line, so that millions could enjoy computer and cars, thank you government for taking care of us!)

Greetings: From the charts on this web page, the U.S. spends only slightly more of its budget on healthcare than most other industrial countries; but spends multiples more on defense. Yet our debts and deficits are roughly in-line with other industrial nations. How do we maintain large defense spending and healthcare spending and run no larger than a historically sustainable deficit? Isn't squeezing the inefficiency out of the private sector much the same insubstantial rhetoric as squeezing the inefficiency out of government bureacracy? If we really spend 2x as much as other industrial countries, do we really believe we can squeeze 50% of the fat out of the medical industry? If so, we should do it. If not, why not - is the statistic meaningful?

Free? In what bizarro universe is health care free? Only (some) Americans believe this nonsense. Everyone who lives in countries with universal health care understands that it's paid for through taxes.

There's no free lunch.

The problem with this whole debate is that people take their political views (liberal or conservative) and go find data or come up with a 'theory' to prove their views.

It sickens me to hear people cite statistics (e.g. "we spend more than twice as much as any other country on heath care, we rank 37th in the world in health outcomes...) and then jump to some conclusion or solution without asking 'why???'.

Why do we spend so much and get so little? could it be because we eat too much supersized fast food and we don't exercise enough? could a contributing factor be we practice defensive medicine because of overzealous lawyers? or is it because of evil HMO executives?

Why are so many people uninsured? is it because of greedy insurance middlemen? or is it because of laws and govt requirements that make the only heath plan for sale a 'Cadillac' plan that covers everything under the sun?
MUST be because of the middlemen... Lord knows there are no other middlemen or brokers in the American economy, so we must get rid of the healthcare middlemen and let the government handle it, because the government is SO good at managing things.

Come to think of it, car insurance and life insurance would be a lot cheaper if we had a single payer car or life insurance system. maybe we can have the government take over appliance warranties and such... that's a form of insurance!

Come on people, THINK. Use your brain!
Think on economic principle. Expanding/giving coverage to everyone is going to *increase* costs, not lower them. Doesn't mean we shouldn't give everyone health insurance, but don't sell me expanded coverage as a cost containment strategy. If you want to bring down costs, find a way to expose people to prices and to foster competition. Costs will come down like they have in *every other* industry. this is not rocket science, but you do need to think a little deeper and treat the laws of economics like the laws of nature...

Wirsbro said: "What makes people think they are entitled to other people’s property, earnings and wealth?"

oh you know, the fact that they made all that property earnings and wealth while drinking water from our community well, driving on our community roads, protected by our community police and army, educated by our community schools, and sold their products/services in our community markets.

what arrogance makes you think that once you get something you did it all on your own? you are standing on the backs of the millions who came before you, made this country free enough for you to earn ANYTHING. and you should pay your share like everyone else. and yes that includes paying for someone elses cancer treatment so they can have a chance at the same wealth and life that you enjoy.

Healthy people are happier and more productive with less social problems, it's an investment in the future. Also, making hospitals accountable to the govening body leads to greater efficiencey from which all benifit. The money will come back in time as a consequence of better health for all.

What makes people think they are entitled to other people's property, earnings and wealth?

And I have to ask: how does every other industrialized country do this and yet financial Armageddon does not seem to strike them down? In fact, the U.S. is being swallowed up and passed on many different fronts economically and technologically. We spend more than twice as much as any other country on heath care, we rank 37th in the world in health outcomes (behind Costa Rica and ahead of Slovenia) and we rank last -- LAST -- out of 29 developed countries.

I was watching "Sicko" again by Michael Moore and the sad fact is that Americans have been brainwashed for decades and don't realize that in France, Germany, Britain, Canada and most other countries, it is virtually unheard of that anyone would be bankrupted by their medical bills. If you watch the film, when people from other countries are asked about their insurance "premiums" and "co-pays," they just stare blankly -- because their health care is covered -- and a priority -- and all they have to do is show up and get treated. And the government provides many other services to their people while we get very little. Oh, we do have some awesome military hardware though.

As one American ex-pat put it succinctly, in France, the government is afraid of its people. In America, the people are afraid of their government. We're being robbed by corporations who have bought and paid for the government and yet people want to protect THEIR right to keep doing this rather than defend themselves by demanding single-payer health care. The empire is crumbling around us and we deserve what we get.

First of all, the CBO is considered inefficient in correctly scoring government proposals by many economists for a very good reason. The CBO does not take into account two MAJOR factors: projections in increased productivity by US businesses, nor increases in wages/income due to said productivity and regular adjustments made (such as raises in minimum wage, that often result in nationwide reflection of minimum wage raise). Nonetheless...

Second, "free" has nothing to do with ANY type of reform either, that's just ridiculous hyperbole. I believe we can all agree that what's most important is we find a way to pay-go or better. Another problem with scores like the CBO generates, is that it doesn't take into account the returns on the market either; it really only determines what the government spends, and only counts the revenue coming in precisely for the purpose of paying only for what the proposal is designed to provide. In other words, there is no "credit" given to things like economic boosts in other industries, in this case, outside the health care industry.

I personally believe that the public option is basically a welfare program for private insurers. This is a model which has already been proven itself to be a failure too; as the welfare they already receive (subsidies) have long since been rendered useless by the rising costs of health care. This will only have private insurers coming back with their hands out for MORE welfare, as they are right now!

IF Americans and our reps in Congress were truly concerned about the cost of health care and the real goal was meaningful reform, then we would simply remove these middle-men that are financially bleeding us to death by paying for them to delve out our health care as they see fit! These middle-men are causing our health care costs to eat up TWICE of our GDP (productivity) as that of all other countries we compete with in the global market too – see WHO report, Table 7 “Health Care Expenditures.”

The answer to reform is very simple, and it’s not only the most fiscally conservative, but also creates an enormous economic boost: Single Payer, the government payer of claims (insurer), to the privately owned and operated medical industry.

As shown in this study on Single Payer (link below), this system would create well over 2.6 million jobs and generate $317 Billion in public and private revenues – and 70% of these new jobs would be outside the health care industry!

http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2009/february/update-on-landmark-study-on-single-payer-as-economic-stimulus.html

As to how it would be paid for, again, quite simple (as proposed in HR676):

• Maintain current federal and state funding for existing health care programs
• Establish employer/employee payroll tax of 4.75% (includes present 1.45% Medicare tax)
• Establish a 5% health tax on the top 5% of income earners, 10% tax on top 1% of wage earners
• ¼ of 1% stock transaction tax
• Close corporate tax loopholes
• Repeal the Bush tax cuts for the highest income earners


The meager increases in FICA, are obviously MUCH less than insurance premiums, co-pays, out-of-pocket, and workman’s comp costs we and our employers pay for right now too! As it stands, We the People already pay for over half of all health care in the US, and it would be far cheaper for ALL Americans to simply pay for it ALL. Think of it as a “buying in bulk” discount.

I agree with the comments above. Good illustration on a topic that the public has little to actually look at and comprehend. I hope these mistruths about reform do not stop congress from passing something.

Everything the government does always costs more than estimates. Often by 10 times. This would break us. And the idea that only the people listed would be taxed is laughable.

So is President Obama's claim that it would be deficit neutral.

All government bureaucracies do is grow and grow and become more and more expensive in inverse proportion to their effectiveness. Look at the Dept of Education. Billions have gone into that and we have the lowest test scores in the developed world. Most Americans can't point to their state on a map.

So NO to Obamacare. Politicians are selling us out to corporate and other creepy interests.

This data appears to be faulty for several reasons
1) Does it account for productivity/income gains to individuals now with healthcare
2) individuals whom pay for insurance and switch to this plan, and increase their spending (tax gains)
3) Socialized Healthcare tends to drive down costs (look up per capita spending on healthcare internationally), wouldn't these costs be passed down over time.

If anything this data is an overestimate.

Missing 239 billion ? Tap it from the military budget !!!

A well done illustration that makes clear the income and outlays. It also makes clear the one question that I have had from day one: how are we going to pay for all this? Congress has never provided an adequate answer, if any answer at all. And amid all the rancor of the town meetings, this is the one issue that is the central one for me.

Rather than rush through legislation in the name of getting it done, is it too much to ask that Congress do the hard work of figuring out how to make this revenue neutral?

The sad truth is that this well done illustration portrays a best-case scenario.

I have learned that things always cost more than we think, and we'll always make less than we hope. While I believe that the cost of doing nothing is unacceptable, and believe that insuring everyone is important (with the benefit of keeping unnecessary patients from clogging emergency rooms), I am deeply concerned that the unpaid costs for this initiative could devastate our economy for years to come. THAT, not crazy myths that are scaring people town halls, is a concern that I hope registers loud and clear with Congress and the Administration.