Bernie's healthcare plan isn't too bold. It's too facile. And more than twice as costly

[pnwmom]

as he admits.

An Emory University expert in health care analysis who supports single payer says that Bernie’s plan will cost $1.1 trillion dollar more – each year – than Bernie is promising. And that it will require a 20% tax increase, not 8.4%.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-sanderss-ideas-are-not-too-bold-they-are-too-facile/2016/01/28/e7125bca-c60a-11e5-9693-933a4d31bcc8_story.html


What concerns us is not that Mr. Sanders’s program to tackle these issues is “radical,” as he put it, but that it is not very well thought out. We are far from the only ones, for example, to point out that his health-care plan rests on unbelievable assumptions about how much he could slash health-care costs without affecting the care ordinary Americans receive. “Their savings numbers are — well, politely said — simply wrong,” Emory University health-care expert Kenneth E. Thorpe told Vox. Mr. Thorpe, who is not hostile to single-payer systems of the type Mr. Sanders favors and has even advanced single-payer plans of his own, released an analysis Wednesday finding that Mr. Sanders’s proposal would cost $1 trillion more than the candidate estimated. That is not over a 10-year budget window. That is every year.


DETAILS FROM THE ANALYSIS BELOW:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/296831690/Kenneth-Thorpe-s-analysis-of-Bernie-Sanders-s-single-payer-proposal

“To fund the program, payroll and income taxes would have to increase from a combined 8.4% in the Sanders plan to 20% while also retaining all remaining tax increases on capital gains, increased marginal tax rates, the estate tax, and eliminating tax expenditures.

Even Medicaid recipients would pay more:

“Low income populations living in poverty receiving Medicaid would pay more through the 2.2% income tax and 6.2% reduction in wages.”

And even so:

“The plan is underfinanced by an average of $1.1 trillion per year.”

[Ron Green]

1. No we can't!

[Recursion]

2. Spend a negative amount on pharmaceuticals? No, we actually can't

As in, that is actually mathematically impossible.

And that's what this "plan" calls for.

[Armstead]

3. How about we agree on the goal and hash out the numbers later?

I am goddamn sick of you people crunching numbers to beat back any form of real healthcare reform.

We cant we cant we cant.....

Goddamn it this shit has been going on for 40 years. The wise and wonderful Democrat leaders only came up with a fix that had a few good things but papered over the real problem.

If there had been a commitment to social insurance back when the need first became evident -- and if the only solutions were not attempts to prop up the present unworkable unsustainable system -- criticisms of Sanders plan might be justified. But since the only alternative the "centrists" want is a slightly better version of more of the same, it rings really hollow.

And pardon my French but I have two family members who died needlessly because of the present crappy system of ultra-rationed care, so I get a little upset by bean counting bullshit.

[pnwmom]

9. Because Bernie's campaigning on the idea that the ACA is a failure. If the average

voter hears that both parties think the ACA is a failure, why would they trust Bernie's new Democratic plan?

We need to unify in supporting the ACA and then call for the next step: adding a public option.

[Armstead]

10. When and if that ever happens count me in

[HassleCat]

4. The author worked for Bill Clinton

His job was analyzing costs of Clinton's health care programs.

[think]

5. Thorpe is a former Clinton administration advisor who's also done paid work for the health industry

for companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield. He's also on the board of a one of the largest corporations in the home health services industry. He's not just some academic without any outside interests in this matter.

Kenneth Thorpe, Ph.D., Joins LHC Group Board of Directors

LAFAYETTE, La., Feb. 1, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LHC Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:LHCG), one of the largest providers of home health services in the United States, announced today that it has appointed Kenneth Thorpe, Ph.D., to its Board of Directors. Dr. Thorpe will serve on the Quality Committee.

Kenneth Thorpe, Ph.D., is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Policy & Management in the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. He also co-directs the Emory Center on Health Outcomes and Quality. He was the Vanselow Professor of Health Policy and Director, Institute for Health Services Research at Tulane University. Dr. Thorpe was previously Professor of Health Policy and Administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; an Associate Professor and Director of the Program on Health Care Financing and Insurance at the Harvard University School of Public Health and Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Public Health at Columbia University. Dr. Thorpe has also held Visiting Faculty positions at Pepperdine University and Duke University. He was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 1993 to 1995. In this capacity, he coordinated all financial estimates and program impacts of President Clinton’s healthcare reform proposals for the White House. Dr. Thorpe directed the administration’s estimation efforts in dealing with Congressional healthcare reform proposals during the 103rd and 104th sessions of Congress.

As an academic, he has testified before several committees in the U.S. Senate and House on healthcare reform and insurance issues. In 1991, Dr. Thorpe was awarded the Young Investigator Award presented to the most promising health services researcher in the country under age 40 by the Association for Health Services Research. He also received the Hettleman Award for academic and scholarly research at the University of North Carolina and was provided an “Up and Comers” award by Modern Healthcare. Dr. Thorpe has authored and co-authored over 85 articles, book chapters and books and is a frequent national presenter on issues of healthcare financing, insurance and healthcare reform at healthcare conferences, television and the media. He has worked with several groups (including the American College of Physicians, American Hospital Association, National Coalition on Health Care, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Service Employees International Union, and the United Hospital Fund) and policymakers (including Senators Wellstone, Corzine, Bingaman, Snowe, Clinton, Obama and Kennedy) to develop and evaluate alternative approaches for providing health insurance to the uninsured. He serves as a reviewer on several healthcare journals. Dr. Thorpe received his Ph.D. from the Rand Graduate School, an M.A. from Duke University and his B.A. from the University of Michigan....

Source:
http://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2010/02/01/413371/183160/en/Kenneth-Thorpe-Ph-D-Joins-LHC-Group-Board-of-Directors.html

[mythology]

12. None of that changes the math

Can you actually dispute it, or are you just relying on pretending it doesn't exist? So far it seems like the latter, which isn't a great plan in my experience.

[think]

13. I'll stick with Gerald Friedman's math. The math Bernie relied on.

Friedman isn't working for corporations in the healthcare industry, or former member in Bernie's cabinet, nor is he on the board of a huge corporation in the healthcare field.

Friedman is every bit of an academic scholar and more without any compromising alliances...

https://www.umass.edu/economics/friedman

[valerief]

6. No we can't! No we can't! We might as well just eat worms and die! nt

[jillan]

7. Yawn! Kenneth Thorpe worked in the Bill Clinton administration & helped Hillary write her

healthcare proposal that didn't pass.

Nothing to see here folks - move along.....

[Motown_Johnny]

8. Extraordinary revelations on the eve of the Iowa Caucus?!!?!?

Who da thunk it?

Is anyone actually buying this?


I know I'm not.

[riversedge]

11. “The plan is underfinanced by an average of $1.1 trillion per year.” More taxes for you all.