2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumNo, Bernie Sanders is not going to bankrupt America to the tune of $18 trillion
The big policy headline today comes from the Wall Street Journal, which delivers this alarming message:
Price Tag of Bernie Sanders Proposals: $18 Trillion
Holy cow! He must be advocating for some crazy stuff that will bankrupt America! But is that really an accurate picture of what Sanders is proposing? And is this the kind of number we should be frightened of?
The answer isnt quite so dramatic: while Sanders does want to spend significant amounts of money, almost all of it is on things were already paying for; he just wants to change how we pay for them. In some ways its by spreading out a cost currently borne by a limited number of people to all taxpayers. His plan for free public college would do this: right now, its paid for by students and their families, while under Sanders plan wed all pay for it in the same way we all pay for parks or the military or food safety.
But the bulk of what Sanders wants to do is in the first category: to have us pay through taxes for things were already paying for in other ways. Depending on your perspective on government, you may think thats a bad idea. But we shouldnt treat his proposals as though theyre going to cost us $18 trillion on top of what were already paying.
And theres another problem with that scary $18 trillion figure, which is what the Journal says is the 10-year cost of Sanders ideas: fully $15 trillion of it comes not from an analysis of anything Sanders has proposed, but from the fact that Sanders has said hed like to see a single-payer health insurance system, and theres a single-payer plan in Congress that has been estimated to cost $15 trillion. Sanders hasnt actually released any health care plan, so we have no idea what his might cost.
But health care is nevertheless a good place to examine why these big numbers can be so misleading. At the moment, total health care spending in the United States runs over $3 trillion a year; according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, over the next decade (from 2015-2024), America will spend a total of $42 trillion on health care. This is money that you and I and everyone else spends. We spend it in a variety of ways: through our health-insurance premiums, through the reduced salaries we get if our employers pick up part or all of the cost of those premiums, through our co-pays and deductibles, and through our taxes that fund Medicare, Medicaid, ACA subsidies, and the VA health care system. Were already paying about $10,000 a year per capita for health care.
more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/09/15/no-bernie-sanders-is-not-going-to-bankrupt-america-to-the-tune-of-18-trillion/
dorkzilla
(5,141 posts)The smell of desperation is really starting to take over here...
Smells like Bern-ing rubber!!!!
cyberswede
(26,117 posts)...can't have that!
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,365 posts)Thanks for the thread, morningfog.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)But how did the Journal arrive at $18 trillion? They added up the 10-year price tags of seven programs Sanders has endorsed in his candidacy for president. It turns out that $15 trillion out of the $18 trillion, or 83 percent of the total, comes from just one of these programs: establishing a single-payer health care system.
The $15 trillion figure is derived from an analysis of a similar single-payer bill, H.R. 676, introduced in 2013 by Rep. John Conyers. Gerald Friedman, a labor economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, conducted the analysis.
What the Wall Street Journal wont tell you is that $15 trillion in national health spending over 10 years would represent a massive savings for the United States. Right now we spend at twice that rate for health care. According to the Congressional Budget Office, in fiscal year 2013 alone, the U.S. spent $2.8 trillion on total health expenditures, not including the $250 billion tax break employers get for providing health insurance to their workers.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)What a shock.
Good op, let's see if they get the hint.
phantom power
(25,966 posts)and having the media "report the controversy."
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)restorefreedom
(12,655 posts)starts peeling her talking points off of FOXNews, you know you're getting under their skin.
in_cog_ni_to
(41,600 posts)of the aisle she leans. Moderate, my ass.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)hedgehog
(36,286 posts)abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)He wants the wealthy and corporations to pay more taxes and spend more on education, health care and infrastructure?
in_cog_ni_to
(41,600 posts)TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)The Turd Way IS your father's Republican party though less racist and bigoted (because they get votes from somewhere) but even more eager to lick the taints of the corporations, foolishly get into wars of choice, take a big ass shit on the Bill of Rights, and screw over working people any which way but loose.
Skwmom
(12,685 posts)If nothing else, they are predictable. n/t
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Thankfully new, improved Hillary now comes with extra cleaning agents and is specifically reformulated for your washing machine.