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Vermont Single Payer: Probably Doomed

LowDown

LowDown

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Vermont passed single payer health care some time ago, and the liberals were all atwitter about it. What the Vermont legislature didn't do, however, is come up with a way to pay for it. No particular taxation plan had enough political support. So, single payer is supposed to go into effect on 2017, but they may not be able to forward with it.

The plan will cost them $1.6 billion a year, an initial estimate that is probably way too low. That's on top of total tax revenues in Vermont of about $2.7 billion. About 309,000 people are employed in Vermont, so each employed person will share an average additional tax burden of about $5,200 a year, making Vermont the highest taxing state in the nation by far. Of course, many people will pay a lot less in taxes while others pay a lot more. Will it be taken out as a higher state income tax? If so then look for the tax to double or triple in one year. Or even more for people in the top 10% of earners. Legislators have not heard the weeping, wailing, complaining, and anger that such an increase in taxes would provoke. At this point Vermont has relatively low taxes for the Northeast. Many people moved there to avoid higher taxes of other states. It's recipe that will destroy the state's economy.

Up to now a single insurance company, BCBS, has dominated the state, so additional savings gained by squeezing the medical system are probably not to be had.

Thinking of applying such a system nation-wide? Fuggetaboutit. Impossible.

Vermont's Single-Payer Dream Is Taxpayer Nightmare - Bloomberg View
 
LowDown said:
Vermont passed single payer health care some time ago, and the liberals were all atwitter about it. What the Vermont legislature didn't do, however, is come up with a way to pay for it. No particular taxation plan had enough political support. So, single payer is supposed to go into effect on 2017, but they may not be able to forward with it.

The plan will cost them $1.6 billion a year, an initial estimate that is probably way too low. That's on top of total tax revenues in Vermont of about $2.7 billion. About 309,000 people are employed in Vermont, so each employed person will share an average additional tax burden of about $5,200 a year, making Vermont the highest taxing state in the nation by far. Of course, many people will pay a lot less in taxes while others pay a lot more. Will it be taken out as a higher state income tax? If so then look for the tax to double or triple in one year. Or even more for people in the top 10% of earners. Legislators have not heard the weeping, wailing, complaining, and anger that such an increase in taxes would provoke. At this point Vermont has relatively low taxes for the Northeast. Many people moved there to avoid higher taxes of other states. It's recipe that will destroy the state's economy.

Up to now a single insurance company, BCBS, has dominated the state, so additional savings gained by squeezing the medical system are probably not to be had.

Thinking of applying such a system nation-wide? Fuggetaboutit. Impossible.

Vermont's Single-Payer Dream Is Taxpayer Nightmare - Bloomberg View
Click to expand...

From the article you quote:
Of the plans that states have hatched for the Affordable Care Act, none has been bolder than that of Vermont, which wants to implement a single-payer health-care system, along the lines of what you might find in Britain or Canada. One government-operated system will cover all 620,000 of Vermont’s citizens. The hope is that such a system will allow Vermont to get costs down closer to Canada’s, as well as improve health by coordinating care and ensuring universal coverage.
Click to expand...

And you wrote:

Thinking of applying such a system nation-wide? Fuggetaboutit. Impossible.
Click to expand...

How "honest" of you to simply quote what fits into how you believe the world should be.
 
LowDown said:
Vermont passed single payer health care some time ago, and the liberals were all atwitter about it. What the Vermont legislature didn't do, however, is come up with a way to pay for it. No particular taxation plan had enough political support. So, single payer is supposed to go into effect on 2017, but they may not be able to forward with it.

The plan will cost them $1.6 billion a year, an initial estimate that is probably way too low. That's on top of total tax revenues in Vermont of about $2.7 billion. About 309,000 people are employed in Vermont, so each employed person will share an average additional tax burden of about $5,200 a year, making Vermont the highest taxing state in the nation by far. Of course, many people will pay a lot less in taxes while others pay a lot more. Will it be taken out as a higher state income tax? If so then look for the tax to double or triple in one year. Or even more for people in the top 10% of earners. Legislators have not heard the weeping, wailing, complaining, and anger that such an increase in taxes would provoke. At this point Vermont has relatively low taxes for the Northeast. Many people moved there to avoid higher taxes of other states. It's recipe that will destroy the state's economy.

Up to now a single insurance company, BCBS, has dominated the state, so additional savings gained by squeezing the medical system are probably not to be had.

Thinking of applying such a system nation-wide? Fuggetaboutit. Impossible.

Vermont's Single-Payer Dream Is Taxpayer Nightmare - Bloomberg View
Click to expand...

Megan McArdle (born January 29, 1973) is a Washington, D.C.-based blogger and journalist. She writes mostly about economics, finance and government policy from a right-libertarian or classical liberal perspective

'NUFF said
 
LowDown said:
Vermont passed single payer health care some time ago, and the liberals were all atwitter about it. What the Vermont legislature didn't do, however, is come up with a way to pay for it. No particular taxation plan had enough political support. So, single payer is supposed to go into effect on 2017, but they may not be able to forward with it.

The plan will cost them $1.6 billion a year, an initial estimate that is probably way too low. That's on top of total tax revenues in Vermont of about $2.7 billion.
About 309,000 people are employed in Vermont, so each employed person will share an average additional tax burden of about $5,200 a year,
making Vermont the highest taxing state in the nation by far. Of course, many people will pay a lot less in taxes while others pay a lot more. Will it be taken out as a higher state income tax? ....
Click to expand...
So they're getting care for about $433 a month.
Sounds great to me!
And of course that's the burden on the working population if taxed by income tax.
Vermont's population is Double the 309,000 workers.
So they're paying actually Half of that 433 a month, or $216 per person, for show-up/blanket healthcare.
The edge could be taken off the workers alone by making it part sales tax too, spreading it out well more.

That's alot Less than most pay in Health insurance.
A small Fraction of what I pay.
 
Last edited:
The German said:
From the article you quote:


And you wrote:



How "honest" of you to simply quote what fits into how you believe the world should be.
Click to expand...

No, you're wrong. The article sums up by saying that it won't be possible to apply single payer to the whole nation:

So this is going to be expensive. So expensive that I doubt Vermont is actually going to go forward with it.

This should be instructive for those who hope -- or fear -- that Obamacare has all been an elaborate preliminary to a nationwide single-payer system. It isn’t. The politics are impossible, and even if they weren’t, the financing would be unthinkable.
Click to expand...

You use the quote:

Of the plans that states have hatched for the Affordable Care Act, none has been bolder than that of Vermont, which wants to implement a single-payer health-care system, along the lines of what you might find in Britain or Canada. One government-operated system will cover all 620,000 of Vermont’s citizens. The hope is that such a system will allow Vermont to get costs down closer to Canada’s, as well as improve health by coordinating care and ensuring universal coverage.
Click to expand...

But then you fail to acknowledge what follows it, which completely shoots down the idea that costs could be brought down to Canadian levels (too lengthy to cut and paste; here's the link again.)
 
pbrauer said:
Megan McArdle (born January 29, 1973) is a Washington, D.C.-based blogger and journalist. She writes mostly about economics, finance and government policy from a right-libertarian or classical liberal perspective

'NUFF said
Click to expand...

You should just go over to democraticunderground.com where you won't be bothered by the opinions of conservatives and libertarians.

Closed minds are both a waste of potential and a danger to others.

Did you have anything substantive to say about the article? I guess not -- that's probably the real problem here.
 
Single-payer gets cheaper the more people are involved in it, that is the entire premise. You are missing the core concept.
 
mbig said:
So they're getting care for about $433 a month.
Sounds great to me!
And of course that's the burden on the working population if taxed by income tax.
Vermont's population is Double the 309,000 workers.
So they're paying actually Half of that 433 a month, or $216 per person, for show-up/blanket healthcare.
The edge could be taken off the workers alone by making it part sales tax too, spreading it out well more.

That's alot less than most pay in Health insurance.
A small fraction of what I pay.
Click to expand...

Going by every other American government health plan that has ever come down the pike it will probably end up costing several times that much. And it will be charged to people who right now are paying nothing, so I doubt they'll feel like they are better off. Hence the lack of political support.
 
Carjosse said:
Single-payer gets cheaper the more people are involved in it, that is the entire premise. You are missing the core concept.
Click to expand...

Anything gets a lot more expensive when the government gets involved. This will be no exception. The promises of health care savings have been lies from the very beginning.
 
LowDown said:
Vermont passed single payer health care some time ago, and the liberals were all atwitter about it. What the Vermont legislature didn't do, however, is come up with a way to pay for it. No particular taxation plan had enough political support. So, single payer is supposed to go into effect on 2017, but they may not be able to forward with it.

The plan will cost them $1.6 billion a year, an initial estimate that is probably way too low. That's on top of total tax revenues in Vermont of about $2.7 billion. About 309,000 people are employed in Vermont, so each employed person will share an average additional tax burden of about $5,200 a year, making Vermont the highest taxing state in the nation by far. Of course, many people will pay a lot less in taxes while others pay a lot more. Will it be taken out as a higher state income tax? If so then look for the tax to double or triple in one year. Or even more for people in the top 10% of earners. Legislators have not heard the weeping, wailing, complaining, and anger that such an increase in taxes would provoke. At this point Vermont has relatively low taxes for the Northeast. Many people moved there to avoid higher taxes of other states. It's recipe that will destroy the state's economy.

Up to now a single insurance company, BCBS, has dominated the state, so additional savings gained by squeezing the medical system are probably not to be had.

Thinking of applying such a system nation-wide? Fuggetaboutit. Impossible.

Vermont's Single-Payer Dream Is Taxpayer Nightmare - Bloomberg View
Click to expand...




That's typical for most social arena legislation, is it not?

I have to take serious issue with even the amount they cannot agree on...

"Single payer" is what we call universal health care, some people do pay premiums.

Having said that, British Columbia with one of the better systems in the country is spending $16.2 billion with a population of 4.4 million, while Vermont is forecasting $1.6 billion for 600,000 people. I am not the best at math but that would suggest they will spend $2,666 per person, while BC spends $3,680, - $1,014. Either they're planning a system with about half the coverage we have or they have their heads up some inconvenient places.

For five years I have been saying to Americans: "look north." We've been in the public health care business since the late 1950's, we have made a lot of mistakes, usually just once, and recovered. But, for some reason "American Ingenuity" has come to mean you have to make the same mistakes over again....
 
LowDown said:
No, you're wrong. The article sums up by saying that it won't be possible to apply single payer to the whole nation:



You use the quote:



But then you fail to acknowledge what follows it, which completely shoots down the idea that costs could be brought down to Canadian levels (too lengthy to cut and paste; here's the link again.)
Click to expand...

well in the article she offers alot of explainations to why it wont supposedly work in vermont with some numbers and facts.

But concerning a national system she only says:

This should be instructive for those who hope -- or fear -- that Obamacare has all been an elaborate preliminary to a nationwide single-payer system. It isn’t. The politics are impossible, and even if they weren’t, the financing would be unthinkable.
Click to expand...

Which is just an unfounded statement based on another article she wrote which:

Obamacare Fiasco Isn't a Single-Payer Conspiracy - Bloomberg View

Which has even less facts concerning single payer and simply some unfounded ramblings is about how obama care wont lead to single payer and how there is no "conspiracy to bring single payer through obama care".
 
LowDown said:
You should just go over to democraticunderground.com where you won't be bothered by the opinions of conservatives and libertarians.

Closed minds are both a waste of potential and a danger to others.

Did you have anything substantive to say about the article? I guess not -- that's probably the real problem here.
Click to expand...
I just pointed out that article was written from a libertarian POV, do you have a problem with that?
If you are so open minded, would you read an article from Media Matters for example? I guess not.
 
The best thing about the US is our Constitution. And the Tenth Amendment says that states can have Single Payer of they want to, and the feds cannot.

If Vermont wants it, then great. I support them doing what they as a state want to do. If it works? Great. If it doesn't work? Great, and they can change it. It's a hell of a lot easier to change a program that affect 600k people than it is to change a program that affects 300M.
 
If Vermont and the people of the state want it let them have it :shrug:

If it bankrupts them then so be it.
 
digsbe said:
If Vermont and the people of the state want it let them have it :shrug:

If it bankrupts them then so be it.
Click to expand...

Experimentation is fantastic. We have 50 laboratories. Far better for each to try what they want than roll out the abortion of ObamaCare from a blueprint that only looks marvelous on paper.
 
RiverDad said:
Experimentation is fantastic. We have 50 laboratories. Far better for each to try what they want than roll out the abortion of ObamaCare from a blueprint that only looks marvelous on paper.
Click to expand...

I'm all for more state autonomy and self governance. A hallmark of freedom in my opinion is people being able to govern their communities and tailor government to their needs. Having a nation of 300+ million people with very diverse populations and political beliefs shouldn't necessarily have a strong federal government getting into running how all the states should function. Strong red states should be allowed to do what they want and blue states what they want. It's no surprise that VT is a very very very blue state, and the people of that state should be able to have socialist or single payer system. At the same time if it doesn't work out or is poorly done other states can learn from it.
 
LowDown said:
Anything gets a lot more expensive when the government gets involved. This will be no exception. The promises of health care savings have been lies from the very beginning.
Click to expand...
Except for every other country in the world that has implemented it ...

Seriously -- all you have to do is look at what other countries spend compared to us.

US_spends_much_more_on_health_than_what_might_be_expected_1_slideshow.jpg

In the real world single-payer systems save money.

Only in right wing fantasy land do they cost more.
 
digsbe said:
It's no surprise that VT is a very very very blue state, and the people of that state should be able to have socialist or single payer system. At the same time if it doesn't work out or is poorly done other states can learn from it.
Click to expand...

Vermont is the perfect state to try that experiment. It's filled with white liberals. There is no diversity. There is high level of community cohesion. There really isn't much of an underclass.

How well the lessons will translate to other states is an open question. Isolate the variables and try again. If it works in Vermont then replicate in multicultural California and see if the principles continue to work.
 
sedan said:
In the real world single-payer systems save money.

Only in right wing fantasy land do they cost more.
Click to expand...

HOW DO THEY SAVE MONEY? That's the question. Here's a hint to the answer:

It could save us money by implementing rationing. That's how it works. If we implemented Canada's standards on the use of MRI machines, we'd have to get rid of something on the order of 8,400 of our 10,000+ machines in order to match Canada's per capita level of MRI machines. Sending fewer people for diagnostic testing will cut our expenses on MRI screening, so too will rationing the care such that every machine is utilized to full capacity, which means more people having to go for a screening at 11:30 at night after waiting 4 months for an appointment.
 
Fearandloathing said:
That's typical for most social arena legislation, is it not?

I have to take serious issue with even the amount they cannot agree on...

"Single payer" is what we call universal health care, some people do pay premiums.

Having said that, British Columbia with one of the better systems in the country is spending $16.2 billion with a population of 4.4 million, while Vermont is forecasting $1.6 billion for 600,000 people. I am not the best at math but that would suggest they will spend $2,666 per person, while BC spends $3,680, - $1,014. Either they're planning a system with about half the coverage we have or they have their heads up some inconvenient places.

For five years I have been saying to Americans: "look north." We've been in the public health care business since the late 1950's, we have made a lot of mistakes, usually just once, and recovered. But, for some reason "American Ingenuity" has come to mean you have to make the same mistakes over again....
Click to expand...

Yea people keep making the mistake that government needs to run the healthcare system and that is the last thing that we need.
as i have said a massive HSA system with hospital coverage only insurance is the way to go.
 
RiverDad said:
HOW DO THEY SAVE MONEY? That's the question. Here's a hint to the answer:

It could save us money by implementing rationing. That's how it works. If we implemented Canada's standards on the use of MRI machines, we'd have to get rid of something on the order of 8,400 of our 10,000+ machines in order to match Canada's per capita level of MRI machines. Sending fewer people for diagnostic testing will cut our expenses on MRI screening, so too will rationing the care such that every machine is utilized to full capacity, which means more people having to go for a screening at 11:30 at night after waiting 4 months for an appointment.
Click to expand...

wait canada solved this problem by allowing private businesses to build MRI labs. the cost is 250 bucks and they have people lined up the door because the wait time to get into the government run system can run up to a year.
 
Fearandloathing said:
That's typical for most social arena legislation, is it not?

I have to take serious issue with even the amount they cannot agree on...

"Single payer" is what we call universal health care, some people do pay premiums.

Having said that, British Columbia with one of the better systems in the country is spending $16.2 billion with a population of 4.4 million, while Vermont is forecasting $1.6 billion for 600,000 people. I am not the best at math but that would suggest they will spend $2,666 per person, while BC spends $3,680, - $1,014. Either they're planning a system with about half the coverage we have or they have their heads up some inconvenient places.

For five years I have been saying to Americans: "look north." We've been in the public health care business since the late 1950's, we have made a lot of mistakes, usually just once, and recovered. But, for some reason "American Ingenuity" has come to mean you have to make the same mistakes over again....
Click to expand...

Well B.C. is middle of the pack for value for money according to the Fraser Institute and Quebec is leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else scoring a perfect 10. B.C got 4.12, Ontario got 7.43, and Newfoundland got 0.0.
 
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