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Single payer system funded by raising taxes on the richest 1%.

Would you support a single-payer system funded by raising taxes on the very wealthy.

  • Yes, it would be good and they can afford it.

    Votes: 7 20.6%

  • No, I don't feel it would be good or fair.

    Votes: 27 79.4%
  • Total voters
    34
How do you suggest we fund our healthcare system?
ttwtt78640 said:
Just like we "all" pay Medicare/Social Security or just like we "all" pay federal income tax?
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mak2 said:
How do you suggest we fund our healthcare system?
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Like we fund our food, clothing and housing systems. Some folks must pay for it out of pocket plus pay taxes, some folks must pay for it out of pocket but without paying taxes and some folks get it subsidized by the gov't. But, just like these other systems, citizens get a fixed amount of subsidy applied to their account (e.g. EBT card or rent voucher) and the private providers charge market rates to all.

EDIT: Now that I have answered your question, why don't you tell us how you would fund it?
 
Papa bull said:
This has been very lopsided so far with no representation from progressives/liberals. That's very puzzling because I know many of them want single-payer systems AND think the rich and corporations need to pay more taxes. Maybe there would have been a better response from the left had I made it an anonymous poll.
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No argument from me.
 
And the reality is that we dont need to tax the rich.

25% of the spending of Medicare alone would pay for all Americans.

So its more like removing the profits of the rich to pay for it.

VA gone
Tri care gone
medicaid gone
all health insurance gone
Healthcare firms on Wall Street gone
All employers totally irrelivant to HC. no payments, no influence.
 
aberrant85 said:
No argument from me.
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For some reason, not many liberals are as honest as you about admitting you want free healthcare paid for by taxing the wealthy. That's too bad.

To liberals too embarrassed about how they feel about their desire to take from the rich and give to themselves that they should have a long heart to heart come-to-Jesus meeting with their conscience. It's really sad to go through live supporting and espousing things that embarrass you.
 
GottaGo said:
If you are so worthy of judging who is 'capable' of funding this, then how about you sign over your paycheck every week? After all, you are capable of paying for the low income people too. When I was working, maybe another 1% would not hurt (from $32K) They think YOU are rich, so they declare what you have as theirs.....How do you know what "they" think..

No one is 'protecting' them, they should be treated just the same as anyone else. Don't want to discriminate, now do you? ;)
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It takes NOT anything extraordinary...Two million is such an obvious threshold....and we are talking about....what.....2 or 3 % of a rich man's "pay" .
 
HR 676 / S 703 .. right there in your face Mr. Obama when you opted for a corporatist plan instead.
 
earthworm said:
It takes NOT anything extraordinary...Two million is such an obvious threshold....and we are talking about....what.....2 or 3 % of a rich man's "pay" .
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How easy it is to spend someone else's income, yes?

So you judge that 1% of your income would be doable to help those who could not afford health insurance. The 1% across the board it would be.

Again, who are you to judge what another's person's needs are? Who are you to judge what is rich, and the right to confiscate that money any differently then what everybody else pays?

Your 1% equals $320 dollars, not enough to pay one months premium for one person. 1% of 2M is $20,000, enough to pay two to three people's ANNUAL premium.

Your generosity is astounding.
 
Papa bull said:
Would you support a single-payer system funded by raising capital gains taxes, corporate taxes and taxes on incomes over 2 million dollars a year? This would essentially mean free basic healthcare for Americans but at the cost of tax hikes on corporations and very wealthy people.
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Sorry, wouldn't be enough to support the system. You'd have to take everything they made. Besides, just because you make 2 million a year doesn't mean you don't spend back that 2 million, especially if you're talking about corps.
 
mak2 said:
The VA is a great system with some of the highest benchmarks in the industry.
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The VA hospital here (part of OHSU) is one of the best in the country, but I've seen a whole lot of real stinkers in the system.
 
After Obamacare fails, single payer is the only sane option left.

It was the road Obama should have taken all along.
 
BlackAsCoal said:
After Obamacare fails, single payer is the only sane option left.

It was the road Obama should have taken all along.
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I don't think so. Prior to the ACA 80% of Americans were happy or at least satisified with their insurance and healthcare. Common sense tells me you don't destroy what 80% of the people are happy with. You work something else out for the remaining 20% and leave the 80% alone. I would have rather seen a VA style health care system set up for them.

It is always best in my book to go straight to the problem, the problem of getting those who do not have health insurance their coverage. No need to mess with those who already have it.

Anyway, time to pick up the granddaughter from school, I shall return.
 
Papa bull said:
This has been very lopsided so far with no representation from progressives/liberals. That's very puzzling because I know many of them want single-payer systems AND think the rich and corporations need to pay more taxes. Maybe there would have been a better response from the left had I made it an anonymous poll.
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Are you implying that progressives and liberals can only be honest when answering on secret ballots?
 
Rocketman said:
Are you implying that progressives and liberals can only be honest when answering on secret ballots?
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Not all of them. Some are more than happy to tell you to your face that they want wealth redistribution, caps on pay, 90% taxes on the rich, etc. etc. etc..... and all of that funding wonderful infrastructure programs and entitlement programs that make life just... well... dreamy. All that rich people money just going to waste by not taking control of it...

But yeah, most would rather run buck-nekked through a greenbriar patch than admit it.
 
Perotista said:
I don't think so. Prior to the ACA 80% of Americans were happy or at least satisified with their insurance and healthcare. Common sense tells me you don't destroy what 80% of the people are happy with. You work something else out for the remaining 20% and leave the 80% alone. I would have rather seen a VA style health care system set up for them.

It is always best in my book to go straight to the problem, the problem of getting those who do not have health insurance their coverage. No need to mess with those who already have it.

Anyway, time to pick up the granddaughter from school, I shall return.
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Yet healthcare reform was at or near the top of the list of issues in the 2008 presidential election .. so critical in fact that even republicans had to produce their own plans.

Medicare for All is the only sane solution. As with Medicare now, no mandate, keep your old plan .. infrastructure already in place, easily understood by users, one of the most popular programs in American history.
 
Papa bull said:
Would you support a single-payer system funded by raising capital gains taxes, corporate taxes and taxes on incomes over 2 million dollars a year? This would essentially mean free basic healthcare for Americans but at the cost of tax hikes on corporations and very wealthy people.
Click to expand...
Papa bull said:
This has been very lopsided so far with no representation from progressives/liberals. That's very puzzling because I know many of them want single-payer systems AND think the rich and corporations need to pay more taxes. Maybe there would have been a better response from the left had I made it an anonymous poll.
Click to expand...

I'm hardly "progressive"/liberal, and while I strongly support single-payer, I vehemently oppose taxing one segment of society to pay for something that everybody benefits from. If everybody is going to benefit, then everybody needs to help pay for it. THAT is fair. Generic comment, but applies here as well.

Side issue: Even if it did start out as the richest only paying, it would soon spread to everybody anyway. I present the early days of our present income tax as evidence. We are simply incapable of leaving things alone.
 
Since it would be a single payer, let them pay for it.
 
Papa bull said:
For some reason, not many liberals are as honest as you about admitting you want free healthcare paid for by taxing the wealthy. That's too bad.

To liberals too embarrassed about how they feel about their desire to take from the rich and give to themselves that they should have a long heart to heart come-to-Jesus meeting with their conscience. It's really sad to go through live supporting and espousing things that embarrass you.
Click to expand...

Not sure why liberals/progressives are not responding to the poll, or perhaps they agree with single payer but disagree with only the rich paying for it and would instead have it be a progressive taxation. Since those were the only options, though, I chose the former. For the record, though, I would be more than happy to pay taxes towards single payer, especially since for most people it would cost less than private insurance.
 
BlackAsCoal said:
Yet healthcare reform was at or near the top of the list of issues in the 2008 presidential election .. so critical in fact that even republicans had to produce their own plans.

Medicare for All is the only sane solution. As with Medicare now, no mandate, keep your old plan .. infrastructure already in place, easily understood by users, one of the most popular programs in American history.
Click to expand...

Medicare works because the government takes out the premiums prior to sending out the social security checks. They take those premiums out for part B which covers doctors visit. One is not forced to sign up for Medicare part B which is voluntary, but everyone over 65 has part A compliments of the government if they sign up for it, which again is not mandatory. Besides the government has collected the cost of Part A through a lifetime of deducting medicare taxes from ones earnings. So basically one has paid the premiums prior to even becoming eligible for Medicare.

But there is a problem on the horizon for Medicare patients as the ACA will drop the reimbursement of the approved amount doctors bill medicare from 80 to 60%. This means the supplements ones buys to cover what Medicare doesn't pay for will have to raise their premiums. Then the problem comes in some places of finding a doctor that accepts Medicare. I see more and more signs in doctors offices around here that state they are not taking any new Medicare paitients although they will continue to see their old patients.

Now when premiums go up on us old folks, watch us howl. Read this article from the New York Times dealing with the 1989 Medicare enhancement that was to be forced on the elderly. It is interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/u....html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131118
 
aberrant85 said:
Not sure why liberals/progressives are not responding to the poll, or perhaps they agree with single payer but disagree with only the rich paying for it and would instead have it be a progressive taxation.
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Six of one...
 
Perotista said:
Medicare works because the government takes out the premiums prior to sending out the social security checks. They take those premiums out for part B which covers doctors visit. One is not forced to sign up for Medicare part B which is voluntary, but everyone over 65 has part A compliments of the government if they sign up for it, which again is not mandatory. Besides the government has collected the cost of Part A through a lifetime of deducting medicare taxes from ones earnings. So basically one has paid the premiums prior to even becoming eligible for Medicare.

But there is a problem on the horizon for Medicare patients as the ACA will drop the reimbursement of the approved amount doctors bill medicare from 80 to 60%. This means the supplements ones buys to cover what Medicare doesn't pay for will have to raise their premiums. Then the problem comes in some places of finding a doctor that accepts Medicare. I see more and more signs in doctors offices around here that state they are not taking any new Medicare paitients although they will continue to see their old patients.

Now when premiums go up on us old folks, watch us howl. Read this article from the New York Times dealing with the 1989 Medicare enhancement that was to be forced on the elderly. It is interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/u....html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131118
Click to expand...

I know how Medicare works .. so does the sponsors of the bill.

HR 676 / S 703.
 
Papa bull said:
Would you support a single-payer system funded by raising capital gains taxes, corporate taxes and taxes on incomes over 2 million dollars a year? This would essentially mean free basic healthcare for Americans but at the cost of tax hikes on corporations and very wealthy people.
Click to expand...

Of course.
 
Gipper said:
Oh, give it time. Soon you'll see some on here who will support distribution, say that it's the rich's "responsibility", and attempt to punish success to suit their own personal goals.

It boils down to envy. The "rich" do something that they can never do, it pisses them off, and "soaking" them is their version of payback.
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... doing what the rich do doesn't seem that challenging when the government backs them up whenever they fail or are simply incapable of adjusting or expanding fast enough to be globally competitive.

I'm hardly "progressive"/liberal, and while I strongly support single-payer, I vehemently oppose taxing one segment of society to pay for something that everybody benefits from. If everybody is going to benefit, then everybody needs to help pay for it. THAT is fair. Generic comment, but applies here as well.

Side issue: Even if it did start out as the richest only paying, it would soon spread to everybody anyway. I present the early days of our present income tax as evidence. We are simply incapable of leaving things alone.
Click to expand...

We don't live in a world of ideals, we live in the reality of the 21st century United States, where the middle class is slipping into poverty and the rich are getting richer. The entire purpose of this system is to take an expense off the shoulders of the middle class, so that the middle class can spend their hard earned money on something that stimulates the domestic economy (preferably houses).

Saving the average family $16,000-22,000 a year on health insurance would go a long way to solving the lopsided capital distribution affecting our economy.
 
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