Correspondent of the Day: We Can All Pay for One Another
We Can All Pay For One Another
Editor, Times-Dispatch: To partially explain his opposition to the health care bill HR 3200, Correspondent of the Day Charlie Crowder ["Single-Payer Option Is the Sticking Point"], wrote his full calculation showing how it will take an individual 31,000 years of nonstop work to pay for the $1 trillion price tag.
His approach sums up exactly what's wrong with today's conservative thought -- namely that it's all about the individual.
It is ironic that these are the same people who are constantly shouting how much they love their country, yet they consider themselves one-person islands instead of part of the community that is the United States of America.
Here's how I look at the trillion-dollar price tag: It covers a period of 10 years, so we're really talking $100 billion a year. Divide that by the roughly 300 million American citizens and you come up with $333 per person.
That means every single American can have health care if we all pitch in $333 extra each year. That means nobody will go bankrupt because of disease if we all pitch in $333 extra each year. That means if you lose your job, you won't be without health care if we all pitch in $333 extra each year. That is the power of living in a country, a true community, where we can put aside our petty differences and all take small steps to help the country and every one of our fellow citizens.
Brad Barrett.
Richmond.
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Supposedly we who have health insurance are paying $1000 a year more to cover those who do not pay for their own insurance, either because they can’t or they won’t. $333 is less than $1000. I think we should pay more taxes and less for insurance and have everyone covered.
wy-I believe that the government is a tool for getting things done.
But like any good tool it is not fashioned to handle every job equally well.
It is well constructed for running the military for example and totally unsuited for running any kind of effecient health care program.
The bankrupt and red tape snarled Medicaid and Medicare come to mind.
We need to have the insurance companies compete against each other not against the government.
I have looked at the U.K. and Canada exhaustively. I have friends living under both and lived for a time under one myself and believe me I will take our CARE any day if not the cost.
Actually both systems are gearing closer to our system because neither have been able to contain the costs.
Having insurance accessability does not guarantee good care.
They both reportedly live longer according to the WHO numbers and if you want to know “what gives” take a look at how different countries report their numbers.
When the murders and accidents that the US reports are factored out we come in closer to the top than 37th.
And more Canadians and Brits have private insurance and supplement by coming to the US for certain treatments.
Sure makes the numbers look better.
I don’t believe that a public option is a viable solution.
Trust busting the insurance companies might work…
Greta,
Your post gets to the heart of the matter. The difference here, I believe, is two different philosophies of government.
The first believes that government is something to be feared and not given trust. The second believes that government is a tool for getting things done.
The problem with the first philosophy is that it provokes a reaction that is too quick to discard good ideas simply because they would be implemented via government administration.
As Deng Xiaoping (The Chinese leader who set China upon the path of reform) famously said, “it doesn’t matter where it’s a black cat or a white cat, so long as it catches mice.“ The same holds true with healthcare, if it can save money and deliver effective care -it doesn’t matter whether the plan originates in the public or private sector.
A government proposal can save money. Look at the U.K. and Canada. Both have socialized medicine. They spend much less of their gross domestic product on healthcare (10% and 8% respectively - whereas we spend 17%) and achievement equal to or better results than we do. Simply put, their people are living longer, healthier lives than our own and they are spending less per person than we are. What gives?
I realize that you were citing Mr. Barrett’s numbers.
But does anyone actually believe for one moment that anybody is going to save money on any proposal that the government comes up with?
Many of you are thinking of the $333 in the wrong light. It really isn’t $333 extra. You have to take into account that you will not be paying your health insurance premium.
Remember, if you have an individual policy you do see what your premium costs you each month. Also remember that if you have coverage through your employer, you are still paying for it. You just don’t notice because it is taken out of your pay before you see your check.
For a family of four, through employer based coverage, the average family incurs $13,000 of premium costs (http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml).Under what Mr. Barrett describes, a family of four would only be paying $1,332. That’s over $11,000 saved.
Saving money - now there’s a principle we can all get behind.
Kumbaya Brad? The government wastes enough of my money via taxes to fund a great deal of things I don’t approve of - so please leave what little is left alone. I give a great deal more than $333 yearly to my church, charities, and medical research - and a lot of brave men and women died for my right to choose those causes. Health care is not an entitlement - yet. So if Mr. Barrett choose to give his $333 or $666 or whatever to fund health care for someone else he’s welcome to do so. Just don’t mandate me to do the same.
Unfortunately, about 40% of Americans don’t pay taxes (income taxes at least), so it wouldn’t be $333 per person. Therefore, there would about 180 billion American taxpayers paying the approximately $100 billion/year at a cost of $555 per person/year.
Can you afford it?
The fact that there are citizens who actually believe that and write that “exactly what’s wrong with conservative thought-namely that it’s all about the individual.“
Individualism is what made America great and is what has kept it great.
Immigrants that came from countries where everyone spoke tha same language,
practiced the same religion and had well defined class descrimination came to this country and learned that they could co-exist with people of all classes and colors. Assimilation was desirable but not demanded.
Man’s best contribution to society at large is his ability to take full responsibility for himself and his own family. In this country he is entitled to the rewards for his labor.
He is free to be as generous to his neighbors as his nature decrees. At least he was until this peculiar and creepy 60’s style “commune” mentality started to re-emerge.
It didn’t grab hold back then and it won’t today. Because it does not suit Americans at all.
Feel free Mr. Barrett to “pitch” your $$333 anywhere you please. I will do the same.
This is America after all!
BTW that trillion dollar price tag is just the first down payment.
Barrett’s approach sums up exactly what’s wrong with today’s liberal thought – namely that it’s all about mischaracterizing conservative thought in order to demonize the individuals. No, Mr. Barrett, you can’t just take one element of a political philosophy, apply your own definition to it, and then charge up the rhetorical hill as if it were an act of bravery. The straw man argument is so tedious, so transparently false, yet liberals rely on it with distressing regularity.
I am a libertarian conservative who indeed believes strongly in the principle of individual freedom while also believing strongly in a government that is limited in scope – not absent in scope. The limitations, in general, preclude the magnitude of cost, intervention in the marketplace and unintended consequences that will result from the health care legislation that Democrats want to stampede through Congress.
But to the substance of Mr. Barrett’s argument: Dividing the total cost equally among the population ignores one timeless mechanism at the heart of left-wing philosophy, which is government management of income redistribution. The additional costs of nationalized health care will NOT be shared equally by all citizens – they will be borne disproportionately by those who, in the opinion of liberals, have benefitted unfairly from life’s lottery. For the sake of example, use the distribution of all Federal income taxes. The top 25% of income earners pay just under 87% of taxes. Yet even this progressive distribution is grossly unfair to those on the left, to the point of calling it “social injustice.” If you think that the added cost of health care legislation isn’t going to be redistributed to taxpayers along the same lines, you live in utopian denial.
The problem is that some of us simply can’t afford the extra $333 and their contribution will be paid for by another. Considering the huge disparity of wealth in this country, we aren’t talking about a wealthy person paying $999 to “cover his brothers.“ He’s going to be paying $9,999.
I think that’s the fear the wealthy have on the plan. I think they feel they already pay too much as it is. I’m only guessing at that though - I certainly don’t know the feeling.
I wish they would come out and say it instead of using their media outlets to whip up the more gullible among us into the frenzy that drives this debate. Its embarrassing and beneath us.
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