The wealth tax is back. We have previously discussed the constitutional and policy concerns surrounding the push by Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) to introduce a wealth tax that would start with billionaires. It would not likely end there. The law would also apply the same type of California approach to wealthy families fleeing the tax grab with a huge “exit tax” so that there is no escaping from tax vortex. In addition, under the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, Warren and others would add $100 billion to increase tax audit and investigations.
The captivity tax highlights the wealth-redistribution mindset underlying Warren’s “experiment.” Warren thrilled audiences for years by telling the rich she was coming after “your Rembrandts, your stock portfolio, your diamonds and your yachts.” In one Democratic debate, she got applause by rubbing her hands together after stating that she would take some of the wealth of fellow candidate John Delaney, a self-made millionaire worth $65 million. She has now made good on that threat.
The reintroduction of Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act would add a 2% tax on households worth $50 million to $1 billion and a 3% tax on households worth more than $1 billion.
Warren is again repeating that talking point of President Joe Biden that billionaires pay less than the average citizen in taxes. That has been repeatedly challenged. The claim is based on dubious accounting. A commonly cited White House study from September, 2021 included unrealized capital gains in its analysis – something that neither wealthy nor middle class citizens are taxed on. Warren and Biden want that to change but it is a false measure on the current tax burden.
It is also worth noting that “the top 1 percent’s income share rose from 22.2 percent in 2020 to 26.3 percent in 2021 and its share of federal income taxes paid rose from 42.3 percent to 45.8 percent.” The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent federal income taxes,. The bottom 50 percent paid the only 2.3 percent.
We previously discussed the push in California to impose a retroactive tax on the many citizens and companies fleeing that state due to its high taxes and other problems. Warren wants to do the same nationally. So if businesses are fleeing the country due to these policies, they would have to essentially pay for the freedom in a type of captivity tax. It is incredibly short-sighted. We need these businesses and we will not be able to coerce them into saying by trying to make it more expensive to leave. Indeed, the captivity tax only magnifies the impression of a tax system that is becoming an extension of the eat-the-rich rhetoric used by Warren and others.
Politicians have long turned to the “Eat the rich!” battle cry when things are not working out politically or economically. When struggling in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pledged a wealth tax, declaring that she was coming after “the diamonds, the yachts, and the Rembrandts too.” Then-New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio, another Democratic contender at the time, was barely registering in the polls when he promised that “we will tax the hell out of the wealthy.”
The Warren proposal would turn the eat-you-rich rhetoric to an all-you-can eat tax plan for the government.
There are major constitutional concerns raised by the plan to tax unrealized capital gains. However, this is clearly playing well with much of the base of the party.
The Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania did find that Warren’s legislation would raise $2.7 trillion in revenue but it would also reduce capital by 3.1%, depress average hourly wages by 1.2% and reduce gross domestic product (GDP) by 1.2% in 2050.
The purpose of constitutional bars to this type of nonsense is to prevent complete self destructive idiocy.
While the rule of law and adherance to the constitution is incredibly important.
The constitutional problems to Warrens ideas can be overcome by amending the constitution.
The total complete destructive stupidity of these idea can not be overcome at all.
All too often we forget that the actual foundation of our constitution and our legal system is thousands of years of trial and error trying to determine what actually works and what does not.
We talk about rights. But the real core to the concept of constitutional rights is that past experience has taught us that infringing on liberty – some liberties specifically has dire negative consequences.
Where the —- is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court, which is high-criminally negligent and derelict by omission in its failure to declare acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.
On April 27, 1861, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus between Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia to give military authorities the necessary power to silence dissenters and rebels.
Apropos of no formality or procedure, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney immediately wrote Lincoln a letter informing him that his actions were unconstitutional.
To wit,
“The clause in the Constitution which authorizes the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is in the ninth section of the first article. This article is devoted to the Legislative Department of the United States, and has not the slightest reference to the Executive Department.”
“I can see no ground whatever for supposing that the President in any emergency or in any state of things can authorize the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or arrest a citizen except in aid of the judicial power.”
“I have exercised all the power which the Constitution and laws confer on me, but that power has been resisted by a force too strong for me to overcome.”
– Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, May 28, 1861
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Congress may tax for ONLY debt, defense, and general Welfare, (i.e. all well proceed, meaning basic infrastructure).
Congress may tax ONLY employing uniform, standardized, and invariable methodology.
Congress has no citable power or authority to take and give “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
Congress has no citable power or authority to selectively take from producers and hosts in order to give to dependents and parasites.
Elizabeth Warren is an anti-American, anti-Constitution, communist, and a direct and mortal enemy of the American thesis of Freedom and Self-Reliance, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, actual Americans, and America.
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Article I, Section 8
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;…
“WHAT THE —- DID YOU IRRESOLUTE, DASTARDLY, BLEEDING-HEART MILQUETOASTS DO WITH OUR COUNTRY?”,
George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, George Mason, John Adams, Richard Henry Lee, John Hancock, Roger Sherman, Samuel Adams et al.
There was a similar tax based on envy that decimated the American luxury shipbuilding industry. It was the luxury boat tax that wiped out a two hundred year old industry. Instead of generating the revenue promised, the wealthy just bought their yachts from other countries, and registered them there. In a year, the entire yacht shipbuilding industry was destroyed, and people were out of work. Master craftsmen, skilled and unskilled laborers, draftsmen, marine engineers, naval architects, and dockworkers, all went on unemployment. Of course, there is no unemployment for small business owners. They were just out of luck.
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/the-lesson-of-economic-damage-from-taxing-the-rich-with-the-punitive-luxury-tax-in-the-1990s/
I think Donald Trump should pay a lot more than $750 per year in taxes as I know I pay a lot more than that. Until he does, I do not consider the rich like him to be overtaxed.
Please do not consider a loss write-off as the rich not paying taxes. When someone’s businesses take a loss, that loss gets carried over. It’s in the tax law, and it benefits small businesses, as well.
You need to consider how much total taxes Donald Trump pays, each year, before, during, and after losses, to get an accurate picture of his tax contribution. You also need to consider all sources of taxes, including income and investments.
It is most unfortunate that activists zero in on one tax, or one moment of time, and then make sweeping declarations that the rich don’t pay taxes. Even Bill Maher said “the rich pay the freight in California.”
The idea that the rich don’t pay their fare share of taxes is utter baloney, not to put too fine a point on it.
The poor pay no taxes other than sales tax. Yet they use the infrastructure that the rich and middle class built. The wealthy and middle class don’t mind the poor using roads, bridges, and schools, but they do vehemently mind when people who pay virtually nothing for infrastructure, complain that those who built that infrastructure didn’t do enough.
If you’re going to start heavily taxing investments, as it constitutes a significant percentage of income of the wealthy, then it would destroy 401K, IRA, and all the economic activity reliant upon those investments.
https://www.federalbudgetinpictures.com/do-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2023-update/
taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/rich-pay-their-fair-share-of-taxes/
A wealth tax punishes success, which creates less of it.
You cannot lift the poor up by holding the successful back. All you achieve is more poverty. The way to improve the lives of the poor is through improving education opportunities, job opportunities, and a ladder to climb. You accomplish that by allowing people to succeed.
Ultra successful people are in the minority, but the effect they have on economies is staggering. They create companies, with a strata of jobs from unskilled to skilled. There is upward mobility within the companies. They generate massive tax revenue, not only from their own income and investments, but from all the people they employ, and the goods and services they sell, and purchase. They also donate to philanthropic causes.
The envious will say it’s unfair that someone like Elon Musk could be so successful. If he was not allowed to succeed, he would not have created, bought, or owned Tesla, Space X, The Boring Company, SolarCity, Neuralink, Zip2, Twitter, OpenAI, PayPal, X.com, Tesla Energy, NeuroVigil, Inc, DeepMind, xAI, or the Musk Foundation.
When Musk was a college student, he used to run an underground club in his apartment with his roommates, charging admission. He painted his desk black, with designs that showed up under blacklight, and then he sold that, too, when he needed money. Along with his siblings and cousins, he used to come up with ideas to make money as kids, when his divorcee mother had to move them in with relatives.
Instead of jealously trying to destroy success, we should foster more of it.
@Karen
Very respectfully, no, what we are talking about here is generational wealth, to whit, aristocracy, and the people proposing this nonsense are the people that benefit from it. That woke idiots like AOC don’t see that is a failure of another kind, and AOC was ‘poor’ in the way that up is down. Prior to her birth, before immigration law was Swiss cheese, people that could afford to come to America from other countries were already very, very privileged (and that is not to say that was backward). Really: after the web 1.0 boom, and then after the web 2.0 boom, and considering that a lot of these folks, like Warren, started out wealthy beyond measure and decided that other cultures were a toy for her to play with, like a very expensive doll that ‘regular’ folks don’t even know exits, because she was raised to believe that; what we are really talking about is whether or not we would like to have a caste society, like India. No. No we do not. These people can go to hell. Argue for sanity, but be sure you are actually arguing for sanity. There is not a shred of that remaining on the modern left, across continents, in any country, on earth. And if you think the young people lead the way: enjoy never, ever, getting to retire or getting your kids out of your house. Enjoy not being able to made a correctly made coffee drink at Starbuck’s. Wake the eff up.
How much could the U.S. recoup if it controlled just ILLEGAL immigration?
Try $150 Billion, -each year, -according to Newsweek:
“The FAIR study, released in March last year [2023], documented the financial toll of illegal immigration on the U.S., taking into account factors like emergency medical care, incarcerating illegal aliens in local jails, and federal budgets that pay out billions in welfare every year, pegging the net annual cost at $150.7 billion.”
https://www.newsweek.com/illegal-immigration-costs-us-billions-biden-administration-policy-impact-taxpayer-burden-1866555
Tax the wealthy who are leaving, to pay for illegals (and grateful future voters) coming in. Sounds like wealth (and political) redistribution to me.
In 2021 the feds spent 6.8 Trillion
In 2021 the feds collected 2 trillion in income tax – THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE ARGUING OVER, LESS THAN 1/3RD OF WHAT YOUR GOV SPENDS
In 2021 the feds collected 4 trillion total in all revenues.
In 2021 the feds increased the debt by 2.8 trillion, more than all income taxes collected, they overspent.
People used to believe and some still do that income taxes is what solely funds the government.
Congress may tax for ONLY debt, defense, and general Welfare, (i.e. all well proceed, meaning basic infrastructure).
Congress may tax ONLY employing uniform, standardized, and invariable methodology.
Congress has no citable power or authority to take and give “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
Congress has no citable power or authority to selectively take from producers and hosts in order to give to dependents and parasites.
Elizabeth Warren is an anti-American, anti-Constitution, communist, and a direct and mortal enemy of the American thesis of Freedom and Self-Reliance, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, actual Americans, and America.
___________________________________
Article I, Section 8
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;…
KNOW THE ENEMY
SUCCUMB NO LONGER
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War
2.7 trillion is a drop in the bucket, they are spending an extra trillion every 100 days, so not even one years worth of the excessive idiocy of Warren and her cabal. What will she steal after 270 days to continue to pay for her largess ?
How about we take away 270 trillion from Liz and her colleagues in the next 270 days ?
HELP!!!
Jonathan: I’ll get to your column about Sen. Warren’s wealth tax but first some breaking news. It looks like DJT has finally dumped Alina Habba! That’s right. It may be due to the fact Habba lost both of the E. Jean Carrol cases and she made a mess of the case before Judge Engoron resulting in the $464 million judgment against her client. Or the reason DJT is dumping Habba might be due to some recent court filings in another case that has not been given wide notice. The case involves a maid who worked at DJT’s golf resort at Bedminster in 2021. Her name is Alice Bianco.
In 2021 Bianco filed a complaint with management at Bedminster about continued sexual harassment by a supervisor. Alina was a member of the club. Her law office was just down the street from Bedminster and she was trying to get access to DJT for some legal business. Although DJT was not a client at the time Alina offered to step in and help him try to resolve Bianco’s claim. And how did Alina resolve Bianco’s claim for DJT?
Habba approached Bianco saying “I’m your friend and I’ll help you. Although Bianco was represented by an attorney Habba disparaged the attorney and got Bianco to fire her attorney. The first violation of attorney ethics. Then Habba tricked Bianco into accepting a paltry $15,000 settlement with an NDA. NDAs are illegal in New Jersey. Second problem for Alina.
Fast forward. Bianco now has a new attorney and DJT has agreed to a partial settlement of Bianco’s claim–paying $80,000 in Bianco’s legal fees to date but allowing Bianco to proceed with her other claims against the club. What is interesting is that Habba was not included in the settlement agreement. So Bianco is free to sue Habba independently which says a whole lot about how DJT treats attorneys that are no longer useful to him.
Bianco’s new attorney stated in a court filing: “Working secretly to help defendant [Habba] and Donald Trump, Ms. Habba fraudulently induced Ms. Bianco to agree to a paltry settlement for a quid pro quo sexual harassment case and included in the settlement agreement drafted by her law firm illegal terms that violate New Jersey law about non-disclosure agreements”.
Alina Habba is in a lot of legal trouble. She is being sued for engaging in a fraudulent settlement and she will probably lose her law license. And DJT has thrown Habba under the bus and I wouldn’t expect to see Habba representing DJT in future cases. And there is a cautionary note for attorneys who are thinking of representing DJT: Make sure you have a lot of malpractice insurance!
@Dennis
Opinions, though you and I (thank the Gods) are free to share them, are not facts. This seems to be something you struggle with. Objective reality really doesn’t care what any of us think, but by all means, keep on truckin’, Dennis.
James: What in my comment did not involve the “facts”? Please explain. Did Alice Bianco file a sexual complaint or not? Did Alina Habba get her to agree to a settlement that violated NJ law or not? Was Habba excluded from the recent settlement agreement or not? You are like others on this blog. When you don’t like the facts you claim they are “opinions”. My comment was intended to point out the obvious–“MAGA” stands for “Making Attorneys Get Attorneys”. That’s also a “fact”!
Is your posting on nothing to do with Professor Turley’s article up on your site as well?
EconIsEasy: See my latest comment for the answer to your Q!
Dennis McIntyre’s Latest Desperate Deflection via BBBUUUTTT… Muh Trump!
Jonathan: I’ll get to your column about Sen. Warren’s wealth tax but first some breaking news. It looks like DJT has finally dumped Alina Habba! That’s right.
Mr. Turley’s close personal friend (first name basis, ya know!) is at it again… anyone amazed?
Ah… Dennis’s fraudulent interest in lawyers! Any breaking news on Biden’s police state fascist in Georgia, Fani Willis, Dennis? The hoe who spent nearly a million dollars of taxpayer money on her stud who’d barely prosecuted a traffic ticket before?
https://townhall.com/political-cartoons/afbranco/2024/03/13/203994
https://townhall.com/political-cartoons/afbranco/2024/02/23/203636
Has Georgia indicted your favorite Georgia lawyer for perjury yet, Dennis? And will the Georgia Democrats dump both Ho Willis, her taxpayer funded stud/alleged lawyer, and her fraudulent indictments?
Elizabeth Warren has obviously never heard of Hauser’s Law of Economics…..
If they were to enact a balanced budget mandate – either statutorily or through constitutional amendment – new taxes would be more palatable. Without that requirement, any tax hike is self-defeating. It’s not only that some taxes actually depress revenues. Even if we start with the assumption that revenues will be increased, the spenders in DC will just feel that much freer to increase expenditures by the same amount, so it won’t help balance the budget.
NO!
Taxes should be CUT dramatically, and Spending even more.
We should stop pissing money down a dry hole.,
Government is UNPRODUCTIVE.
Robert Barro the #4 ranked IDEAS RESPEC economist in the world maintains a database of global government spending.
His research has found that for ever $1 that government spends that $0.25-$0.35 in Value is created.
That means $0.65-0.75 is Wasted.
If you use a $10T economy as a base – with governemnt at $4T.
That means govenrment wastes $3t/year and that just to break even the rest of the economy must produce $1.5 in value for every $1 spent.
Look at actual government.
While our local governments suck.
They still provide most of out roads. our schools, our civil and criminal justice system.
Yet our total local taxes are a tiny portion of our total Taxes.
We get far less from the state – and they typically cost about twice what local govenrment does.
We get even less still from the federal govenrment – and they cost about 5 times what the state does.
We need very little of what the federal government does.
What would you cut? DoD? DHS? DOJ?
What would you cut?
Those Functions not enumerated by the Constitution.
You start with “NO!” but then you don’t disagree with anything I said. Kindly think a little before reacting.
I am not so sure that raising capital is a great idea. Kind of depends on how it is spent. Let me give you an example. BlackHeart Hedge Fund has some extra capital, and wishes to invest it where it can make a poop-pot full of return! So, they buy out Bob’s Trailer Park, in Omaha, Nebraska! They raise the lot rents from $350 per month to $650 per month! (I think they call that price discovery.)
It is a big thing:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/15/what-happens-when-investment-firms-acquire-trailer-parks
What fraudulent gains realized/unrealized did Warren enjoy for years disguised as an American Indian? Shouldn’t she be held accountable?
A quick back of envelope thought. Barron’s estimates the U.S. Net Wealth at over $135 Trillion, a proposed tax on worth at .02% would equal a taxation of +/- $2.7 Trillion. The proposed budget for the coming year is estimated in excess of $6 Trillion, to equal a balanced budget for the next year would require a tax of .045%. Is an increased valuation of asset of .045% realistic when we are experiencing an inflationary cycle of more than .03%?
With respect – back of envelope calculations such as these done not work.
Value is subjective. If you tax wealth – the value of wealth will drop.
Further the incentive to create wealth will decline.
Which brings the next question – what is wealth ?
Musk as an example is worth 400B.
99.99% of that is the value of the companies he owns.
When you tax wealth – you are not primarily taxing yacths and vacation homes, and Gulf V Jets.
You are taxing factories.
When you tax anything – you get less.
Do you actually want less Telsa’s and Amazon’s and Microsofts, or even less corner grocery stories.
Because nearly all that Wealth is the assets that produce the commondites that are our standard of living.
Less Amazon – means less of the things we get from Amazon.
Nor can you pretend – well someone else will step in – you have not created a vaccuum.
You have actually reduced the wealth of the nation.
Adam Smith provided the recipe for peace and prosperity over 200 years ago.
Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
John Say
I wasn’t trying to advocate, just making example of the stupidly of taxing worth. Under the proposed legislation, worth would eventually decline due to inflationary movements forcing currency values to also decline, the vortex would eventually spin to oblivion.
They could have raised an extra $2T a year in taxes without ever having to hike taxes, and they still can. How? Stop spending so much on ridiculous things. Stop having serial $2T deficits year after year. Stop sending hundreds of billions to other countries to keep the pointless forever wars going.
When you consider all the interest we’re now paying on the national debt, an ounce of spending discipline is worth a pound of tax raising.
Why doesn’t she just go away? I am from Massachusetts and I apologize for her being in the Senate.
If you didn’t vote for her, you’ve done nothing wrong. In fact, you’re then a victim of your fellow Massachusetts voters.
I spent four years in Boston and I love MA, the Charles River, the Esplanade, the Boston Pops . . . but the voting habits of the residents there are atrocious.
And of course the likes of Warren and Pelosi would be exempt. It is impossible to take these people seriously, and the poverty angle is getting very tiresome, as though these people rub elbows with everyone else anyway, which they don’t, including her lily white a**. Yes, money helps, they know that better than anyone 🙄, but it’s not the entire equation. The logic is simplistic to the point of being juvenile. It is clear Warren grew up in a bubble of privilege herself, and she can go to *bleeep*. Not a solution.
So the leftist have forever screamed that we should take more money from the rich through more taxation. Then after they’ve raised taxes in blue states the quality of education has continually gotten worse. Have you ever heard of Warren telling the poor that they should become more concerned with arriving to work on time or paying more attention to the teachers who are trying to help them to have a better future. It’ll be a cold day in hell when Pocahontas Warren makes these recommendations. She’s perfectly satisfied to dip into the government coffers if she’s the one getting special treatment for claiming that she’s something that she isn’t. When she’s done the only thing that you’ll be eating for every meal is Pow Wow Chow.
Warren has around the lowest IQ of anyone in the Senate.
Mr Floyd was right in one particular area. A national health plan could be a major benefit to the nation’s economy. Especially if you used the plan set up by Germany in 1883 and since modified on occasion. All people must use it especially, if the income is under 60,000 euros per year. Those earning over 60,000 euros can buy private insurance but most stay in the private/public plan. Private plans are usually less expensive for people under the age of 55 but gets higher than the public/private plans over 55. People must decide at age 55 if they want to stay in an all-private plan or the public-private plan because there is no switching after age 55. In the public-private plan all employees pay approx 7.7% of their income and their employer pays 8.3% on latest data. If you are in the public-private you get your choice of insurance plans (called sick funds) and they contract with physicians (who are private and usually self employed. The funds also contract with hospitals that can be run by trusts, not for profit or for profit. Unemployed are usually paid for by local and state taxes. Drugs, physicians fees, hospital fees, copays and insurance plans are regulated within a target range.
Usually a cost of 11-12% of GDP vs up to 18% in USA. Quality is as good as in the USA but everyone gets that quality..
All the infrastructure is here for the same plan in the US but you must have mandatory enrollment of everyone and the flow of money is more formal and regulated as to where it goes.
Not perfect but very close to very, very good.
The main thing is to teach a societal lesson. Rich pay for the poor, young pay for the old and healthy pay for the sick and everybody is in the boat. That was what we should have had instead of Obamacare.
As a physician I have helped create and run a profitable HMO that was cheaper than Not for Profit plans and often led our state in performance as rated by patients. Also was a Chief of Medicine and head of utilization management for a Kaiser Health Plan.
Designing a plan is only about 20-25% of the work, managing it successfully and being willing to make changes quickly when needed is the other 75%.
Medicine as we know it defeats the efficiency and cost savings of capitalism because there are too many local monopolies of physicians and hospitals. Unfortunately there must be regulation to some extent.
Yes, and I have not heard of a “starving doctor” problem in Europe. They should be paid well, and currently, a lot of money is siphoned out of the system by paper pushers. Another thing that I have read, is that unionization works well in Germany, and is not abused as it is here in the U S.
Floyd, at least in previous years, most persons who could get accepted to an American medical school could get a much higher-paying job on Wall Street or elsewhere. If anything, we were wasting many physicians’ abilities that would better serve the nation by promoting technological advancement and discovery. Therefore, people should stop worrying about physician salaries, which, if reduced, would barely be noticeable in the national healthcare expenses, and consider more critical thought as to where a person with such abilities could better direct their talent. Our medical system is wasting not only money but also talent.
There are many reasons for medical costs to be as high as they are in the US. Compare the size of homes or TV sets in America to those in Europe. Doing so explains a lot. However, there are other reasons, and one of the most significant reasons is that we are overinsured. Many people will say the second reason is absurd, but it is entirely on the mark.
“Mr Floyd was right in one particular area. A national health plan could be a major benefit to the nation’s economy.”
GEB, admittedly, the German plan is probably better than Obamacare, which is little more than a skeleton that costs a lot and functions poorly. The Swiss plan is much better, but why should the government make the plan? Why shouldn’t people choose like they do when buying food, housing, and clothing? Can the government do a better job purchasing those things than the individual? If not, why do you think healthcare is so different?
Since the idea of paying for one’s own needs is so difficult for many to understand, I will simplify the discussion by assuming we have the base-level Medicaid safety net and adding that one can use Medicaid and one’s own money to move from Medicaid into a private insurance policy. That would be similar to the German plan, except that not just the rich could choose a private plan.
“Since the idea of paying for one’s own needs is so difficult for many to understand,”
It is difficult to understand, because we have no idea what our needs are going to or how much they are going to cost. It is not like insuring your car, for collision. You know what your car cost, and you know how much you owe the lien holder, so you kind of know how much insurance to carry, and what deductible you can afford. But you don’t know these things when it comes to your body, and the medical industry is all over the place on price. A broken arm can be $4000, or it could be $20,000. Who knows? And any kind of insurance adds to the underlying cost, because it takes money to run an insurance company.
So why not socialize the cost of health care? That does not mean that it becomes free, because like in Germany, you pay a percent of your salary for coverage. But it does mean that each individual person does not have to pay insurance based on the worst that can happen – that contingency is covered in the overall cost. That also lowers your automobile insurance, because the auto insurance company no longer has to pay medical bills as part of its coverage. That means that you do not have to take bankruptcy if you have a heart attack or cancer. Plus, it levels the playing field for employers. They no longer have to decide whether to pay for a company insurance plan, and they do not have to give out 28 hour work weeks to keep people off the company insurance plan, as they do now.
Other countries do it, and so can we, but it is going to wring a lot of extra costs out of the system, and that means some people/businesses make less money. That is why we haven’t done it yet – because too many people make too much money off the chaos and confusion. If the Germans and Australians can do it, if France can do it, if Sweden can do it, so can we. It ain’t that hard.