REVIEWED: Senator Warren's Health Care Plan - SUMMARY

[plugger]

This, comments, and discussion also on Reddit:
Reddit Health Care Plan SUMMARY
Reddit Front Page

Senator Warren's Health Care Plan:
Health Care Plan

WOW!!  This plan was better than I could have expected!  It would eliminate premiums, deductibles, copays, and most out-of-pocket spending - and the average family would be saving $12,400 a year!  I had to wonder if it was even plausible at first!  But if Senator Warren could get it through congress, it does look like she can find the money to pay for it.  And according to her experts it would come at a cost LESS than the projected total cost of health care spending in the U.S. in 10 years:

"We estimate that your (Senator Warren's) Medicare for All plan will decrease NHE (National Health Expenditures - total health care spending) to just under the $52 trillion projected under current law for the ten-year period from 2020-2029 and will require new federal spending of approximately $20.5 trillion (not the 34 trillion the flawed Urban Institue study claims) over the 2020-2029 budget window."  Again, the TOTAL spending on health care actually goes down!  Federal spending goes up mainly because things like health insurance would be a thing of the past!
Elizabeth Warren's experts analysis
*note - read more about the Urban Institute's $34 trillion flawed study

But let's take a look at where that $20.5 trillion would come from:

$8.8 trillion ---------- from employers already paying for some their employees' health care premiums, now paid to Medicare (a savings for the employer)
$1.15 trillion --------- taxes from employees' higher incomes (average family would get a $12,400 raise!)
$0.25 trillion --------- no tax break for HSAs, medical expenses
$2.3  trillion --------- better irs tax enforcement
$0.8 trillion ---------- tax on financial transactions of stocks, bonds, and deriviaties
$0.1 trillion ---------- fee on big banks
$2.9  trillion --------- from large corporations
--------------------------$1.25 trillion, business depreciation tax reform
--------------------------$1.65  trillion,from American companies with foreign headquarters
$3.0  trillion --------- from the 1%, 2 cent tax on every dollar on fortunes over $50 million, 3 cents for over $1 billion
$1.0  trillion --------- 6 cents on every dollar from billionaires
$2.0  trillion --------- capitol gains taxed annually for the 1%
$0.4  trillion --------- from immigration reform
$0.8  trillion --------- from defense slush fund

+__________________________

$23.5 Trillion - well over the 20.5 trillion needed

[plugger]

I will add I'm wondering if the extra $20.5 trillion increase in federal spending over 10 years might still be too high an estimate!  Compared to other countries with single-payer or something similar we are paying a whole lot more for health care than they are as a percentage of gross domestic product.  With medicare as the only health care payer, seems they would be able to negotiate fairer prices from our over-priced health care system.

After observing the goings-on in kidney dialysis for almost 20 years I've seen up close and personal how an area of medicine can get away with overcharging for some pretty terrible care.  When my relative was on dialysis my private insurance was getting gouged, while medicare seemed to be the one holding down costs.  I used to say money wasn't a problem in dialysis - I was wrong, I decided there was too much money in dialysis!  It seemed to be attracting the wrong types of people.