Thread for Leftist Hypocrisy and Other Immoral Behavior.

Originally posted by darthgoober
I've heard that it turns out that UHC actually will save money, and I'm curious as to how exactly? Does Bernie's plan actually mean that EVERYONE'S taxes goes down? I mean if so, how the Hell does that work? Why would Republicans oppose such a thing if it means all their taxes goes down too?

Sort of. More like the average costs of healthcare on Bernie's overly inflated idea would still cost less than even the most liberal of estimates of current system vs. Bernie's system.

However, Snowdragon had an idea when I was talking about this and that was to do cost-sharing. And he also just posted a summary of France. France beats us in almost every healthcare performance category while costing the French less than half of our costs. It's not like France is some crap-shithole country, either.

I'll find the posts. I went through the numbers with DS0. I allowed DS0 to move the goalposts many times over and still showed Bernie's costly plan still costs less than the current system. ALSO...I still have the Excel spreadsheet where I did all the math, too! 😄

Originally posted by dadudemon
Wow, I did not know the cost-share was so large.

The cost-sharing thing was your idea to help offset the costs of a medicare-for-all solution, the last time we talked, and I thought it was a great idea.

But now that I've read this about France...

That seems like a brilliant idea. Why aren't we doing this? No wonder France has us beat in healthcare performance metrics at less than half the costs.

Also, it doesn't gut our health insurance industry going to this kind of system. Lots of people are worried about this because our health insurance companies are more than just health insurance (multinational conglomerates).

Hmmm...

If there are no drawbacks compared to the current system and only benefits, why aren't we doing this?

Also, your plan/idea is better than Bernie's. We should go with yours if we want this to be financially feasible on a fast time-scale.

I didn't post it but they also have a plan that covers people in their country as part of their system in place:

In 2016, the French government implemented a new French healthcare system for foreigners known as the Protection Universelle Maladie (PUMA), replacing the previous Couverture Maladie Universelle (CMU) system. The reform is aimed at simplifying the French healthcare system and reducing paperwork, as well as guarantees that everyone who works or lives permanently in France (longer than three months) will have access to French healthcare and reimbursements. In addition, since the end of 2017, doctors and certain medical personnel have to waive upfront payments and be paid directly by the government or health insurer, unlike the system now where some patients pay upfront for their French healthcare services and make a claim later.

I'm not sure how well this would work in the USA since we have far far more immigrants and folks here illegally.

French Healthcare

Originally posted by dadudemon
Sort of. More like the average costs of healthcare on Bernie's overly inflated idea would still cost less than even the most liberal of estimates of current system vs. Bernie's system.

However, Snowdragon had an idea when I was talking about this and that was to do cost-sharing. And he also just posted a summary of France. France beats us in almost every healthcare performance category while costing the French less than half of our costs. It's not like France is some crap-shithole country, either.

I'll find the posts. I went through the numbers with DS0. I allowed DS0 to move the goalposts many times over and still showed Bernie's costly plan still costs less than the current system. ALSO...I still have the Excel spreadsheet where I did all the math, too! 😄

Here is how I broke the numbers down:

Actual costs of healthcare under the current plan (my estimates were significantly better than the studies because they didn't account for inflation and one or two other variables like I did...which seemed to have blown DS0's mind that a person on the internet can create more accurate estimates than economists from research institutes):

Originally posted by dadudemon
Here is how actual projected costs play out, by year going back from 2031:

7,306,045,847,918
6,966,221,531,710
6,641,098,669,293
6,184,280,492,126
5,825,506,981,177
5,486,747,464,008
5,166,980,840,651
4,865,301,367,417
4,580,669,591,755
4,312,172,486,710
4,058,966,467,470
3,820,269,102,470
3,595,308,334,000

Look, I've shown my work. My numbers are directly based off of census data and per capita costs that came straight from the very website. There's no secret to what I've done. It's all right there.

And if we just take 2022-2031, that total is:

$57,335,025,272,765

Costs of healthcare under Bernie's Plan using the most liberal, highball figures out there from a credible study:

Originally posted by dadudemon
Here is it adjusted:

2772
2598
2435
2282
2080
1952
1831
1677
1614
1548

20789

32.6+20.8=53.4

Is $57 trillion > than $53.4 trillion?

Yes. Still is. 🙂

And here is a PERT calculation against the estimates of Bernie's plan to give a more realistic/accurate estimate:

Originally posted by dadudemon
...the lowball is 13.8 trillion(2017-2026) from Friedman.

The high-ball estimate is 32.6 for 2022-2031.

If you compare best performance to worst performance range, Bernie's plan still, by far, shows it is better than the current system.

If you apply a PERT calculation to these estimates and give greater weight to the pessimistic value (making it not a PERT calculation, at all), still shows a much greater favor towards Bernie's plan.

Here's the weighting I gave:

Optimistic: 1
Likely: 3
Pessimistic: 2

Value comes to $32.13 trillion.

Look, I am even being generous with the PERT estimate by giving greater weight to the pessimistic value (includes the additional 8 trillion).

No matter how you cut it up, there's no justification to ignore Bernie's plan. From here, we just need to scale it back just a little bit and increase copays for the most common services. Then implement this M4A plan ASAP.

Originally posted by snowdragon
I didn't post it but they also have a plan that covers people in their country as part of their system in place:

Yeah, we talked about this, before, about coinsurance and copays offsetting the costs. And I thought your idea was good. I'm a bit weird, dude - I remember lots of stuff:

Originally posted by snowdragon
I don't have them however when we start to talk about health reform I would prefer to get away from the analytics because to many math heads will sit there for days coming up different solutions or debunking before any real solutions can be weeded out.

I appreciate your math but the reality is to present solutions (the whys even) then work out the hows after we understand whats needed.

The question is do we need reform, yes. What do we need to provide to make that available, then we figure the costs.

I realize this is an analysis of bernie plan but that is an outlier imo.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I feel your idea (but it didn't work in the way you were presenting) about copays or coinsurance is how we can get there. Have a larger share of costs for the most commonly used services so we see a larger margin of those services shared between the individuals and the healthcare solution (I'm assuming a medicare for all solution with this suggestion).

That should offset some of the costs. I don't think we should run a program like NHS in the UK where almost no out of pocket costs ever happen for the individual. NHS - while often scored as having the best or in the top 3 for medical care, in the world - has cost issues that have plagued them for ages. They were getting things under control since around 2012, however, but I still don't think our economic model should directly match NHS. It should be something closer to what we have now but expanded to a "Medicare for All" options.

Originally posted by snowdragon
I'm not sure how well this would work in the USA since we have far far more immigrants and folks here illegally.

French Healthcare

Oh, we have a higher immigrant ratio than France? I don't know. I'll see if I can find something...

Originally posted by dadudemon
Here is how I broke the numbers down:

Actual costs of healthcare under the current plan (my estimates were significantly better than the studies because they didn't account for inflation and one or two other variables like I did...which seemed to have blown DS0's mind that a person on the internet can create more accurate estimates than economists from research institutes):

Costs of healthcare under Bernie's Plan using the most liberal, highball figures out there from a credible study:

And here is a PERT calculation against the estimates of Bernie's plan to give a more realistic/accurate estimate:

Originally posted by darthgoober
See I can get behind the general idea of UHC as long as it means that everyone's taxes goes down, but something tells me that there's a detail being missed below the surface. I can't really imagine telling the 1% that if they get behind UHC their taxes will go down and there still being opposition. If it's true than proponents seem kinda dumb for not hammering home the fact that every person and business in the country regardless of tax bracket will paying less money in taxes next year until they die if the new plan is accepted this year. Don't get me wrong because I recognize that I'm cynical and that it's very possible that such a hidden costs doesn't exist, I just have a hard time picturing such a thing.

It's due to the GOP opposing it super strongly because it's "socialism." But they are not anywhere dumb enough to take away the near-UHC solution already in place known as Medicare because they'd get tens of millions of angry older voters after them.

It's a dishonest and actually homicidal platform from the GOP. People are literally dying due to how poor healthcare is in the US and how expensive healthcare is.

Originally posted by dadudemon
It's due to the GOP opposing it super strongly because it's "socialism." But they are not anywhere dumb enough to take away the near-UHC solution already in place known as Medicare because they'd get tens of millions of angry older voters after them.

It's a dishonest and actually homicidal platform from the GOP. People are literally dying due to how poor healthcare is in the US and how expensive healthcare is.

This is a pretty fast look at world numbers you can break it down by country:

http://www.worldometers.info/

Originally posted by darthgoober
I can see the amount of money being taken going down as a whole,

Oh yeah, by a lot, actually. Even the most liberal of studies (which had many flaws) shows that there is still a significant cost savings. With a pessimistic weighting given to these studies showing that Bernie's bloated plan will end up having a cost about half of the current costs. That's telling.

Originally posted by darthgoober
...but that's not quite the same as a guarantee that it goes down for everyone. In general Bernie's all about taxing the shit out of people with money so if his plan includes raising taxes for them and corporations, I can understand why it's still facing opposition.

No, you're right. It won't go down for everyone. It is impossible for it not to. I don't quite understand how it will affect all income brackets. But what I do know is that almost all Americans would see a massive cost reduction. Also, probably the most important element of all is the cost savings to the corporations - it would be absurd how much lower healthcare benefits would be for businesses. They could offer their employees "medicare supplement" plans if medicare when UHC.

No, you're right. It won't go down for everyone. It is impossible for it not to. I don't quite understand how it will affect all income brackets. But what I do know is that almost all Americans would see a massive cost reduction. Also, probably the most important element of all is the cost savings to the corporations - it would be absurd how much lower healthcare benefits would be for businesses. They could offer their employees "medicare supplement" plans if medicare when UHC.

Less time for businesses to enroll benefits, hr staff, implementing cobra.

The real winners should be the families that have to decide if they get new tires for work or take johnny to the doctor, I think there would be intangible benefits as well as higher worker satisfaction, less stress, increase in QoL. Overall it's just a pure win if done correctly for so many reasons beyond cost/benefit.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Oh yeah, by a lot, actually. Even the most liberal of studies (which had many flaws) shows that there is still a significant cost savings. With a pessimistic weighting given to these studies showing that Bernie's bloated plan will end up having a cost about half of the current costs. That's telling.

No, you're right. It won't go down for everyone. It is impossible for it not to. I don't quite understand how it will affect all income brackets. But what I do know is that almost all Americans would see a massive cost reduction. Also, probably the most important element of all is the cost savings to the corporations - it would be absurd how much lower healthcare benefits would be for businesses. They could offer their employees "medicare supplement" plans if medicare when UHC.

Originally posted by darthgoober
See that's why he's still facing opposition. If it's really a lot cheaper then he should change it so that EVERYONE'S taxes go down. If he can't do that, then I suspect it's not actually "cheaper". I know he's all about giving poor people stuff, but if he really believes that healthcare is the most important thing then he needs to lighten up on the idealism and cut the rich guys a bit of a break too as long as it means everybody has healthcare.

Insurance carriers are super huge, I'd be willing to wager that they probably throw more money at lobbyists and govt officials than any other group.

Then you would have all the individual states having to give up their powers to control insurance in their states (which ties to my first comment.)

Yeah, that's my other big beef is too much money from businesses and their corporate interests creating the policy that is best for the companies and govt officials and not the people they are supposed to represent.

Originally posted by snowdragon
Insurance carriers are super huge, I'd be willing to wager that they probably throw more money at lobbyists and govt officials than any other group.

Then you would have all the individual states having to give up their powers to control insurance in their states (which ties to my first comment.)

Yeah, that's my other big beef is too much money from businesses and their corporate interests creating the policy that is best for the companies and govt officials and not the people they are supposed to represent.

Originally posted by snowdragon
Less time for businesses to enroll benefits, hr staff, implementing cobra.

The real winners should be the families that have to decide if they get new tires for work or take johnny to the doctor, I think there would be intangible benefits as well as higher worker satisfaction, less stress, increase in QoL. Overall it's just a pure win if done correctly for so many reasons beyond cost/benefit.

Originally posted by darthgoober
See that's why he's still facing opposition. If it's really a lot cheaper then he should change it so that EVERYONE'S taxes go down. If he can't do that, then I suspect it's not actually "cheaper". I know he's all about giving poor people stuff, but if he really believes that healthcare is the most important thing then he needs to lighten up on the idealism and cut the rich guys a bit of a break too as long as it means everybody has healthcare. Which is really a more important principal to him, "People shouldn't have ridiculous amounts of money" or "People need healthcare"?

Both of you make great points.

snowdragon thinks like an economist. darthgoober thinks like the primary income provider for a large family and a bipartisan politician. I think like a business owner. With our powers combined...we are Captain Planet!

But, no, seriously, I think we've talked through the obstacles and solutions. I think we have a good idea how to make it work and the pros and cons.

To Darth's point...if we showed how high-income earners would see a decrease in their costs (because corporations would see drastic cost reductions) through taxes and the costs of operations (employee benefits), they might get on board. Here is where I think Bernie's weakness is: he needs to pander to the corporations and medium to large business owners. He needs to show them that his plan will save them money, too. But he likes to pander to the poor and middle-class.

Perhaps a person more capable than Bernie needs to take over this plan? Someone less biased.

Originally posted by darthgoober
Yeah but those guys are all opposing his plan anyway, if he were to do what I'm saying then he'd dramatically increase his chances of getting his plan passed because there'd be no good way to obscure the fact that opposition was based on anything other than outright greed. "SOCIALISM!" would have less impact as a scare tactic if it was countered by "EVERYONE'S taxes goes down, even the rich guys who are opposing this. They're only raising a fuss because they want to keep profiting from the money everybody wastes".

Yes, this is all correct. Insurance companies would take a hit as all of them, overnight, would become Medicare Supplement insurance plans.

Look at that, sectors ranked by how much money they spend on lobbying and dun dun dun Health is #1, Finance/Insurance/RealEstate #2.

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=c&showYear=2018

Originally posted by dadudemon
Both of you make great points.

snowdragon thinks like an economist. darthgoober thinks like the primary income provider for a large family and a bipartisan politician. I think like a business owner. With our powers combined...we are Captain Planet!

But, no, seriously, I think we've talked through the obstacles and solutions. I think we have a good idea how to make it work and the pros and cons.

To Darth's point...if we showed how high-income earners would see a decrease in their costs (because corporations would see drastic cost reductions) through taxes and the costs of operations (employee benefits), they might get on board. Here is where I think Bernie's weakness is: he needs to pander to the corporations and medium to large business owners. He needs to show them that his plan will save them money, too. But he likes to pander to the poor and middle-class.

Perhaps a person more capable than Bernie needs to take over this plan? Someone less biased.

Originally posted by snowdragon
Look at that, sectors ranked by how much money they spend on lobbying and dun dun dun Health is #1, Finance/Insurance/RealEstate #2.

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=c&showYear=2018

Originally posted by quanchi112
This might be shocking to goober but anyone with common sense probably suspected.