The Medicare for all debate

If 5% of the population uses the most medical resources, why are the other 95% of the population EXPECTED to pay for the 5%? 

Because that is how insurance works. 95% of people that have car insurance haven't had an accident in the last three years. They pay for the 5% that do. 

As a proud liberal who supported Obamacare - I do not support Medicare for all as proposed by Sanders/ Warren.     Its too expensive and will bankrupt the country.     

The underslying costs of healthcare need to be addressed first - which is getting rid of the ridiculous ala-carte method by which we pay healthcare givers...and the name-your-own-price bullshit that goes on with drug companies and doctors.   Unfortunately Fixing that is an even more radical change then "Medicare for all" because  too many people in this country have been made to believe the current system somehow yields better results (despite all of the data from the rest of the world proving otherwise).   Propoganda works.

Ultimately I would loive to have Medicare for all - but notuntil the price of healthcare is more aligned with the rest of the  free world.     You'll know we're getting close when a ride in an ambulance is less the 3k

Simple answer--so even Stalker can understand--because at any given moment, someone in the 95% might find themselves part of the 5%. Auto accident. Cancer diagnosis. Stroke. Etc. Or, for that matter, pregnancy.

No one is immune from disease or accident. That's what insurance is all about. Similarly, you don't buy fire insurance because you think your house will burn down--and the people whose houses do burn down aren't freeloading off of all the other people who paid fire insurance premiums but whose houses didn't burn down.

Once again, I ask--how is this country so different from the rest of the Western industrialized world that they can have universal health care (without going "bankrupt") and we can't?

There's one thing that would have to come to pass--we'd have to reduce income inequality. And yes, that means tax the crap out of the rich, if necessary. A stable and happy society shouldn't have homeless people or billionaires.

The Warren plan's numbers do work--but as I said, they're based on some underlying assumptions. I don't agree that that plan or something similar wouldn't be affordable. We'd have to have the political will to afford it, meaning that enough people would have to feel that no American citizen should be without healthcare, to the point where they might have to give up some elements of their privileged position. I for one feel that if I had to wait three weeks instead of two to see my doctor, that would be worth it if that means that someone else gets to see a doctor who otherwise wouldn't be able to see one at all. And yes, I would be willing to pay higher taxes to see everyone have access to health care, even if my own such access didn't improve one bit.

That's the problem, though. Most people think only in terms of their own rice bowl. When the rubber hits the road, the fact that millions of citizens don't have full access to health care, and that many suffer and some die as a result, doesn't bother most people all that much. It bothers the crap out of me, but I appear to be in the minority.

If only we considered every citizen of this country as a member of one huge family!

No. Paid for by taxes. Just like that "free shit," universal education through secondary school. Or that "free shit," the federal interstate highway system. Or that "free shit"...dozens and dozens of federal programs that provide services you don't directly pay for.

Well, why not? Because Oregon is a liberal state, and universal health care is something that conservatives absolutely hate. Them folks in Kentucky and Georgia don't want to see them darkies gittin' health care.

You don't know shit about the Oregon Health Plan. Or anything else. Moron.

Nope! It's available to everyone regardless of income and is funded by the state--via premiums collected from enrollees.

Oregon accepted the additional Medicaid and Medicare funding that was provided by Obamacare. However, the Oregon Health Plan is NOT Medicare or Medicaid and is funded by premiums, like any other insurance plan. The difference between the OHP and private insurance is that the OHP accepts everyone and no one can be denied for a preexisting condition.

There are no such things as "Medicare taxes." Medicare is funded from general government revenues. Therefore, the provision of Medicare has everything to do with tax cuts. Trump slashed government revenues with his tax breaks for the rich. Therefore, something will lack funding--and that something is very likely to be Medicare.

The problem existed before Trump, yes. He didn't create the problem. He just made it much worse.

The entire US government, of which the Medicare system is just a small part, posted a $984 billion deficit for 2018. That's 0.98 trillion. For the ENTIRE government.

But what the heck. Less than 1 trillion. 40 trillion. What's the difference. Numbers and facts mean so very little in Dumb Trumper Land.