I'm curious why Dems have totally forgotten their universal multi-payer HC plan from the pre-Obama days, it was best described in the bill filed by Sen Wyden as the Healthy Americans Act. It completely removed the employer supplied plans and put everyone in state exchanges, paid for by employer and employee taxes, and offset by deductions and required wage hikes to match prior employer health care costs. From the public consumer side it was more like the German model than the French single-payer model.
Preliminary CBO estimates rated it as revenue neutral. Naturally, discussion of the idea disappeared when employer-based Obamacare became the focus. But when talk turned to creating a truly universal plan beyond Obamacare, this idea seems to have vanished.
We kind of have that already for people not getting benefits through work.
"Kind of" is the operative phrase, and I would say only barely "kind of". The current system isn't universal so there are still a lot of uninsured people out there. By leaving employer-based plans in place, too many areas lack the necessary participation by insurers. By taxing indirectly as a penalty, too many people opt out raising premiums for those who stay in. Wyden's plan would have addressed all that by taxing directly and mandating participation, thereby creating a truly universal and sustainable system.
