Price tag of Bernie Sanders’ proposals: $18 Trillion

[Simfan34]

The government is not spending $3.2 trillion on healthcare a year. That figure must be total healthcare spending-- which obviously doesn't count as government spending.

[Simfan34]

It's more economically literate than J. Bush's tax proposal (and most coverage thereof), at least. Or, God forbid, any of Paul Ryan's budgets.

Obviously you're not going to get cogent, nuanced policy analysis from a visualization that fits on an index card.

Yes, but at least in those cases the worst one can claim is that the "numbers don't add up". Here, they're not even using the right numbers. They appear to be using the using the total amount of money spent on healthcare per year-- which is around $3.2 trillion per year-- rather than government spending on healthcare-- which is something around $1.1 trillion. They've grossly distorted the fiscal arithmetic here. The government cannot save money it was not spending in the first place.

And what exactly are the proposing to "calm markets" that's going to be bringing such revenues? A FTT? If so, the figures given are outlandish.

[Simfan34]

Also, if the $32 trillion figure is all current healthcare spending, does the $15 trillion figure include existing medicare expenditures?

Also the obvious question of the feasibility of halving healthcare spending with a single-payee system has to be asked. While I'm not writing off the possibility of significant savings, it deserves saying that the United States, as is, spends roughly the same proportion of its GDP on social welfare as Canada and Australia for a far less comprehensive welfare system. It's likely we'd pay more relative to other countries for a single payer system, too.

On a fundamental level it is silly for anyone to claim this would be a revenue neutral proposal. Any single payer system would be funded by an increase in taxes. On an individual level this would mean an end to premiums, but I suspect the bulk of savings would go to firms, which I'd hazard would not pass on the savings to their employees to any significant degree. If so this would likely result in individuals having to pay more, as the saved premium would be smaller than the increase in tax.

[Simfan34]

Basically, Sanders' plan has two parts: $15 trillion on healthcare and $3 trillion on everything else. The $3 trillion on everything else is a good plan and roughly comparable to the Republicans' various deficit-growing tax cut plans. And then the healthcare plan is pie-in-the-sky nonsense.

Why would be the healthcare plan that exists in every other first world country and usually works significantly better and more efficient then the current US system "pie-in-the-sky nonsense"?

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-30/single-payer-would-make-health-care-worse

Very interesting article that verifies my assumption-- that we'd end up paying more for less. We already are, apparently- since we're already spending a portion of our GDP on government health programs comparable to what other countries are paying for their entire single-payer programs.