Whatever money can buy, the federal government can do

Whatever money can buy, the U.S. federal government can do. There is no financial problem the federal government cannot solve, and solve without collecting taxes. Read this short article from the Kaiser Family Foundation:

Annual Family Premiums for Employer Coverage Rise 7% to Nearly $24,000 in 2023

Amid rising inflation, annual family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance climbed 7% on average this year to reach $23,968, a sharp departure from virtually no growth in premiums last year, the 2023 benchmark KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey finds. On average, workers this year contribute $6,575 annually toward the cost of family premium, up nearly $500 from 2022, with employers paying the rest.
Future increases may be on the horizon, as nearly a quarter (23%) of employers say they will increase workers’ contributions in the next two years.
The reality is that workers already pay the full $23,968. When employers hire, they figure the overall cost of each worker (including perks) into their payroll decisions. If employers didn’t have the healthcare expense, they would increase wages as a competitive move. That is how wages are determined. Think of it: Healthcare insurance costs the average worker $24,000 annually, about $2,000 monthly. And it could be free. A more complete version of the study can be found here.  Here are a few excerpts from the study:

Average annual health insurance premiums in 2023 are $8,435 for single coverage and $23,968 for family coverage. These average premiums each increased 7% in 2023. The average family premium has increased 22% since 2018 and 47% since 2013.

And it could be free. Figure 1.1: Average Annual Premiums for Covered Workers, Single and Family Coverage, by Plan Type, 2023 And it could be free. Figure 1.4: Average Monthly and Annual Premiums for Covered Workers, by Plan Type and Region, 2023 And it could be free. Not all insurance is the same. Coverages differ. Generally, better coverages cost more. The more costly coverages have fewer and lower deductibles and cover more medical needs. Figure 1.11: Distribution of Annual Premiums for Covered Workers With Family Coverage, 2023 Presumably, those $34,000 plans cover everything you can imagine and possibly some things you can’t imagine. Dental? Certainly. Health clubs and spas? Cosmetic? Travel for health? Weight loss? Hair transplants? Emotional support animals? You can buy a great deal of health for $34,000+. But it all could be free. Workers mistakenly believe that when the company pays, they don’t. But those dollars, whether down at the $14K level or more than the $34K+ level, are part of each company’s cost considerations when deciding how much to pay. But it all really could be free if the federal government paid for comprehensive, no-deductible Medicare for every man, woman, and child in America. Three reasons. Because the federal government uniquely is Monetarily Sovereign:

1. The federal government cannot run short of dollars. It creates all the dollars it uses simply by pressing computer keys.

(Alan Greenspan: “There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody.”)

2. Your federal taxes do not fund federal spending.

(Quote from former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke when he was on 60 Minutes: Scott Pelley: Is that tax money that the Fed is spending? Ben Bernanke: It’s not tax money… We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account.)

3. Similarly, the federal government never borrows dollars. Accepting dollars for T-bills, T-notes, and T-bonds does not constitute borrowing. The government never uses those dollars. Upon maturity of the T-securities, the government simply returns the dollars in each account to the account owner.

The purpose of T-securities is not to provide spending funds to the federal government. The purpose is to create a safe storage place for unused dollars. This stabilizes and creates demand for the U.S. dollar.

Federal bills, notes and bonds are nothing like state/local government bonds, which are borrowing. State and local governments borrow because they are not Monetarily Sovereign. That is why you, too borrow.

4. Federal spending grows the economy as do federal deficits. 

(GDP = Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)

There is not a single good reason — not one — why the federal government does not pay for America’s health care. But there is a bad reason: The rich are rich, not because of how much they have, but because of how much MORE they have than what the rest of us have. “Rich” and “poor” are not absolutes. They are comparatives. You would be rich if you owned $10,000 and everyone else owned only $1,000. You would be poor if everyone else had $100,000. The two ways to become richer are to get more for yourself, and/or to make everyone else get less. The rich, who run America, have chosen both routes. They pass laws that give them more and give you less. To keep you from objecting they indoctrinate you with lies.

They tell you the federal government can’t afford to provide comprehensive, no deductible Medicare for everyone. A lie. The federal government cannot run short of dollars. It can afford anything.

They tell you your federal benefits must be paid for by your taxes. A lie. Federal spending is not funded by taxes. Tax dollars are destroyed when they reach the U.S. Treasury.

They tell you inflation is caused by federal deficit spending. A lie. All inflations are caused by shortages of goods and services (oil, food, metals, lumber, computer parts, labor, etc.). The cure for inflations is more, not less, federal spending to increase the availability of scarce goods and services.

They tell you that the federal budget should be balanced. A lie. Deficit reduction always leads to recessions and depressions.

The lies are so devious, that one political party has devoted itself almost exclusively to reducing your federal benefits. They have tried for many years to eliminate ACA (“Obamacare”), Medicare, SNAP (food stamps) school lunch programs, and all other benefits received by the poor. Both parties created fake “trust funds” for Medicare and Social Security and claim falsely these “trust funds” are running short of money (so you’ll believe benefits must be cut and taxes increased). The GOP (the party of the rich) wants to cut funding of the IRS, solely to allow the rich to cheat on their taxes. (The middle classes have taxes deducted from their salaries with scant chances to cheat.) Tax laws are designed by the rich to reduce tax rates on the types of compensation most enjoyed by the rich (long term capital gains, real estate “losses,” trusts, etc.) It’s how a billionaire like Donald Trump pays far less income tax than you do. WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? EDUCATE YOURSELF 1. Understand that the federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign never can run short of America’s sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar. It neither needs, nor even uses, tax dollars. It destroys all the tax dollars it receives and creates new dollars to pay every bill. 2. Understand that the federal government is run by the rich. The federal politicians have but two goals: Receiving campaign money and being elected. Nothing is done for “good” reasons; everything is done for political reasons. 3. You are not important to them as a person. They want your vote and your money. Period. To attain their goals, the rich bribe politicians, media, and economists to mislead you. 4. The rich and their lackeys, the politicians, do not want you to understand federal finances. They want you to believe the federal government’s finances are like yours or your state’s. They claim poverty for a government that has infinite money. The goal of the rich is to widen the income/wealth /power Gap between them and you. That is the only reason they want to cut Medicare, Social Security and other benefits. The wider the Gap, the richer they are. The so-called Social Security and Medicare “trust funds” are fakes. They do not fund anything. They aren’t even trust funds. They merely are balance sheet notations. SS and Medicare are funded by the federal government, not by FICA, the same way that Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court and all the military branches are funded: By federal money creation. 5. GDP = Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports. Mathematically, the more the federal government spends, the more the economy grows. The economy cannot grow when the federal government fails to run deficits. The bigger the deficits, the more the economy grows. When deficits fail to grow significantly, we have recessions. Recessions can be avoided if the federal government continually were to run increasing deficits.
See how when federal deficits (red line) decline, we have recessions (vertical gray bars), which are cured by increased deficits. This pattern has occurred 9 times since 1960.
6. Federal spending does not cause inflation. All inflations are caused by shortages. The current inflation was caused by COVID shortages of oil, food, lumber, metals, computer chips, shipping, labor, etc. Even the inflation of WWII was not caused by federal spending. It was caused by the difficulty of importing oil and other goods (those German U-boats) and labor shortages (the men were off to war.) “Too much money” never is an inflationary issue. The issue always is “too few goods.” 7. Unless you’re rich, vote for the politicians who will:

A. Provide free, comprehensive Medicare for All

B. Provide free Social Security for All

C. Provide free college for all

D. Eliminate federal taxes on all but the rich

E. Provide benefits including school lunch, food stamps, other poverty aids

F. Run significant deficits every year to fund science and research, air and water quality, housing, and everything else that improves the quality of your life in America.

Whatever money can buy, the federal government can do.  Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

The world’s shortest course in economics. Give it to someone who is telling you fake facts.

You probably don’t engage in extensive economic research. What you know about our economy mainly comes from what the media, politicians, economists and your peers tell you. Sadly, much of what they tell you is wrong. Some pundit, perhaps Mark Twain or Will Rogers, reportedly said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”Fact Or Fake? How To Fact-Check Online Articles - LearnSafe If you are in the majority, you know for sure the federal debt is too high, federal taxes fund federal spending, Social Security and Medicare are near insolvency, the federal government should run a balanced budget, Federal spending causes inflation, raising interest rates fights inflation, and the federal government is deeply in debt. And not one of them is true. They all “just ain’t so.” Not even close. Here is the reality: 1. Unlike state/local governments and the American people, the U.S. government is Monetarily Sovereign. In the 1780s, the government created the first U.S. dollars from thin air by passing laws, which it also created from thin air. The federal government’s infinite ability to create laws gives it the infinite ability to create its sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar. 2. The government continues to create U.S. dollars from thin air, by pressing computer keys. The government has the unique ability to create as many U.S.  dollars as it wishes.

(Ben Bernanke: “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press — or, today, its electronic equivalent — that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”)

Thus, the federal government cannot run short of dollars unless it wishes to. Even if the federal government collected zero taxes, it could continue spending, forever. 3. The federal government never borrows dollars.

(Statement from the St. Louis Fed: “The U.S. government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational.”)

The deposits into T-security accounts (T-bills, T-notes, T-bonds), mistakenly referred to as “debt,” neither are owned nor owed by the federal government. The deposits are owned by the depositors and never used by the federal government. Upon maturity, these deposits are returned to their owners, which is not a financial burden on the federal government. It is a simple money transfer like a transfer from your savings account to your checking account. 4. Federal taxes do not fund federal spending. Tax dollars are paid out of accounts that are part of the M1 money supply measure. When they reach the Treasury, they cease to be part of any money supply measure, thus federal tax dollars effectively are destroyed upon receipt by the Treasury. 5. The purposes of federal taxes are:

A. To control the economy by taxing what the government wishes to discourage and by giving tax breaks to what the government wishes to reward.

B. To assure demand for the U.S. dollar by requiring taxes to be paid in dollars.

C. To foster the myth that such benefits as Social Security, Medicare, poverty aids, etc. are limited by tax collections. This myth is funded and propagated by the rich to widen the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest. Widening the Gap makes the rich richer and the rest, poorer.

6. To propagate the myth of potential Federal insolvency, the rich bribe these sources of information:

A. The media are bribed via advertising dollars and ownership.

B. The politicians are bribed via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment after leaving office.

C. The university economists are bribed via donations to universities and promises of lucrative employment in think tanks and other enterprises.

5. State/local governments, euro nation governments, businesses, and people are monetarily non-sovereign. They can, and often do, run short of U.S. dollars. They do not have the infinite ability to create dollars. Thus, state/local taxes fund state/local spending. Equivalences between personal finances and federal finances are misleading. 6. Scarcity makes prices rise. Inflation is a general increase in prices. Federal deficit spending does not cause inflation. All inflations are caused by scarcities of crucial goods and services, most often energy and food. Today’s inflation resulted from COVID-caused scarcities of oil, food, shipping, computer chips, labor, metals, lumber, and other goods and services. Contrary to popular wisdom, “excessive” federal spending did not cause the scarcity of these goods and services, so is not responsible for inflation. 7. Increased federal spending cures inflations by aiding the acquisition, production, and distribution of scarce resources. 8. High interest rates have a contradictory effect on inflation. They strengthen the value of the dollar, which means fewer dollars are needed to purchase goods and services. And high rates force the federal government to pump more growth dollars into the economy. But interest is added to the costs of all goods and services, so high rates exacerbate inflation. On balance, curing scarcities, not cutting federal spending, or raising interest rates, cures inflations. Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

It figured: New Speaker Johnson’s first act is to propose austerity. Anyone surprised?

With a new House Speaker who is an extreme right-winger, a leader in attempts to overturn the election, and who justifies everything by his conversations with God, you could only expect idiocy.

Johnson has not disappointed.

He even receives plaudits from Libertarian Eric Boehm, further evidence of his woolyheadedness.

Here are some excerpts from Reason.com, aka “Nonsense.com.”

New Speaker Mike Johnson’s First Good Idea: A Debt Commission A debt commission won’t solve any of the federal government’s fiscal problems, but it’s the first step toward taking them seriously. ERIC BOEHM | 10.27.2023 1:10 PM

Just moments after picking up the gavel, newly elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R–La.) endorsed an idea that manages to be both eye-roll-inducing and really important.

“The greatest threat to our national security is our nation’s debt,” Johnson said during his first speech from the speaker’s dais in the House chamber.

It isn’t the most stupid comment any politician ever has made, but it’s right up there with “Global warming is a Chinese hoax” and “COVID is like the common cold. It’ll just go away.”

Not only does the statement omit Russia and China as threats to our national security, but says the national debt is more to be feared. Johnson won’t tell you:

  1. It isn’t “national.” It’s T-securities owned by private citizens and by governments.
  2. It isn’t even “debt.” It’s deposits into accounts wholly owned by the above-mentioned private citizens and governments, not by the U.S. government. The federal government, which never borrows U.S. dollars, neither needs nor even touches those deposits.
  3. It isn’t a threat to anything or anyone. It’s just deposits easily paid back by simply returning the deposits. That is how the federal government always pays back T-security deposits.

“We know this is not going to be an easy task, and tough decisions will have to be made, but the consequences—if we don’t act now—are unbearable.”

What exactly are the “unbearable consequences”? Johnson, like all the other debt nuts, never says, probably because there are zero consequences to the government accepting deposits into T-security accounts. Zero.

There are consequences to large deficits, from which the “national debt” evolves, but those are good consequences, including economic growth and more benefits to Americans (health, infrastructure, military security, etc.) Federal deficit spending grows GDP.

Then, Johnson promised to “establish a bipartisan debt commission to begin working on this crisis immediately.”

This is, in some ways, a pretty silly idea. After all, Johnson is the newly elected leader of Congress, a group of elected officials from two political parties with the constitutionally granted power to control the federal government’s fiscal policies like borrowing and spending.

Congress is, quite literally, a bipartisan commission tasked with managing the debt.

Within Congress, there’s also a Budget Committee, which is, of course, a bipartisan group of lawmakers tasked even more explicitly with determining how much the government can afford to spend, what it should spend tax revenue on, and when there’s been too much borrowing.

Anyone who understands Monetary Sovereignty knows that the federal government’s ability to “afford to spend” is infinite.

Ben Bernanke: “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”

So, yes, the very notion of a new and special bipartisan commission that’s going to do the thing Congress is already supposed to be doing is a little funny and more than a little redundant.

And yet, it’s obvious that something new has to be tried. “In the time it will take me to deliver this speech, we’ll go up another $20 million in debt. It’s unsustainable,” Johnson pointed out on Wednesday—and it wasn’t a very long speech.

And there’s the favorite word of the debt nuts: “Unsustainable.”

Why is it unsustainable? The debt nuts never say. The so-called, misnamed “debt” (deposits) has been growing for over 80 years, and still, we sustain it.

“Unsustainable” falls into the same category as “unbearable consequences.” It’s a frightening term that has no basis in reality.

Even if it were a debt (which it isn’t), our Monetarily Sovereign government services any obligation of any size simply by creating dollars, which it has the infinite ability to do.

And no, the “debt” doesn’t cause inflation, recession, depression, crime, poverty, or disease. About the only thing the debt-that-isn’t-debt causes is muddle-brained thinking by Libertarians and other debt nuts.

As an oft-given reminder to our readers, here is what happens when the “debt” is reduced by cutting deficits and running surpluses:

1804-1812: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 48%. Depression began 1807

1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819

1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837

1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857

1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873

1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893

1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929

1997-2001: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 15%. Recession began 2001.

The above happens when the federal deficit is eliminated and becomes a federal surplus. And this is what happens when the federal deficit simply is reduced, not eliminated.

The red line is the annual change in the federal deficit. Vertical gray bars are recessions. Recessions occur when federal deficits decline because economic growth requires a growing money supply. Recessions are cured by increased federal deficits.

Economic growth, by its definition, requires the economy to have more money. When the federal government isn’t adding dollars by running deficits or even adding too few dollars by adding too-small deficits, we have recessions.

What can a bipartisan commission on the debt accomplish? The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), which has been advocating for such a commission, argues that special congressional task forces can focus discussions, generate greater public awareness of major issues, and create the opportunity for lawmakers to put all ideas on the table.

You can’t discuss “issues” and “ideas” when the starting point is, “All deficits and debt are bad.” It’s like discussing ideas for curing thirst when your starting point is, “Water is bad for you.”

In 1983, for example, Social Security was approaching insolvency—a problem that sounds familiar today—when a commission of congressional leaders and presidential appointees worked out a series of potential fixes. Afterward, Congress enacted many of those reforms, making Social Security solvent for another five decades.

Social Security, being an agency of the U.S. federal government, is as solvent as the government itself, i.e., infinitely solvent. The so-called insolvency comes from the lie that FICA funds Social Security.

Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”

FICA funds nothing. All FICA dollars originate in the M2 money supply measure. When they reach the Treasury, they cease to be part of any money supply measure because the Treasury has infinite dollars.

Thus, FICA dollars effectively are destroyed. No federal agency can go bankrupt unless Congress and the President want it to go bankrupt.

That includes such agencies as the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the military branches. The so-called reforms meant making Americans pay more and receive less.

It’s like solving the hunger problem by making poor Americans pay more for less food and calling that a “reform.”

More recently, there was the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, formed by President Barack Obama in the aftermath of the 2008 recession. It produced a plan that could have reduced the debt by $4 trillion over 10 years by raising taxes, cutting spending, and selling off federal property.

Translation: Obama’s plan would have taken dollars from the economy, given them to the federal government that doesn’t need them, and plunged America into a recession if we were lucky, but more likely a depression.

Even though most of those proposals were never enacted, the CRFB points hopefully to the fact that 11 of the 18 commission members supported the final recommendations, including five Republicans and five Democrats.

It is sad that 11 of the 18 commission members either were ignorant of economics or deliberately hoped for a recession or depression.

The idea for another commission on the deficit has been kicking around for a few years but has recently gained steam. The moderate lawmakers in the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus have endorsed the idea.

Polling by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which advocates for balancing the budget, shows that majorities of both Republican and Democratic voters support the formation of a commission.

As history shows, a balanced budget may be necessary for monetarily non-sovereign entities like cities, counties, states, businesses, and individuals; it unnecessarily will cause recessions and depressions in Monetarily Sovereign nations.

How would it work? Reps. Bill Huizenga (R–Mich.) and Scott Peters (D–Calif.) have introduced a bill to establish a 16-member commission that would include four experts from outside Congress (to be appointed by party leaders from both the House and Senate).

The commission’s recommendations would receive priority consideration by Congress and would be scheduled for a final vote during the lame-duck session after the 2024 election.

The problem is the commission, no doubt, will be as ignorant as Congress. Obama had his commission. Fortunately, its recommendations did not become law, so we avoided the depression.

That timing reveals something about the real reason why members of Congress like this sort of idea: because it allows them to avoid accountability for doing the thing they’re supposed to be doing in the first place.

It allows Congress to avoid economic facts and to do the bidding of the very rich, who grow when federal benefits to the poor are reduced. This widens the Gap between the rich and the rest, making the rich richer.

Recall what Johnson said on Wednesday: this will be a process that requires “tough decisions.” There’s nothing all that complicated about balancing the federal budget.

Members of Congress don’t need notable experts or a bipartisan commission to tell them that closing the deficit will require raising taxes or cutting spending (or some combination of the two). That’s literally all there is to it.

A prime measurement of the economy is the Gross Domestic Product. Raising taxes and/or cutting spending reduces the amount of money in the economy, which, by mathematical definition, reduces GDP.

A reduction in GDP is known as a “recession” or a “depression.” That’s literally all there is to it.

But those decisions become tough because politicians know that voters don’t like having their taxes raised. They also know that cutting even the most useless and wasteful government spending will spur outrage from whatever particular interest group benefits from it.

Imagine that. Voters don’t like money being taken out of their pockets. Who would have guessed that?

In the end, the right way to think about a bipartisan commission on the debt is as a sort of political suicide pact.

No, a commission to lower the debt or balance the budget is an economic suicide pact.

It means that members of both parties are committed to, at the very least, proposing ideas for balancing the budget—and that, in turn, should limit some of the partisan screeching that makes it so hard for Congress to make these decisions under normal circumstances.

Why do they assume that balancing the federal budget should be a goal? There is zero evidence that a balanced federal budget benefits the nation, the government, or anyone.

How about a commission to propose ideas for improving the lives of Americans? 

Both sides will have to take responsibility for ending the government’s addiction to borrowing.

The article began with a lie (“The greatest threat to our national security is our nation’s debt”), and now it ends with a lie (“The government’s addiction to borrowing”). The U.S. federal government does not borrow.

Statement from the St. Louis Fed: “As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational.”

Will it work? Probably not, but nothing else seems more promising right now. Johnson’s got his work cut out, but this is a worthwhile effort.

If this indeed is Johnson’s goal, he will be remembered as the most ignorant, traitorous, damaging Speaker in American history — a man who tried to overturn our democracy and now hopes to cause America’s first depression since 1929.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty

Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Why is medical care unaffordable for so many Americans?

We’ll begin with a few facts:
  1. The U.S. federal government is Monetarily Sovereign (See: Monetary Sovereignty.)  It created the first U.S. dollars from thin air, and it retains the unlimited ability to create more U.S. dollars. The government never unintentionally can run short of U.S. dollars. Even if all federal tax collections ended, the federal government could continue spending forever.
  2. State and local governments are monetarily non-sovereign. They can and often do run short of dollars.
  3. Because the U.S. government cannot run short of dollars, it has no need for tax dollars. In fact, it destroys all tax dollars upon receipt at the Treasury. (See: “Does the Federal Government Really Destroy Your Tax Dollars?“) Taxes are paid with dollars from the M2 money supply, and when they reach the Treasury, they cease to exist in any money supply measure. Thus, the federal government does not spend taxpayers’ dollars.
  4. By contrast, state/local governments do need and spend taxpayers’ dollars.
  5. Contrary to popular wisdom, federal spending does not cause inflation. Inflation always is caused by shortages of critical goods and services, usually oil, food, and labor. (See: “Cause of Inflation.”) Inflations can be cured by additional government spending to cure shortages.
  6. Federal deficit spending is necessary for economic growth. The greater the spending, the greater the growth. (See: “Four Reasons Why Federal Deficits Are Absolutely Necessary.“)
Keep those facts in mind as you read excerpts from the following article:New Oxfam Poll: Most Americans Believe We Should Help Working Poor | HuffPost Impact

The Commonwealth Fund Health Care Affordability Survey, fielded for the first time in 2023, asked U.S. adults with health insurance, and those without, about their ability to afford their health care — whether costs prevented them from getting care, whether provider bills left them with medical debt, and how these problems affected their lives.

Many Americans have inadequate coverage that’s led to delayed or forgone care, significant medical debt, and worsening health problems.

While having health insurance is always better than not having it, the survey findings challenge the implicit assumption that health insurance in the United States buys affordable access to care.

Difficulties affording care are experienced by people in employer, marketplace, and individual market plans, as well as people enrolled in Medicaid and Medicare.

Private insurance is burdened by the profit motive, which restricts the number and amount of benefits offered. However the federal government has no profit motive and has the unlimited ability to create dollars. So why is Medicare inadequate?

For the survey, our analysis focuses on 6,121 working-age respondents, those 19 to 64. 

Survey Highlights

    • Large shares of insured working-age adults surveyed said it was very or somewhat difficult to afford their health care: 43 percent of those with employer coverage, 57 percent with marketplace or individual-market plans, 45 percent with Medicaid, and 51 percent with Medicare.
    • Many insured adults said they or a family member had delayed or skipped needed health care or prescription drugs because they couldn’t afford it in the past 12 months: 29 percent of those with employer coverage, 37 percent covered by marketplace or individual-market plans, 39 percent enrolled in Medicaid, and 42 percent with Medicare.
    • Cost-driven delays in getting care or missed care made people sicker. Fifty-four percent of people with employer coverage who reported delaying or forgoing care because of costs said a health problem of theirs or a family member got worse because of it, as did 61 percent in marketplace or individual-market plans, 60 percent with Medicaid, and 63 percent with Medicare.
    • Insurance coverage didn’t prevent people from incurring medical debt.Thirty percent of adults with employer coverage were paying off debt from medical or dental care, as were 33 percent of those in marketplace or individual-market plans, 21 percent with Medicaid, and 33 percent with Medicare.
    • Medical debt leads many people to delay or avoid getting care or filling prescriptions: more than one-third (34%) of people with medical debt are in employer plans, 39 percent in the marketplace or individual-market plans, 31 percent in Medicaid, and 32 percent in Medicare.
Healthcare insurance, whether private or government-funded, is inadequate. Given the fact that the federal government has infinite dollars, why are so many Americans suffering with too-costly-but-inadequate insurance? Medicare, for instance, is far less than comprehensive. Why does Medicare have Part A, Part B, Part C, and Part D, each with different options and costs? Why not simply a Medicare that covers everything for everyone at no cost? What Medicare Doesn't Cover Why, if the federal government has infinite money, are these expenses not covered, and why are there deductibles and added costs to complete coverages? You have been told, falsely, that the federal government is like state/local governments, business, you and me, in being monetarily non-sovereign. You have been told falsely, that the federal government spends taxpayers’ dollars and can run short of dollars. You have been told, falsely, that to provide benefits, the federal government must levy taxes and spend taxpayers’ money. It’s all a lie.

Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency. There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody. The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print the money to do that.”

Quote from former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke when he was on 60 Minutes: Scott Pelley: Is that tax money that the Fed is spending? Ben Bernanke: “It’s not tax money… We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account. The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”

Statement from the St. Louis Fed: “As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational.”

The U.S. government is not the only Monetarily Sovereign entity. For example:

Press Conference: Mario Draghi, President of the ECB, 9 January 2014 Question: I am wondering: can the ECB ever run out of money? Mario Draghi: Technically, no. We cannot run out of money.

Given its infinite money supply, why does the federal government not provide free, comprehensive, no-deductible insurance to every man, woman, and child in America? Why must you, as an American, risk bankruptcy, sickness, and death because your insurance is inadequate? What is the Big Lie? The Big Lie is the claim that federal taxes fund federal spending. To pay its bills, the federal government creates new dollars ad hoc by tapping computer keys. Whenever you read an article claiming the federal government is “spending taxpayers’ dollars; it is a lie. State and local governments spend taxpayers’ dollars; the federal government does not. Why are you being lied to, and where are the lies coming from? The lies are coming from the healthcare insurance industry, the media, the economists, and the politicians. It’s easy to understand why the insurance industry lies about the federal government’s not funding healthcare insurance: The profit motive. The insurance industry does not want to lose the huge profits in selling healthcare coverage. But why do the media, economists, and politicians lie? Because they are bribed. The media are bribed by advertising dollars and by ownership. The economists are bribed by university contributions and by promises of lucrative jobs in “think tanks.” The politicians are bribed by campaign contributions and by promises of lucrative jobs with industry. Who is doing the bribing? The very rich? Why are the rich bribing? Gap psychology says people grow richer and more powerful by widening the Gap between them and those below them in any income/wealth/power measure. That is the primary way the rich make themselves more affluent. How do the rich widen the Gap below them? They get more for themselves, but importantly, they make sure those below them get less. They use their influence to reduce the federal benefits paid to those less wealthy. The rich disseminate the lie that Medicare and Social Security are running short of dollars, so benefits must be reduced, and taxes must be increased (See: “Starve the Poor.”) What should be done? First, the useless, harmful FICA tax should be eliminated. Like all federal taxes, it funds nothing. Worse, it punishes the low-income worker and widens the Gap between the rich and the rest. Second, the federal government should pay for free, comprehensive Medicare for All, with no limits and no deductions. One free plan for everyone; no Part A, B, C, D. No Medicaid. No “Donut holes.” No Medicare Advantage plans. The public must learn that federal spending is beneficial, and it costs nothing. The more the federal government spends on healthcare, the more the overall economy will grow and prosper. Ignorance is the weapon used by the rich to dominate the rest. That is the reason medical services are unaffordable for so many Americans. Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY