Tag: medicare for all

If you could provide free, comprehensive healthcare to everyone . . .

If you were a multi-trillionaire, and you easily could afford to provide free healthcare to every man, woman, and child in America, would you do it?Image result for rich man

Imagine, no sick child dying from a treatable illness, no parent suffering without a doctor, no homeless person languishing in what should be curable pain — and you could do this simply by writing a check.

Would you do it?

Would you do it if it all could be accomplished by your command, without it costing you even one cent? All you would need to do is say, “Give everyone health care.” Would you do it?

Or would you just let sick people suffer and die too soon?

You actually do have that choice and you do have that power. Your choice is to tell your Senators and Representatives to create a comprehensive, no-deductible Medicare-for-All plan that covers all hospitals, all doctors, all medically approved treatments, and all pharmaceuticals.

And yes, it won’t cost you even one cent, because the U.S. federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, creates new dollars, ad hoc, every time it pays a bill.

Federal finances are different from city, county, and state finances. These local governments are monetarily non-sovereign. They do not create dollars by paying bills. They can run short of dollars and become insolvent. They need and use tax dollars, which they deposit in banks.

By contrast, the government neither needs nor even uses tax dollars. Those federal tax dollars, that are taken from your paycheck or your checking account, are destroyed upon receipt. They never see a bank. They never are part of any money-supply measure.

Even if all federal tax collections, including federal income taxes, FICA payroll taxes,  federal luxury taxes, — every federal tax of every kind — were eliminated, the federal government could continue spending forever. It never can run short of its own sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar.

With Medicare for all, we’re not talking about socialism, where the government owns all the hospitals and employs all the health care providers. (That’s like the Veteran’s Administration).

We’re talking about the U.S. government being the insurer — taking the place of private insurance companies, but providing much more comprehensive coverage than any insurance company could afford — and not charging you or your employer anything.

If you were Monetarily Sovereign, like the U.S. government is, you easily could provide comprehensive, no-cost medical insurance to every American.

And yet, many Americans, not understanding the facts of Monetary Sovereignty, say they don’t want to change. They want to continue paying for private insurance. They want to continue paying FICA. They want to continue paying deductibles and being subject to limitations.

They want to continue paying the 20% copay Medicare charges. And they want to continue paying for Medicare Part D, or thousands, or hundreds of thousands, for expensive drugs. 

They want each insurance company to offer a different formulary, so it becomes necessary to hunt through multiple companies to learn whether certain drugs are covered, only to be surprised when the doctor prescribes a new drug that isn’t covered.

This is what people say they want, but it’s not what you really want. No one would.

We Americans have been deceived by the politicians, who have been bought and paid for by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Here are some of the lies we have been told:

1. Medicare-for-All is socialism.
As we said previously, with  socialism, the government owns and operates all the medical providers.

In Medicare-for-All, the government merely would pay for medical services, just as private insurance companies now do — just as Medicare now does, though Medicare is too limited.

2. Medicare-for-All would cost too much.
There are only two alternatives for medical services: Either someone pays or someone does without.

Thus, Americans have these choices:

*The federal government will pay for your medical care, or
*You will pay, or
*You will do without medical care.

Which do you prefer?

3. If the government pays, the federal deficit and debt would increase.
The so-called “federal debt” is the incorrect name given to the total of Treasury securities issued by the Treasury. They are similar to bank CDs.

The Treasury does not issue them to obtain dollars (which it can create endlessly), but rather to provide a safe “parking place” for unused dollars and to help control interest rates.

The Treasury could stop issuing T-securities tomorrow, and still continue to spend, forever.

For the past eighty years, misleaders have been telling the American people that the federal debt is an unsustainable, “ticking time bomb.” Yet here we are, the so-called “time bomb” still is ticking, and the economy still is sustaining and growing.

The federal debt is no burden on anyone — not on the government, not on you, not on your grandchildren. Federal taxes do not pay for the federal debt.

The “federal deficit” is the difference between taxes collected and dollars spent. No one ever “pays for” the deficit. It merely is a bookkeeping number, of no threat to anyone.

Increased deficits grow the economy by adding dollars to the private sector.

In fact, reductions in deficits lead to recessions and depressions, and increases in deficits cure recessions and depressions.

Deficit reductions lead to recessions (vertical bars), which are cured by deficit increases

4. Medicare-for-All would cause inflation.
The failure to take FICA dollars from your paycheck is not inflationary. The failure to take FICA dollars from employers is not inflationary. Paying for healthcare is not inflationary.

Inflations are caused by shortages, not by federal spending.

5. Medicare-for-All would bankrupt the pharmaceutical companies
On the contrary, the pharmaceutical companies would benefit.

Today, nearly all pharmaceuticals are paid for by insurance and by individuals. Under Medicare-for-All, the drugs would be paid for by the federal government, similar to a free, comprehensive version of Medicare Part D.

Have you ever seen drug commercials that say, “If you can’t afford your prescription contact us”? Patient assistance programs are run by pharmaceutical companies to provide free medications to people who cannot afford to buy their medicine.

Comprehensive Medicare-for-All not only would increase the number of people who purchase pharmaceuticals, but would relieve the drug companies of any obligation to fund patient assistance programs.

6. Medicare-for-All would bankrupt the healthcare insurance companies.
Actually, there is some truth to this. Over the years, many industries disappear, only to be replaced by new industries.

When I was very young, the way to make a phone call was to tell the number to a human operator, of whom there were hundreds of thousands. Also, horse-drawn carts were common. Those, and thousands of other industries, have disappeared, much to the benefit of the American public.

Private healthcare insurance, its complications, unfairness, and its onerous costs, all would disappear.

Unfortunately, even the people who favor Medicare-for-All, do not have the knowledge, the courage, or the honesty to tell you the truth: It can be funded 100% by our Monetarily Sovereign federal government.

Support for a national Medicare-for-all plan swings wildly after folks hear about the potential effects. It spikes when respondents are told that it would guarantee health insurance as a right or eliminate premiums and reduce out-of-pocket costs.

But favorability slumps when they are told it would eliminate private health insurance, raise taxes or threaten the current Medicare program.

And it tanks when told it would lead to delays in receiving care.

Many people don’t think Medicare-for-all would have an impact on them.

There is, in fact, no reason for taxes to increase. In fact, taxes would decrease dramatically. No more FICA paid by you or businesses.

There would be no “threat” to Medicare. It simply would be expanded.

Delays could be prevented by paying healthcare providers enough to encourage entry into the market. Given unlimited dollars, there is no reason to scrimp on payments.

Medicare-for-All would benefit everyone, the sick and the well, the young and the old, the rich and the poor.

Unfortunately, because of misinformation and disinformation, very few Americans are able to visualize a true Medicare-for-All program. So they assume the wrong threats.

A Kaiser Family Foundation January 2019 tracking poll revealed that Americans believe  Congress’ top priorities should be:

Percent who say the following is the top priority for Congress

Making sure Obamacare’s pre-existing conditions protections continue: 21%
Lower drug costs: 20%
Implementing Medicare-for-All: 11%
Repealing & replacing Obamacare: 11%e
Protecting people from surprise medical bills: 9%

See how misinformation permeates the answers? With Medicare-for-All, there would be no need for Obamacare,  pre-existing conditions would be protected, drug costs would be zero, and no one would need to worry about surprise medical bills.

Even Bernie Sanders, the foremost proponent of Medicare-for-All, misleads the public.

Bernie starts out well enough. Here’s what his site says:

BETTER COVERAGE 
Bernie’s plan would create a federally administered single-payer health care program. Universal single-payer health care means comprehensive coverage for all Americans.

Bernie’s plan will cover the entire continuum of health care, from inpatient to outpatient care; preventive to emergency care; primary care to specialty care, including long-term and palliative care; vision, hearing and oral health care; mental health and substance abuse services; as well as prescription medications, medical equipment, supplies, diagnostics and treatments.

Patients will be able to choose a health care provider without worrying about whether that provider is in-network and will be able to get the care they need without having to read any fine print or trying to figure out how they can afford the out-of-pocket costs.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR PATIENTS
As a patient, all you need to do is go to the doctor and show your insurance card. Bernie’s plan means no more copays, no more deductibles and no more fighting with insurance companieswhen they fail to pay for charges.

The above is perfect, exactly what the plan should do, though I’m not sure why you would have to show an insurance card. If you’re here, you’re covered. Perhaps there are overseas issues to be worked out.

But anyway, then Bernie goes completely off track. Here is what his web site says:

HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?
This plan has been estimated to cost $1.38 trillion per year.

THE PLAN WOULD BE FULLY PAID FOR BY:
A 6.2 percent income-based health care premium paid by employers.
A 2.2 percent income-based premium paid by households.
Progressive income tax rates.

37 percent on income between $250,000 and $500,000.
43 percent on income between $500,000 and $2 million.
48 percent on income between $2 million and $10 million.
52 percent on income above $10 million.

Taxing capital gains and dividends the same as income from work.
Limit tax deductions for rich.
The Responsible Estate Tax.
Savings from health tax expenditures.

If Bernie were honest and courageous, he would have said: THE PLAN WOULD BE FULLY  PAID FOR BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. Period.

The above-listed tax increases will pay for nothing. The federal government does not use tax dollars to pay for spending. Tax dollars are destroyed upon receipt.

But Bernie has gone along with the phony “affordability” issue, rather than fighting it.

Image result for bernanke and greenspan
Doesn’t Bernie know we don’t use tax dollars? Why should we? We create all the dollars we need.

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.”

Alan Greenspan: “Central banks can issue currency, a non-interest-bearing claim on the government, effectively without limit. A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”

St. Louis Federal Reserve: “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.

Bernie understands this. He was assisted by Professor Stephanie Kelton, who not only knows Monetary Sovereignty quite well, but has taught it to Bernie.

So, I must assume Bernie believes the American people are not smart enough to understand it — and that they would say, “There is no such thing as a free lunch,” or “Why does the government collect taxes, if they don’t need them,” and other admissions of ignorance that substitute for knowledge.

And he doesn’t have the political courage to set them straight.

Is he right?

What about you? If Medicare-for-All could be accomplished just by your command, without it costing you even one cent, and all you would need to do is tell the politicians, “Give everyone health care,” would you do it?

Should Bernie do it?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA

2. Federally funded medicare — parts a, b & d, plus long-term care — for everyone

3. Provide a monthly economic bonus to every man, woman and child in America (similar to social security for all)

4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone

5. Salary for attending school

6. Eliminate federal taxes on business

7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually. 

8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.

9. Federal ownership of all banks

10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9% 

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

The best way to destroy a good plan is to implement it poorly.

The best way to destroy a good plan is to implement it poorly.

Have you had an experience similar to this: Many years ago, when I was a partner in an advertising firm, it was common for someone to make a suggestion — for instance, “advertise on morning TV” — and someone else might respond, “We tried that and it didn’t work.”

Image result for football coaches conferring
We tried running the ball last year. It didn’t work. We’ll never do that, again.

Those magic words, “We tried that and it didn’t work,” may be responsible for the destruction of more good ideas than any phrase in the English language.

They seem to sound like proof, when in fact, they are meaningless.

The “that” that had been tried, may have been quite different from the “that” being proposed.

Perhaps the commercials themselves were inferior. Perhaps the days, or the time periods, or the times of year, or the product timing — any number of things might account to the failure of morning TV.

If someone proposes a plan you hate, search for some time when a similar plan was implemented and failed, so you can point to it and claim “We tried that, and it doesn’t work.”

I was reminded of “we tried that and it didn’t work,” when I saw an article about New York State’s attempt to install a “Medicare for All” plan.

“Medicare of All” is a wonderful idea, but only if it is done right. I pray for the time when every American has all the medical support he/she needs, and no one is forced into sickness or death by lack of money, and serious illness does not lead to poverty.

Here are some excerpts from the above-mentioned article:

This Brewing Healthcare Battle Is a Preview of the Medicare for All War
By Harry Cheadle, Dec 13 2018

Near the top of any progressive wish list is the New York Health Act, the state’s version of Medicare for all—which is to say universal, government-provided—health insurance.

Single-payer healthcare, as such systems are also called, has been a left-wing lodestar for generations.

If the NYHA passed, it would make New York the first state in the union to guarantee free access to healthcare (and freedom from fear of health-related bankruptcy) to all of its residents, including undocumented people.

If passed and smoothly implemented, NYHA could be not just a way to improve the lives of New Yorkers but a model for the rest of the country as it debates the merits of Medicare for all, a policy backed by Bernie Sanders and many other potential 2020 presidential contenders.

If “Medicare for All” is so obviously beneficial to Americans, why has no state or the federal government, passed such a law?

The answer, of course, can be stated in one word: Money.

Providing comprehensive health care to every man, woman, and child would be expensive. Who would pay for such a plan?

Currently, every American already pays for comprehensive health care via insurance, and pays for the lack of comprehensive health care by doing without.

In short, we all pay for everyone, in one way or another, with the only questions being:

  1. Who will be covered
  2. What will be covered
  3. Who will pay?

The ideal would be for everyone to be covered for every medical-related cost, and for no one to pay. Anything less than that would be an incomplete plan.

Unfortunately, the New York plan does not cover everyone and everything, and taxpayers will pay.

But now that Democrats can actually pass the NYHA, single-payer supporters are facing a fight that could pit them against not just the insurance industry but a host of Democratic constituencies and leaders—a preview of the contentious debate over healthcare that might follow victories in 2020.

The foremost obstacle is the powerful medical industry lobby, which will likely deploy the usual counterattacks—think the “death panels” of the Affordable Care Act debate, or the fear-mongering “Harry and Louise” ads that helped scuttle reform in the 90s.

Then you have Democratic lawmakers who may hesitate to back a transformative proposal that would raise taxes on a lot of people, a governor who doesn’t seem particularly warm to the idea, a hostile federal government, and potential lawsuits from employers.

While the coming NYHA battle represents a possible turning point in the history of healthcare politics, it won’t be a pretty sight.

Yet if single-payer advocates could get past all that, they’d have a roadmap to victory in other states—and a model that could be replicated in DC.

Rather than providing a roadmap to victory, I fear New York will provide a roadmap to defeat.

The single biggest problem facing a New York plan is this: New York State is monetarily non-sovereign. It does not have access to unlimited numbers of dollars. It must rely on taxes to fund the program.

So the plan will not be able to cover everyone and everything, and in that regard, it will be incomplete — a failure that opponents will be able to use as a negative example, forever.

Richard Gottfried, the chair of the New York State Assembly’s Health Committee and the chief architect of the NYHA, recently explained what it would look like. “It would create universal complete health coverage for every New York resident without premiums, deductibles, copays, or restricted provider networks,” he said over the phone.

The bill would pay for this by pooling the money the state gets from the federal government for programs like Medicaid and Medicare, and also by raising taxes.

“There would be one tax on payroll income, predominantly paid by employers, and a parallel on unearned income like dividends, capital gains,” Gottfried explained.

This would transform the way New Yorkers pay for healthcare—instead of giving premiums to insurers, they’d be getting taxed—and according to a recent study by the RAND Corporation, overall health spending would drop by $80 billion, or 2 percent, by 2031, even as the roughly 1.2 million currently uninsured New Yorkers gained access to care.

Richard Gottfried, the chair of the New York State Assembly’s Health Committee and the chief architect of the NYHA, recently explained what it would look like. “It would create universal complete health coverage for every New York resident without premiums, deductibles, copays, or restricted provider networks,” he said over the phone.

Ultimately, all taxes are paid by people. Taxes that businesses pay, come either from employees or from customers.

Businesses simply are a legal concept that is a pass-through for dollars. Each dollar a business pays in taxes is deducted from some person.

The arguments against the NYHA are echoes of the normal arguments marshaled against single-payer healthcare — high taxes, long wait times for care under a government-run system, and job loss in the insurance industry.

“Long wait times” is a fake narrative. Medicare for All doesn’t affect health-care providers. It doesn’t affect doctors, nurses, hospitals, et al. It merely is an insurance plan, not a health-care program.  Think of Blue Cross with government money.

Last year, a California single-payer bill was effectively axed by Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, who said it was “woefully incomplete” and didn’t describe how the system would be paid for. (Single-payer advocates were so incensed they subsequently attempted to remove Rendon from office.)

Gottfried said that unlike the California bill, the NYHA clearly describes where the funding would come from, and unlike Vermont, New York has enough wealth to make paying for a single-system more practical.

It isn’t New York that would pay. It’s New York taxpayers who would be on the hook.

When all the objections are objected to and all the arguments are argued, there is one, and only one way for a Medicare for All plan to work. It must be funded via federal deficit spending.

The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, can afford anything. It can pay the full cost of a comprehensive Medicare plan covering every man, woman, and child in America, including long-term care, all pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment, and it can do it without levying one cent in taxes.

Further, the money spent by the federal government would grow the economy and benefit everyone.

One industry would be hurt: Health-care insurance, but dozens of other industries would see new income. For a more thorough discussion see: Ten Steps to Prosperity: Step 2. Federally funded Medicare — Parts A, B & D, plus long-term care — for everyone

A state-funded Medicare for All will encounter continual money problems, requiring unpopular taxes and even more unpopular cuts to benefits, thereby providing a negative example for those who would claim, “We tried that, and it didn’t work.”

By contrast, we know how to do Medicare, and we know how to deficit spend, and it remains only for us to put those together.

That combination would give America something it doesn’t now have: Healthcare for all citizens, rich and poor, young and old.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA

2. Federally funded medicare — parts a, b & d, plus long-term care — for everyone

3. Provide a monthly economic bonus to every man, woman and child in America (similar to social security for all)

4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone

5. Salary for attending school

6. Eliminate federal taxes on business

7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually. 

8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.

9. Federal ownership of all banks

10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9% 

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Self-immolation by the Dems

Image result for bernanke and greenspan
The rich don’t want us to let the rest know that federal taxes don’t fund federal spending.

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.”

Alan Greenspan: “Central banks can issue currency, a non-interest-bearing claim on the government, effectively without limit. A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”

St. Louis Federal Reserve: “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.

—————————————————————————————————————

To understand liars you must listen to (or read) liars, which is why I read Breitbart, the ultimate in prevarication and exaggeration. In Breitbart, you sometimes can uncover a tiny nugget of truth from the vast supplies of bovine excrement, or at least acquire a better understanding of fool’s thinking.

Here is a Breitbart story which I found both fascinating and disturbing, because amazingly, it contained what appears to be the abovementioned nugget:

WATCH — DNC CEO Seema Nanda: I Do Not Know How to Pay for ‘Medicare for All’
14 Nov 2018

Democratic National Committee (DNC) chief executive officer Seema Nanda admitted on Tuesday she does not know how to pay for the socialized medicine scheme known as Medicare for All, estimates of which are somewhere between $32 and $38 trillion.

Nanda, during Yahoo Finance’s “All Markets Summit: America’s Financial Future” event in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, the interviewer asked:

It would be very expensive, so, if this is going to be a winning issue for Democrats in 2020, how do you answer the question of how are you going to pay for this? Because there have been studies, credible studies that say it would cost three trillion dollars a year, you would have to double everybody’s taxes or maybe triple everybody’s taxes.

How do you answer the cost question?

“So, you know, your answer is I don’t know how we’re going to get there, but these are all big conversations that we need to be engaged in,” Nanda added.

Perhaps Nanda does know but doesn’t wish to give away the Democrat’s plans just yet. Or, more likely, she is as clueless as Sen. Bernie Sanders was when he first proposed Medicare for All.

Virtually everyone, left and right, believes that having medical insurance is important. Today’s medicine simply is so expensive that only the richest among us could risk not having a backup plan to pay.

So, the question becomes a simple one: Who should pay for medical insurance, the public or the federal government?

“The public,” which consists of people, businesses and local governments, is financially constrained. It does not have unlimited funds. The public can, and often does, run short of dollars. It is what is known as monetarily non-sovereign.

By contrast, the federal government is not financially constrained. It has the unlimited ability to create its own sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar. It is Monetarily Sovereign.

The U.S. government never can run short of dollars. Even if all federal taxing totaled $0, the federal government could continue spending, forever.

In fact, the federal government’s method for creating dollars and adding them to the economy, is to pay creditors.

So, before we continue with the Breitbart article, think about the answer to this basic question:

Who should pay for healthcare, the public which does not have unlimited money or the federal government which does have unlimited money?

Paying for Medicare for All remains a daunting task for Democrats. Multiple studies have estimated that the plan would cost between $32 and $38 trillion over the next ten years, contrary to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) claim that the plan would save America money.

In the unlikely event that the $38 trillion over ten years turns out to be correct, what does the seemingly simple term “save America money” mean?

If the federal government were to fund for Medicare for All, that indeed would save the American people money.

And the federal government has no need to save money, because it has the unlimited ability to create dollars.

So yes, Medicare for All would save America money.

The Associated Press (AP) even noted that the socialized medicine proposal would require “historic” tax increases to pay for the single-payer healthcare proposal.

Note the pejorative and incorrect term “socialized medicine.” In socialized medicine, the government would own all the medical facilities and employ all the medical workers.

I know of no one who suggests that. It’s a fake objection by Breitbart, the home of fake objections to anything that benefits the middle classes and the poor.

In Medicare for All, as with today’s Medicare, the federal government merely takes the place of private insurance carriers.

It does not own the hospital and clinics and pharmaceutical companies.e It does not employ the doctors, nurses and other personnel. It merely writes checks, which it can do endlessly.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) said that Medicare will soon become bankrupt and that adding half of the country to the government health care program will not improve anyone’s health care.

Because the U.S. federal government has the unlimited ability to create U.S. dollars, it cannot unintentionally go bankrupt.

And because the federal government cannot go bankrupt, no agency of the federal government unintentionally can go bankrupt.

Even if all FICA taxes disappeared, the federal government could support Medicare for All forever, and I suspect Cassidy knows this.

“My point is Medicare for All is Medicare for none,” Cassidy told Breitbart News in October.

“Medicare is actually going bankrupt in eight years, and now Bernie Sanders wants to put 150 million more people into a system going bankrupt in eight years?”

No, Medicare will not go bankrupt in eight years or in eighty years, unless Congress wishes it.

Many in Congress do not understand the differences between federal financing and personal financing. They think federal debt is like personal debt, and is a burden on the government or on taxpayers.

It is neither.

Many others in Congress are well aware that the federal government has the unlimited ability to fund Medicare for All, and in fact, adding trillions of dollars would provide a dramatic stimulus to the overall economy.

These members of Congress do not want you to know this for fear you will make “unreasonable” demands on the government.

What is an “unreasonable” demand? Anything that narrows the Gap between the rich and the rest. (See: Gap Psychology)

In summary: Every person in America should be able to afford health care, and not to be financially devastated by illness. But someone has to pay for such insurance.

The public’s funds are limited, but the federal government’s funds are unlimited. The only logical solution is for the federal government to pay for Medicare for every man, woman, and child in America — which the federal government easily can do.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA

2. Federally funded medicare — parts a, b & d, plus long-term care — for everyone

3. Provide a monthly economic bonus to every man, woman and child in America (similar to social security for all)

4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone

5. Salary for attending school

6. Eliminate federal taxes on business

7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually. 

8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.

9. Federal ownership of all banks

10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9% 

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

America’s long-term care. Suffer in illness, then die early in poverty

It takes only two things to keep people in chains:
.

The ignorance of the oppressed
and the treachery of their leaders.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

A nation that does not take care of its elderly is, to borrow a phrase from our President, a “shithole” country. In fact, if you could vote for a single measure of a nation’s greatness, the treatment of its elderly would rank near the top.

By that measure, the U.S. does moderately well, but certainly not “great,” especially considering our vast national wealth. Unfortunately, that vast national wealth is not spread evenly, so millions cannot afford long term care.

Could you afford these costs?

 It is not uncommon for someone to receive care at home for several months or longer, followed by a two and a half year stay in an assisted living facility, with almost 60% then requiring a nursing home stay of somewhere between nine months and a little over two years.

All combined, this is a total of approximately 4-5 years of long-term care. In this scenario, the total cost of care could easily exceed $300,000, depending on the cost of care in your region.

Would you find this affordable? Would paying for it leave you impoverished? And, after paying all that money, what would happen to you if you finally left the nursing home facility?

The U.S. offers two primary, but insufficient, programs to protect our elderly: Social Security for living expenses, and Medicare for hospital and doctor expenses.

SOCIAL SECURITY
For those people who have not earned enough or been prudent enough to save a significant amount for retirement, Social Security benefits are ridiculously inadequate.

How Big Is the Average Person’s Social Security Check?
The Motley Fool, Todd Campbell, Aug 30, 2017

In the 12-month period ending June 2017, over 2.9 million Americans signed up for Social Security benefits. On average, these retired workers were awarded $1,413.08 in monthly benefits, however, the average benefits payable were quite different for men and women.

In the period, 1.4 million women filed for Social Security benefits, and their average award was $1,231.50. Men, however, were awarded $1,583.77, on average.

Wage inequality arguably plays a role in women’s lower average payment, but so, too, does Social Security’s formula, which penalizes individuals who take time off from their career to raise children.

Congress has added two years to the date when you first can receive normal Social Security benefits. Why? Because Congress is run by the rich, and the rich want the Gap widened between the rich and the rest.

For the rich, the less given to the lower income groups, including the elderly, the better.

To deceive the public, politicians make the dual false claims that the federal government is running short of dollars, and that your federal taxes are necessary to fund federal spending.

As a result, too many of America’s elderly suffer in illness, then die early in poverty.

MEDICARE
It actually is a good program so far as it goes, but it won’t cover all your medical costs, which means you’ll have choices:

  1. Pay for a Medigap policy, or
  2. Pay for what Medicare doesn’t cover, or
  3. Do without some medical services.

And in the almost 100% probability that you’ll need medicines, you’ll either have to:

  1. Pay for a “Medicare Part D” policy, or
  2. Pay for the medicines, yourself
  3. Do without medicine.

Everything boils down to “pay for” (may be impossible for many) or “do without.”

Here’s how many Americans have nothing at all saved for retirement
Ester Bloom
If you’re overwhelmed by the financial responsibilities of day-to-day life and more focused on making it to the end of the month than on the possibility of being able to save for the distant future, you’re not alone.

In fact, the vast majority of Americans have under $1,000 saved and half of all Americans have nothing at all put away for retirement.

There is a related problem. Middle-income people lead middle-income lives. Over the years, they do middle-income things.

They live in middle-income communities, drive-middle-income cars and when planning for the future, they anticipate middle-income expenses.

But then, they are surprised:

Wages finally rising, but not for middle class
 Don Lee Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON —Jorge Hunzelmann was pleased enough when his employer bumped up his pay this year by $2.50 an hour to $19.50.

The truck driver, 52 and father of two, is a beneficiary of a tightening labor market, but he does not have company-provided health benefits, and he says it’s still a hand-to-mouth existence for his family. “We don’t have money to save to put into the bank,” said the Gaithersburg, Md., resident.

Most of us expect to lead modest lives when we first go to work. Then we anticipate significant wage gains until perhaps we are in our 50’s, after which we predict more modest wage gains, but gains nevertheless until we retire in our 60’s.

And we live according to our anticipations. So perhaps we plan to rent an apartment, followed by a modest house, then a bigger house, all of which we expect to be able to afford on our anticipated income.

But what happens if our income does not increase as we had planned, and here we already live in a neighborhood we can’t afford, and have children and friends we can’t afford? The step back is incredibly painful and humiliating for our entire family.

Across the country, wages that were stuck for years finally seem to have started to rise faster, especially in industries such as trucking, which is begging for workers. Average hourly earnings for all private-sector employees last month grew at a 2.9 percent annual rate of increase, the most since 2009.

That has fueled hopes for workers. It has also spooked some investors with fears of higher inflation and interest rates.

But wage gains thus far have been very uneven, according to Labor Department statistics. They’re concentrated at the higher end of the pay scale and the lower. By and large, the broad middle of the labor force has not seen much of a raise, mirroring a long-running trend.

Even with unemployment at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent, the proverbial rising tide has not lifted all boats: The fancy yachts have gotten most of the lift.

Take the finance sector, which has led the pack in the recent wage increases. Some 8.5 million people work in banking, insurance and real estate; their average hourly pay jumped 4.2 percent in January from a year earlier, to just a penny under $34 an hour.

But for ordinary nonsupervisory employees in finance — about four out of five financial-industry workers — the average increase was just 1.6 percent, to $26.75 an hour.

“It’s a pulling apart at the top,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, noting that if the trend continues, it will exacerbate the country’s already large income inequality. 

The problem is not that the poor are too “lazy” to work, or that the middle are too “ignorant” to have a plan.

The problem is that the rich have stacked the deck by bribing Congress to pass laws that favor the rich — laws that widen the Gap between the rich and the rest.

This brings us to long-term care.

LONG-TERM CARE
Caution on long-term care
Elliot Raphaelson, Chicago Tribune, raphelliot@gmail.com

When people live past 65, there is a high probability that they will need some form of long-term care.

A major problem for many insurance companies in the long-term care industry is that they are not profitable or are losing money.

Immediately, we see several problems:Related image

Long-term care is like medical care, in that the majority of us will need it as we grow older, but unlike medical care, there is no “Medicare” for long-term care. This is a terrible omission by Congress.

And unlike medical care, long-term care usually ends with death. While people ordinarily occupy a hospital bed for a day or two — a week is exceptional — an elderly person may spend many years needing long-term care.

Thus, it is difficult, if not impossible, for private insurance companies to provide affordable long-term care coverage at affordable premiums, and still be profitable.

People are living much longer now than when many of the long-term care policies were sold.

And, it was commonly assumed that 5 percent of policyholders would allow their policies to lapse annually. In fact, only about 1 percent of policyholders have done so.

There is something implicitly wrong with pricing a policy in the hopes that every year, 5% of policyholders would spend money on premiums, then allow the policy to lapse when it is needed most.

Another assumption was that insurance companies would be able to invest their capital at a 7.5 percent return. Interest rates, however, have remained below historical levels, and returns in 2017 were approximately 4.6 percent, according to A.M. Best.

The problem with private, for-profit insurance companies is that they are designed first to make a profit, and only secondarily, to provide a service.  This problem becomes quite serious in the case of a necessary service paid for by the public.

Many insurance companies offering LTC policies have either gone out of business or discontinued selling the policies. Most of the companies that remain in the business have taken steps to increase premiums for existing policyholders and new customers.

Healthy people have invested many thousands of dollars to have protection by LTC policies, only to discover that the LTC policies will not be there when finally needed.

Insurance companies cannot arbitrarily raise premiums for existing customers without the approval of the state insurance department. When premium increases have been granted, they have more than doubled. For those who had the foresight to buy these policies many years ago, it seems very unfair.

The majority of policyholders expected that their premiums would remain fixed. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any insurance company that guaranteed premiums would not increase.

If any company had guaranteed its premiums were fixed, that company is out of business, today. In essence, the underwriting either was knowingly fraudulent, with low premiums as a “come-on,” or it was done with extraordinary ignorance.

Another factor that makes the situation worse is that many of these policyholders have already retired and have few or no options to increase their income to be able to afford premium increases.

The people who can afford premium increases least, are the ones who lose coverage just before they need it most.

Insurance companies can go to their state insurance departments to try to obtain approval for premium increases. If the insurance department refuses to approve premium increases, the insurance company — facing large losses — may have to liquidate.

When an insurance company is forced to liquidate, the policyholder generally loses some coverage. There is no guarantee, when a company does liquidate, that policyholders will receive the coverage they initially contracted for.

Currently, only about a dozen companies still offer LTC policies.

In summary, long-term care is:

  1. Unaffordable for the average person,
  2. Necessary for
  3. A high percentage of people are
  4. Unprofitable to insure, except with high premiums and low coverage.

Those four factors: Costly, necessary, commonly needed and unprofitable cry out for federal support. They describe the exact services the federal government should provide.

The solution:

The problem lies with the private insurance companies and their profit motive.

The solution is a Medicare for All plan that includes long-term care, funded by a Monetarily Sovereign government that has no need for profits and cannot run short of dollars.

No public purpose is served by forcing Americans to self-insure or to pay for long-term care private insurance out of their own pockets.

Medicare is a social experiment that has identified the private insurance companies as useless middlemen. The experiment has worked, as far as it has gone. It just hasn’t gone far enough.

Our long-term care problems are mistakenly identified as “high costs,” or “lack of preparation by the young,”  The real problem is the unnecessary insertion of private insurance company “middlemen” into the situation.

With regard to long-term care, private insurance companies serve no function other than to increase costs and to decrease benefits. Federally funded Medicare should pay for long-term care.

Otherwise, our older Americans will continue to suffer in illness, then die early in poverty. And you probably will be one of them.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )
Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:
*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and
*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.
2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )
This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Economic Bonus)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.
8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY