Politics Under Sanders, income and jobs would soar, economist says

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Paul Krugman.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/health-reform-is-hard/?smid=tw-nytimeskrugman&smtyp=cur

My column and Bernie Sanders’ plan crossed in the mail. But the Sanders plan in a way reinforces my point that calls for single-payer in America at this point are basically a distraction. Again, I say this as someone who favors single-payer — but it’s just not going to happen anytime soon.

Put it this way: for all the talk about being honest and upfront, even Sanders ended up delivering mostly smoke and mirrors — or as Ezra Klein says, puppies and rainbows. Despite imposing large middle-class taxes, his “gesture toward a future plan”, as Ezra puts it, relies on the assumption of huge cost savings. If you like, it involves a huge magic asterisk.

Now, it’s true that single-payer systems in other advanced countries are much cheaper than our health care system. And some of that could be replicated via lower administrative costs and the generally lower prices Medicare pays. But to get costs down to, say, Canadian levels, we’d need to do what they do: say no to patients, telling them that they can’t always have the treatment they want.

Saying no has two cost-saving effects: it saves money directly, and it also greatly enhances the government’s bargaining power, because it can say, for example, to drug producers that if they charge too much they won’t be in the formulary.

But it’s not something most Americans want to hear about; foreign single-payer systems are actually more like Medicaid than they are like Medicare.

And Sanders isn’t coming clean on that — he’s promising Medicaid-like costs while also promising no rationing. The reason, of course, is that being realistic either about the costs or about what the system would really be like would make it a political loser. But that’s the point: single-payer just isn’t a political possibility starting from here. It’s just a distraction from the real issues.
 
dviss1 said:
I have a 9 year old son. I will gladly pay more in taxes so he can go to college tuition free therefore NOT graduating 100K in debt.
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See and there's the rub. I (nor anyone else in this country) should not be expected to pay more tax so your son (who you are responsible for) can go to college tuition free. YOU should be making the appropriate financial decisions now for his future. I don't understand how you guys think its acceptable to leave your responsibilities onto the general public. If you are so upset about college tuition; then fix THAT cost, and corruption in the school system(s). Don't try to take money away from your fellow man to throw at a problem that more money wont solve, aside from making it convenient for you (and your family) now.... /smh

Furthermore, and off the subject of anyone personally here, we should not be forced to pay more tax so homeless drug addicts can get free methadone, or mentally ill people to get gender re-assignments. Free healthcare on the backs of working people like me sounds nice, until you start finding out who all you're going to start paying for.... no fucking thank you.
 
I think national healthcare is what any modernized, respectable nation should be responsible for. The chances are pretty high that in time, we'll have an airborne virus such as SARS that will not stop at the door of your gated community. Politicians always promise everything, then are lucky to get a couple of things accomplished in a term if that. The importance of a healthy population is a pretty serious factor given the right circumstances. I'll give Bernie credit...he's addressing it. If it comes down to national health care vs a wall on the border and mass deportation of millions of Hispanics....Bernie get my vote
 
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VanillaGorilla said:
You seem like you're completely devoid of empathy and compassion.
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Sure I can come across that way; But my money is my money. I earned it, and I worked hard for the life I have. I do not want some democratic socialist coming to office and now forcefully grabbing MORE of my hard earned money for people that don't fucking deserve it. People need to take responsibility for themselves. There's far to much of these programs that give people free shit and do not check to see if they REALLY deserve it.

As an example. At a previous job, a lady was asking the office to assist her in a medical procedure. She indicated that she was broke, and having a hard time paying for it. Normally I would have donated some money because (it was my choice, and I understand hard times), however....I declined to give her money.

Why did I decline? Because she smokes, heavily. There is no way I am going to give money to someone that doesn't care about themselves, and doesn't understand that by smoking you are completely slapping everyone in the face of who donated.
 
Ezra Klein, pinko.

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/17/10784528/bernie-sanders-single-payer-health-care

But the implication to most people, I think, is that claim denials will be a thing of the past — a statement that belies the fights patients have every day with public insurers like Medicare and Medicaid, to say nothing of the fights that go on in the Canadian, German, or British health care systems.

What makes that so irresponsible is that it stands in flagrant contradiction to the way single-payer plans actually work — and the way Sanders's plan will have to work if its numbers are going to add up.

Behind Sanders's calculations, for both how much his plan will cost and how much Americans will benefit, lurk extremely optimistic promises about how much money single-payer will save. And those promises can only come true if the government starts saying no quite a lot — in ways that will make people very, very angry.

...

They assumed $10 trillion in health care savings over 10 years," says Larry Levitt, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "That’s tremendously aggressive cost containment, even after you take the administrative savings into account."

The real way single-payer systems save money isn't through cutting administrative costs. It's through cutting reimbursements to doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and device companies. And Sanders gestures toward this truth in his plan, saying that "the government will finally have the ability to stand up to drug companies and negotiate fair prices for the American people collectively."

But to get those savings, the government needs to be willing to say no when doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and device companies refuse to meet their prices, and that means the government needs to be willing to say no to people who want those treatments. If the government can't do that — if Sanders is going to stick to the spirit of "no more fighting with insurance companies when they fail to pay for charges" — then it won't be able to control costs.

...

In the absence of these kinds of specifics, Sanders has offered a puppies-and-rainbows approach to single-payer — he promises his plan will cover everything while costing the average family almost nothing. This is what Republicans fear liberals truly believe: that they can deliver expansive, unlimited benefits to the vast majority of Americans by stacking increasingly implausible, and economically harmful, taxes on the rich. Sanders is proving them right.

A few days ago, I criticized Hillary Clinton for not leveling with the American people. She seemed, I wrote, "scared to tell voters what she really thinks for fear they'll disagree." Here, Sanders shows he doesn't trust voters either. Rather than making the trade-offs of a single-payer plan clear, he's obscured them further. In answering Clinton's criticisms, he's raised real concerns about the plausibility of his own ideas.
 
I don't believe for a minute that any candidate has completed a plan during a campaign season. Not one of them. Now to pick apart their plan before they have figured out how to cross T's and dot I's ...that takes a team at the highest level...Trump has no idea how he's going to move 11 million Mexicans and make Mexico pay for a wall and I'm sure Bernie doesn't know where he'll really be able to trim govt spending to fund healthcare...but in the idea ping pong game, I'm way more interested in Bernie's idea than Trumps and these guys aren't presidents...they're in training camp...haven't played a game yet.
 
dviss1 said:
I have a 9 year old son. I will gladly pay more in taxes so he can go to college tuition free therefore NOT graduating 100K in debt.
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Why wouldn't you just, I don't know, save up? Then you can decide to either send him to school or pay 25k for a car and 75k for school. Or a 50k downpayment on a house and 50k for school? Or choose a school that doesn't cost 25k/yr? Or have him do well enough in HS that he earns scholarships.

It seems like only the lazy or foolish pay full retail price for college.
 
BrianFromWA said:
Why wouldn't you just, I don't know, save up? Then you can decide to either send him to school or pay 25k for a car and 75k for school. Or a 50k downpayment on a house and 50k for school? Or choose a school that doesn't cost 25k/yr? Or have him do well enough in HS that he earns scholarships.

It seems like only the lazy or foolish pay full retail price for college.
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You can also invest in a college tuition fund with the school and it's interest bearing usually so in the end you pay less and also lock in at a current tuition rate instead of a rate 10 years down the road. Friend of mine did that for his son at the Uof O and chipped away at it over the years
 
riverman said:
I don't believe for a minute that any candidate has completed a plan during a campaign season. Not one of them. Now to pick apart their plan before they have figured out how to cross T's and dot I's ...that takes a team at the highest level...Trump has no idea how he's going to move 11 million Mexicans and make Mexico pay for a wall and I'm sure Bernie doesn't know where he'll really be able to trim govt spending to fund healthcare...but in the idea ping pong game, I'm way more interested in Bernie's idea than Trumps and these guys aren't presidents...they're in training camp...haven't played a game yet.
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Of course they should be presenting completed plans. They also know fully well that their policy ideas will be scrutinized and fact checked ad nauseum.

Trump is clueless about what it really means to deport 10M+ people. It would be one of the most egregious actions ever by almost any government.

When republicans say they'll repeal and replace ObamaCare, they are held to a high standard: with what? Be specific!

Sanders is not only specific about the enormous amounts of taxes he wants to implement, he insists his plan is paid for, and here's how. It just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

When the socialists figure out taxing 100% of everything still doesn't cover their spending needs, then what?

There's only about $10T in actual money in the economy, and the Feds alone take $4T... Well they spend $4T, borrow massively for the rest. The states take money, too.

At some point, I'm going to want to go to school for free for the rest of my life instead of being an outright slave to the state. Then what? I am pulling a bit of the cart.

There is no reason to look at voting as a binary choice. I'm voting for anyone but whoever barfo and jlprk like and anyone but Trump or Hilarity.

I will vote.
 
I'm not one to talk about costs, since I'm paying (what I sometimes think is ridiculously) for a 5 y/o and 4y/o to go to private school. But they will both be highly encouraged to do Running Start and graduate with an AA degree at the same time as their HS diploma. Turning 4 years of undergrad into 2. Then checking out military benefits. Or the aforementioned grants and scholarships, though from being from an upper-middle-class white family those are fewer and farther between than the average joe.
 
SlyPokerDog said:
Why not include a working link to the entire article?
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...ch-would-bernie-sanders-health-care-plan-cos/
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jlprk said:
Okay, I'll read the whole article.
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Let's see. This Politifact site is owned by the Tampa Bay Times, one of the most conservative places in the world. Just checking for a slant...

To make the Tampa Bay reporters' job to knock down the plan easy, the article starts with 2 straw men. 1) "With promises of lower costs and health care for every American, Bernie Sanders’ pitch for a single-payer system sounds like a no-brainer." (I thought it would for the bottom 98% or 99% or something, and increase it a little for the 1%.) 2) "You really can pay for that without raising taxes on the middle class?" Bash asked. "It just seems hard to believe." (The question should be, will tax + premium decrease, not, will tax stay the same.)

It says that Bernie says he has options on how to make his plan pay for itself (e.g. adjusting co-pay or deductible), then the article analyzes one specific plan that the authors assume (the worst?). "There are a variety of ways to go forward, Dana," Sanders said. "Our proposal will save the average middle-class family thousands of dollars a year in health care."

It keeps mentioning that Bernie would tax taxpayers making $200,000, but barely mentions one time in the middle of the article that it's $250,000 married, $200,000 single. As we know, most at that level are married. So married people between 200 and 250 will be turned off by reading this. Easy trick there.

I'm a few paragraphs in, and I'm really tired of the Bloomberg news video that won't stop on this site. It's both at the top of the page, and a smaller duplicate on the right side. I turned down my sound, but all it shows is Republican candidate after Republican candidate speaking. It shows the Tampa Bay Times' slant.

I'm tired of going over every detail. Skimming the rest of the article...

Wow, this thing isn't against the plan at all like Denny pretends. Later it gives quotes from a half-dozen experts (who each used different assumptions in their studies), and about half say that if done right, its budget for Bernie's plan will balance, and about half say it can't. A couple are from conservative groups I recognize. If I were a paid journalist, I'd spend an hour in detail writing here, but hey, Denny had me thinking this would conclude slam-bam for his side, and it doesn't. This all you got, Denny?
 
LOL.

Who is Krugman owned by?

W E A K.

Are you working your way down the list of logical fallacies? I'd give you a link to one, but you'd come up with some desperate silly claim about the source.

Skim away. That's how scholars learn and retain knowledge.
 
Denny Crane said:
Of course they should be presenting completed plans. They also know fully well that their policy ideas will be scrutinized and fact checked ad nauseum.

Trump is clueless about what it really means to deport 10M+ people. It would be one of the most egregious actions ever by almost any government.

When republicans say they'll repeal and replace ObamaCare, they are held to a high standard: with what? Be specific!

Sanders is not only specific about the enormous amounts of taxes he wants to implement, he insists his plan is paid for, and here's how. It just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

When the socialists figure out taxing 100% of everything still doesn't cover their spending needs, then what?

There's only about $10T in actual money in the economy, and the Feds alone take $4T... Well they spend $4T, borrow massively for the rest. The states take money, too.

At some point, I'm going to want to go to school for free for the rest of my life instead of being an outright slave to the state. Then what? I am pulling a bit of the cart.

There is no reason to look at voting as a binary choice. I'm voting for anyone but whoever barfo and jlprk like and anyone but Trump or Hilarity.

I will vote.
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That's why I mentioned that a guy like Bernie is really selling an idea at this point with Cliff Notes and a fancy brochure...these things need to be fleshed out with not only the ways and means to fund them, but the ways and means to pass them through Congress. There are plenty of areas where the govt could shift from policing the world to infrastructure...this is a direction we're long overdue for...I will vote...also not for Trump or Clinton...right now I am seeing Bernie as the better choice.
 
riverman said:
That's why I mentioned that a guy like Bernie is really selling an idea at this point with Cliff Notes and a fancy brochure...these things need to be fleshed out with not only the ways and means to fund them, but the ways and means to pass them through Congress. There are plenty of areas where the govt could shift from policing the world to infrastructure...this is a direction we're long overdue for...I will vote...also not for Trump or Clinton...right now I am seeing Bernie as the better choice.
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In all fairness, he won't get a thing passed by congress. I like gridlock, but I won't vote for someone I don't want to win.
 
jlprk said:
Wow, this thing isn't against the plan at all like Denny pretends. Later it gives quotes from a half-dozen experts (who each used different assumptions in their studies), and about half say that if done right, its budget for Bernie's plan will balance, and about half say it can't. A couple are from conservative groups I recognize.
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I had to use arithmetic to knock down your excerpt. So Sly posted the link to the whole article. I read it and it does not conclude what you claimed. It says some experts say Bernie's plan will pay for itself, and some say it won't. (Since it insures what, 40 million, currently uninsured, even if the total cost goes up it would be justified by the increased benefit to the 40 million anyway.)

So once again, Denny, you lose. What's your next move? Have Sly post the Encyclopedia Brittanica for me to read? You know that that your own links will turn against you, just like all your other stuff you copy and paste never stands up to scrutiny.
 
The title of this thread asks whether "jobs would soar," meaning, would employers now have more money to hire more people, either through paying less employer tax or by employees accepting less pay since their health insurance costs them less.

The thread comments, and the Politifact article I just read, have too narrow of a focus. They ask only, would Bernie's plan pay for itself or need a subsidy from the government.
 
I mentioned infrastructure and downsizing our military presence overseas. If we worked on more efficient energy grid, built a lot of MRT systems, water management systems, etc..It would create jobs but the question is, would it be enough to employ returning soldiers and acclimate them to the domestic work force? I think it's a transition that would span several different administrations. Congress and the Executive branch has been dysfunctional forever so there's this stumbling block in making any bold changes that would piss off lobbyists...that's the X factor for me...having a Congress, Senate and President that can get past partisan squabbling and actually start the process. There's a lot of reconstruction that we need to address...we did pretty well after WWII with returning soldiers and job creation.
 
jlprk said:
The title of this thread asks whether "jobs would soar," meaning, would employers now have more money to hire more people, either through paying less employer tax or by employees accepting less pay since their health insurance costs them less.

The thread comments, and the Politifact article I just read, have too narrow of a focus. They ask only, would Bernie's plan pay for itself or need a subsidy from the government.
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I'll ask again, since we're back to jobs and money and no one replied the first time... (though maybe that should've been my hint)

Not going to delve into the politics, but just asking about the math...

If 26M jobs are created, and the unemployment rate is 4.9% today with 7.8M unemployed persons (as posted by Bureau of Labor and Statistics), how does that only take the unemployment rate to 3.8%? So it would not only going to give everyone unemployed a job, but draft 18.2M other folks who are not currently in the workforce to do so? Or to backfill those jumping from their current job into one of Bernie's jobs?

From the link:
employment will prompt people to buy more, leading other businesses to hire.
"If there is more spending, people will have more to do," Friedman said, noting that the share of the population with jobs could be restored to its 1999 level of more than 64%, up from its current 59.6% rate.
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Can someone explain what the benefits of the economic stimulus package of 2009 did, in terms of jobs? Did that 800B spike create jobs for 5% of America? What did the $5T in defecit spending over the last 6 years do, and what makes Bernie or his supporters think that giving that money to Congress this time around will do better things for America (snarkily, I'd say that you're giving it to majority R's instead of supermajority D's, but I don't want to cloud this with politics)?

As for the median wage going up 22k, with 64% of America employed, that means that there's 350M*.64 *22k = $5Trillion dollars per year more going into salaries than even the CBO projects for 2026. Not 5T in salaries--5T more in salaries. If someone can explain how the government's investment in 13T in medical over 10 years can quadruple itself into salaries, I'd be stoked to hear it.

As for free college, right now there are many more people going to college than (seemingly) the workforce can provide for. What will more college graduates--paid for by the government--do? Not many people are stopped from going to college right now. It's just that when they graduate there isn't a lot of work out there for liberal arts majors. Per the NSF, of the 20.9M enrollees in higher education in 2009, less than 500k graduated with a degree in a science or engineering field (which was among the highest numbers ever and an increase from 350k in 1994). 6 years after enrolling, 62% of S&E majors had earned a degree, compared to 55% in other fields. 45% of non-S&E majors didn't finish a degree within 6 years. How is making that free going to help significantly, whether having them perform better in school or getting them a job after graduation?
 
I don't know...this is a complicated problem, and I haven't done a lot of research on it. But generally speaking, nothing is "free", so people should stop using terms like "free healthcare". At the end of the day it's really just a matter of what we're all having to pay and what services we get in return.

I'm technically "paying" 17 grand a year for health insurance, because that's what my employer pays on my behalf. If my employer started giving me that money, and my taxes went up less than that to pay for it, then health care would be costing less. But I've also seen studies, how in Europe and Canada, you have to wait much longer to get an appointment. So Americans pay more, but also get better service.

But I also see the point, that insurance companies are profit generating middle men that don't serve a purpose. I think there comes a point, where you have to stop calling something "insurance" and call it pre-paid, that's what health "insurance" really is with the amount people are paying for it. We're pre-paying for health care, the insurance companies take a cut.
 
BrianFromWA said:
As for free college, right now there are many more people going to college than (seemingly) the workforce can provide for. What will more college graduates--paid for by the government--do? Not many people are stopped from going to college right now. It's just that when they graduate there isn't a lot of work out there for liberal arts majors. Per the NSF, of the 20.9M enrollees in higher education in 2009, less than 500k graduated with a degree in a science or engineering field (which was among the highest numbers ever and an increase from 350k in 1994). 6 years after enrolling, 62% of S&E majors had earned a degree, compared to 55% in other fields. 45% of non-S&E majors didn't finish a degree within 6 years. How is making that free going to help significantly, whether having them perform better in school or getting them a job after graduation?
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I think that "free college" stuff is a load of bullshit. Though I appreciate Bernie's general idea of spending less on the military, and more on services, I think our tax dollars should be spend on things that benefit everyone, like infastructure, public schools, the environment etc.

There are so many things wrong with the idea of free college. First of all, what about all the people that paid for it and are in debt, secondly, in many cases the college investement does not pay off for the individual, so why would it pay off for us as a nation? Should tax payers pay tens of thousands of dollars to get a kid an English lit degree? What the fuck for? And it's like the idea of giving a kid a free car vs one they paid for...that car is much less likely to be taken care of properly.

If the country is lacking professionals in a certain area, perhaps offer targeted scholarships to certain fields.
 
riverman said:
Some good points but I'll counter with the fact that this competitive field in the auto industry has not made cars more affordable...car prices with the element of competition are still rising
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That may be true overall but you have to remember what kind of technology is demanded by the government and the consumer.

A Nissan Versa base price is less than 12000. A mid level Snap On tool box is 13,000. I challenged the Snap On guy who comes to my work to a contest.

I told him we could each use 1000 dollars to BUILD something. I'd try to build his tool box and he'd have to build a Versa. We could only use raw materials.

I told him the loser had to buy the winner the product he was trying to copy.

He wants noooooo part of that.

His toolbox is a metal dresser on wheels.
 
jlprk said:
I had to use arithmetic to knock down your excerpt. So Sly posted the link to the whole article. I read it and it does not conclude what you claimed. It says some experts say Bernie's plan will pay for itself, and some say it won't. (Since it insures what, 40 million, currently uninsured, even if the total cost goes up it would be justified by the increased benefit to the 40 million anyway.)

So once again, Denny, you lose. What's your next move? Have Sly post the Encyclopedia Brittanica for me to read? You know that that your own links will turn against you, just like all your other stuff you copy and paste never stands up to scrutiny.
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You're a funny guy. Like a timex watch. Take a licking, keep on ticking. Don't know when to quit after you've lost. More like you've lost it.

You're fixated on the one link and you interject some mythical premiums (TAX) on top of taxes that bernie has never mentioned as if they are somehow going to make his plan cost neutral. It's simply impossible based upon what he's promised and the amount of money he might theoretically raise by heaping even more burden on the taxpayer than we already face.

So I gave you link after link of economist after economist, including the most socialist of them all, who say Bernie (and you) are living in fantasyland.

And you "had to use arithmetic."

Figures lie and liars figure.

Enough said.
 
Sinobas said:
I think that "free college" stuff is a load of bullshit. Though I appreciate Bernie's general idea of spending less on the military, and more on services, I think our tax dollars should be spend on things that benefit everyone, like infastructure, public schools, the environment etc.

There are so many things wrong with the idea of free college. First of all, what about all the people that paid for it and are in debt, secondly, in many cases the college investement does not pay off for the individual, so why would it pay off for us as a nation? Should tax payers pay tens of thousands of dollars to get a kid an English lit degree? What the fuck for? And it's like the idea of giving a kid a free car vs one they paid for...that car is much less likely to be taken care of properly.

If the country is lacking professionals in a certain area, perhaps offer targeted scholarships to certain fields.
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You and I rarely agree on things, but in this case we do.

We shouldn't socialize business losses (bailouts), nor should we socialize investment losses (people invest in the stock market) or any other investments (invest in an education).

Most of the colleges are government run, funded, educations funded, as it is. If they're not producing useful workers, we really should look at who's running them.
 
As far as jobs go, there are 2.5M employed in the insurance industry. A significant number of those will lose their jobs and become a drag on the welfare state, worst case.

That Bernie's plan doesn't measure up to the promise says a lot about whether jobs and GDP growth and anything else he promises also measure up.

Who figures better, jlprk or the nobel award winning (LOL) economist Krugman?

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/23/dis...ing_a_sanders_skeptic_doesnt_make_you_a_hack/

His latest column is the most sustained critique of the Vermont senator’s presidential campaign we’ve seen from him yet, it’s true. But Krugman’s been looking askance at Sanders’ campaign for a while now, and his gripe — that Sanders’ campaign promises are unrealistic on both political and policy grounds — has been consistent throughout.
 
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