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NY Senate Bill S5474 proposing a universal single payer health plan for NYers

nysenate.gov

191–200 of 569 posts

Re: NY Senate Bill S5474 proposing a universal single payer health plan for NYers

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP sounds to be arguing the opposite. One lives in a low tax state while earning money / paying taxes, then retires to a rural part of NY / CA to receive tax-payer-backed benefits without paying for them.

Having a bunch of (medicare-covered) retirees (with no school-age kids) spending their (taxable) social security income in NY / CA sounds pretty great. Much better than losing them to Florida or Arizona. Bonus if the states get to tax their estates in the end.

I think he means people who have enough money at, say, 40 years old, to pay for everything but health insurance. I can see the temptation myself, since insurance as you get into your 50s can be 2000/month or more. If NY State pays that while I wait for Medicare to kick in, hey, FIRE!

Re: NY Senate Bill S5474 proposing a universal single payer health plan for NYers

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% of the US federal budget is healthcare spending. https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function And that is only because a ton of people do not actually get healthcare, either because deductibles dissuade them or they do not pass the means testing to get enough subsidies to buy Medicaid or healthcare.gov insurance. And that is because Medicaid severely underpays doctors to the point that if you visit a US c…

Very broad strokes, doctors in the US are overpaid and conservatives legislated Medicare can't negotiate drug prices. Lots of room to drive down costs. Spending is high because of a dysfunctional system driven by profit instead of care. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/12/702500408/are-... https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2010.... https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/10/25/opinion/let-medi…

We already have a shortage of doctors and it is very expensive to become a doctor. How will paying doctors less help this? We need to reduce requirements for becoming a doctor and have "tiers" so people who just do family doctor things only need to know family doctor things.

Prescription drug spending is less than 20% of medicare. Negotiating prices might help but taking that 20% to 10% still leaves healthcare as a very very large expense (source https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2...).

Re: NY Senate Bill S5474 proposing a universal single payer health plan for NYers

#193
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want it nation wide? Even if you “support it”, I’d much rather watch the implications from the various experiments across states. Then we can select the best option. Personally, I’d like to see some states ban healthcare outright. Others have full coverage and everything in between. Then wait 10 years and we can see the results. I strongly suspect there would be states willing to do this.

Exactly. US salaries for healthcare are the best on the planet, period. The comparison (and to be fair, this is a very high level) paints an extremely clear picture: United States $313,000 Germany $163,000 United Kingdom $138,000 France $108,000 Per: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-highest-p... So yes, I absolutely want to see how many physicians stick around if you tell them "your salary will now…

This will be a tough problem to solve. We could start by eliminating the AMA.

Re: NY Senate Bill S5474 proposing a universal single payer health plan for NYers

#194
post #96
post #30

it will be interesting to watch NY (and/or CA) put something like this in place and observe from afar. i strongly feel that states should be much more aggressive running policy experiments if their constituents desire them, and at the national level we all get some benefit of seeing how things turn out in real time. all that said, assuming there is some tangible tax increase, NYC high earners are going to be knocking…

That's 60% marginal rates. Last year I paid 17% of my total income in taxes.

I don't want to be rude, but if you paid 17%, that's basically the minimum income tax rate (10+4+3) for NYC. That's pretty far form the OP's "NYC high earners". Of course, if you got credits, that's orthogonal as normally those credits cost more than they are worth. For instance, the child credit is far from the cast of raising a child.

Re: NY Senate Bill S5474 proposing a universal single payer health plan for NYers

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This bill doesn't ban private insurance, it does however have this rule: "Private insurance that duplicates benefits offered under New York Health could not be offered to New York residents." So in other words, private insurances can only be offered if they provide benefits that surpass whatever the public option has. I imagine that private insurances will logically offer more benefits regardless, otherwise why would…

that will mean, though, that it will be impossible to get insurance to actually cover the things that the public system "covers" if you wait 35,600 years for your turn

Why? Wouldn't a line skip be by definition something that the public system isn't offering?

Re: NY Senate Bill S5474 proposing a universal single payer health plan for NYers

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent is not tax, what an absurd comment.

The point is, the apartment owner pays property tax and collect rent from tenants to pay for that. If property taxes go up, property owners raise rents to compensate. So the tenants are paying the property tax, albeit indirectly.

If the tenants will pay and it doesn't break any rules, why not raise rent before taxes go up and pocket the extra? (serious question)

Re: NY Senate Bill S5474 proposing a universal single payer health plan for NYers

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The young should not pay for the healthcare of the elderly. Why?

I think funding the elderly is a lofty goal, but I don't see a good intellectual argument for FORCING our children to pay for our healthcare. You shouldn't view your child (nor your neighbor's child) as your own personal piggy-bank to extract from when you get ill. IMO our goal should be to hand down resources from parent to child, not the opposite direction. If I made this story a bit more personal and wrote ("I am…

I don't understand your argument.

You are helping others & others help you. What's the problem?

> If I made this story a bit more personal and wrote ("I am too ill to work anymore, so I drove to my son's house and took $200 off his counter to buy my medication) HN would be reacting with outrage.

How about making the story more fitting the reality here: You drive to your sons house and ask him to help you with your health bill and he helps you because...why wouldn't he?

Re: NY Senate Bill S5474 proposing a universal single payer health plan for NYers

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP sounds to be arguing the opposite. One lives in a low tax state while earning money / paying taxes, then retires to a rural part of NY / CA to receive tax-payer-backed benefits without paying for them.

Having a bunch of (medicare-covered) retirees (with no school-age kids) spending their (taxable) social security income in NY / CA sounds pretty great. Much better than losing them to Florida or Arizona. Bonus if the states get to tax their estates in the end.

Half of California's tax revenue comes from the top 1% [1]. Medicare retirees are almost guaranteed to not be part of that 1%. You're talking huge tax revenue losses here if the 1% do decide to leave.

[1] https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/7

Re: NY Senate Bill S5474 proposing a universal single payer health plan for NYers

#199
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want it nation wide? Even if you “support it”, I’d much rather watch the implications from the various experiments across states. Then we can select the best option. Personally, I’d like to see some states ban healthcare outright. Others have full coverage and everything in between. Then wait 10 years and we can see the results. I strongly suspect there would be states willing to do this.

> Personally, I’d like to see some states ban healthcare outright. Others have full coverage and everything in between. Then wait 10 years and we can see the results. I strongly suspect there would be states willing to do this. This is the most HN comment I've ever seen

I'm not even sure what they mean by ban "healthcare" (insurance, doctors, hospitals?), and I can't decide if that makes me agree with you more or less.

Re: NY Senate Bill S5474 proposing a universal single payer health plan for NYers

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This bill doesn't ban private insurance, it does however have this rule: "Private insurance that duplicates benefits offered under New York Health could not be offered to New York residents." So in other words, private insurances can only be offered if they provide benefits that surpass whatever the public option has. I imagine that private insurances will logically offer more benefits regardless, otherwise why would…

that will mean, though, that it will be impossible to get insurance to actually cover the things that the public system "covers" if you wait 35,600 years for your turn

I went to a clinic in Canada a few years ago to see a doctor. My provincial health card had expired and I didn't know. I was sick and wanted a consultation with the doctor. I said I would pay cash and was told that they are not allowed to charge people who are eligible for public healthcare. So I had to go and wait at our equivalent of the DMV (while sick and seeking medical attention) to get my health card renewed before I could see a doctor. I'm sure there are countless bureaucratic nightmare stories coming out of the US health insurance system, there will be countless more under a public system
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