Live data from Hacker News

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

nysenate.gov

371–380 of 569 posts

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

#371

It's not rocket science, plenty of other countries manage to provide healthcare. Just remove the age limit on Medicare.

But won't you think of the administrators at all of these private health insurers that would be out of their cushy jobs? I consulted for a "non-profit" Blue Cross Blue Shield franchise 15 years ago. It was rampant with nepotism and outright incompetence. A good chunk of our health-care "system" is just a giant jobs program.

> A good chunk of our health-care "system" is just a giant jobs program.

Yes, and government systems are peak efficiency without the slightest semblance of a jobs program.

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

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what you focus on brings about thoughts of a zero sum game which I called out. You can safely assume I don’t agree with what you find most pertinent. I think a country which lets some get rich off of other’s cancer is an abhorrent, indefensible, system.

How do you incentivize smart people to go into cancer treatment instead of other careers? If they can't get rich treating cancer, talent will choose other fields where they can get rich. The market allocates funding to that which people find important. Health care is extremely important, so it gets a lot money thrown at it.

Countries other than the US exist. Doctors, health care workers etc are significantly less paid in Japan and yet they still exist.

The idea of 'market forces dictating absolutely everything' is proven objectively wrong by countries that still have a large amount of doctors despite being paid less. The market theory would posit that all of those doctors and what not would move to a country that pays them more but there are many, many other factors other than just pay.

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

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in Quebec so I paid 29% on everything over 66k to federal and my provincial rates were 20% (over 50k), 26% (over 100k), and 29% (over 150k). We also have a 15% sales tax. I paid more than a 50% effective rate last year. This is the cost of our social safety net. It feels like too much too me and I’ll be relocating next year.

Quebec has one of the higher tax rates in canada. You still get a similar safety net in the rest of canada for lower (albeit still high if you are a high earner) taxes.

yeah here in NZ we pay 39% marginal over $180k, 33% $70k-180k - no state tax - mostly free public health (5$/drug $100 max per year, $30 to visit GP, nothing for hospital/urgent care/everything else)

What we don't do is spen d all our money on a military industrial complex

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

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlords are also competing with each other and tenants have limits based on what they can actually afford to pay. At some point they can be forced to move out of the city to a lower cost of living location, dropping demand. In fact it's entirely possible for a significant increase in tax rates to make rental units a poor investment, causing housing prices to plummet and rents to drop. Your mistake is assuming that…

> In fact it's entirely possible for a significant increase in tax rates to make rental units a poor investment, causing housing prices to plummet and rents to drop. How does this logic work? Building apartments becomes a bad investment. Then developers don't build apartments. And somehow constrained supply is supposed to result in lower prices?

What if developers built too many apartments so there is no shortage? What if the builders all decided to tear down the cheap apartments and build a bunch of Luxury Condominiums when the the housing market is full broke college students who can't even afford to cover the taxes on individual units?

You can say the market won't let it happen, but the second case is the current real estate market for the town I went to school in.

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

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Property tax rates are extremely- some would say criminally- low in NYC. I would think it unusual for more than 20% of rent to go to property tax. Mortgage much much more likely to be the dominant expense for a residential landlord, but varies significantly with age. There are many longtime landlords for whom their tenants are now nearly all profit. Which is INSANE.

Why are you assuming he lives in NYC?

Because they are responding to the OP (who is talking about NYC) and further elaborating on NYC taxes, while describing their (supposed) NYC tax burden.

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

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NY has low property taxes compared to most no-income-tax states

NY's property taxes are among the highest in the nation (top 10).

Spot check, here's a ~1M apartment in NYC, vs a ~1M house in New Hampshire:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/41-W-72nd-St-APT-8C-New-Y...

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/491-Marcy-St-Portsmouth-N...

Property taxes on the NYC place are estimated by Zillow at 715/month, while NH place is 1445/month. NH has no income tax.

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

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have, as have members of my family, and have received excellent care for some fairly serious conditions. I think the Canadian system is under funded, and I'm sure there are plenty of true horror stories, but they always get highlighted by people who want to tear down/prevent a public healcare system so I feel I have to bring up that my family have received good and timely care. When I really needed healthcare I was…

It really seems to be one of those things where depending on who you are, you are better off under one system or the other. I have an aunt who was handicap from birth. Her care in Canada from birth to her death in her 70s was far better than what she would have received in the US under Medicaid, which is what her disability likely would have restricted her to as her ability to work and access quality health insurance…

Those stories aren’t irreconcilable. The US is huge and has a lot of specialists and I don’t doubt there are some cases where you can get better treatment in the US, especially if you’re rich.

The issue is we fail most people and those we don’t fail we often bankrupt. That isn’t acceptable.

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

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Coming from a country that has this, there should be caution It's big world - without knowing which country, this is of little help. I'd like to see a comparison of people forced into debt, bankruptcy or death due to the respective medical systems This hits home because I have a friend that got cancer with "good" U.S. insurance and if he did not fight the insurance company he'd be in debt for 1mm+

I'm from the UK, which is basically fully free-at-point-of-use healthcare (you pay a nominal fee for prescriptions, dentistry, optician) and is often championed as a great option. Reality is it's pretty grim. Don't know if I'd recommend it to other countries to be honest. Be careful what you wish for!

I'm from the US born and raised, so I could talk at lengths about how the healthcare system here bankrupted my parents and nearly forced me into generational poverty. Or how poor the care is despite being under decent corporate healthcare. Or how misaligned the incentives are resulting in doctors suggesting nonsensical treatments like holistic care rather than actual treatment.

Most people don't encounter this stuff until it's too late, which is partially where all the praise comes from for the American healthcare system in my opinion.

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

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The common refrain is very Yogi-Berra-like, "nobody lives there anymore, it's too crowded." Few people on the right want to connect things like rising homelessness -> rising rents and property values in the same period -> an influx of high paying jobs. There aren't concrete policy proposals given to fix those things given the circumstances of the last decade, just finger-pointing at whatever particularly policy someo…

Why would you even mention "the right" in any conversation involving the governance of San Francisco? What level of control does a party need before accepting responsibility for their governing instead of looking for an exiled boogeyman to blame?

I’ve seen people argue that the lack of complete unity on CA politics is the cause of all problems; e.g. the right is still to blame.
Post reply on HN