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

nysenate.gov

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

#391
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A substantial part of your rent is property taxes. Here. Without determining elasticity, it's impossible to determine how much of that cost is flowing through or how much goes to impact margin.

You're making a pretty fundamental mistake. I am not speculating about the elasticity of rent. If taxes went to 0, would rent go down? Probably not. So what? The percentage of rent that is taxes is exactly the amount paid in taxes by the landlord. Period. It is an absolute number.

But if property taxes go up you'd still be paying the same rent. I don't see how it makes sense to say you're paying property taxes when they have next to zero effect on your cost of living.

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

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This came up in the VOX in the weeds on healthcare policy some time ago. Their conclusion from the people that had looked into it is that it is sort of impossible for states to do this. Can't really remember the reasons. There was another state that was trying something like this, I believe it was Vermont.

I'm guessing the economy of scale for such a buy in isn't enough, and that states would have to take out as much debt as their yearly budgets or even more. Even a Elizabeth Warren's proposed solution was something like 17x the federal budget.

States wouldn't be able to borrow on anything like that scale to fund a healthcare program. Any major increases in healthcare spending would have to be funded by huge tax increases.

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

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's also crazy that your access to healthcare is based on how the government prioritizes your need of it. I agree with the idea of public healthcare, but not as a legislated monopoly. And that's true for government services generally. Monopolies don't benefit anyone except the monopolist, and competition makes everyone stronger. If the government wants to use it's buying and borrowing power (and maybe even taxat…

> But it's also crazy that your access to healthcare is based on how the government prioritizes your need of it. Triage is a pretty universal concept. Healthcare has difficulty with competitive market effects because the amount anyone is willing to pay to live is essentially infinite.

>"... the amount anyone will pay to live is essentially infinite."

This has actually been studied, and is not true.

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

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- A substantial part of your rent is property taxes. Without detailed analysis there's no way to know if this is true, or how true it is. It is entirely possible for an increase in taxes to lead to no increase in end prices or even a drop in rent prices. It's a complex system.

All property taxes are paid from rents unless the landlord is operating at a loss.

Landlords are price takers. Supply is fixed short/medium run so just charge the maximum people will pay. Property tax rates have next to 0 effect on that.

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

#395

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.

Yes, for sure. I’m not sure what causes Quebec to be so much higher. Our health care system has struggled immensely with the pandemic even with so much funding.

We may have a stronger government programs than most (subsidized parental leave, subsided childcare, subsidized French language media, etc), but almost none of them give any benefit to me.

Part of the difficulty to me is our high rates seem to kick in very early. A lot of other regions also have very high top tax brackets, but very few places are starting their top tax brackets at 100k/y income.

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

#396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does a "check up" mean? There's no way my insurance would pay for random "I don't think anything's wrong but I want to look for something anyway" outside of yearly physicals either.

> outside of yearly physicals Yearly physical == check up. Same thing. Going to the doctor once a year for a general check that you aren't developing any issues that you weren't aware of yet and to monitor your health. I don't have either. I haven't seen a doctor for about five years I think, under the NHS system. If I phoned my NHS GP and said 'it's been a year I'd like you to generally check my physical health' the…

Looks like the official NHS policy is that you get a checkup every five years if aged 40 to 74. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/nhs-health-check/nhs-health-ch...

I'm not a doctor but that doesn't seem often enough for an older person. I'm an American in my 30's and I just had a checkup, and my doctor told me to come back every two years. Of course the American system is pretty awful in its own ways, especially for those who are uninsured.

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

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would healthcare overall in e.g New York be equivalent though? In Canada, we have "free" healthcare but literally have no other option so it's the Soviet style mess you'd expect a government monopoly to be. But would this bar paid healthcare? Couldn't people still have health insurance and get private care? Is there something preventing that?

I don't know why the medicare for all plans need to ban private healthcare. Norway and UK has free healthcare for all, but still private options available for people that want to pay extra. That is also reducing the load on the public system so I can't really see why it is negative.

A lot of providers won't accept medicare because what they pay out is significantly lower compared to private insurance. That's why Obama's "If you like your doctor, you get to keep your doctor." promise was such a big deal.

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

#398
post #75
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…

New York is losing population at a breakneck pace. Our government is to blame. I am for single payer to some extent, but if done poorly medical staff (who are already leaving due to pandemic policies) will just pick up and leave. We recently expanded the privileges of nurse practitioners which is great, but two large nursing unions are less than 60 days away from striking.

I don't see how expanding coverage will have any bearing on the quality of care givers. It's going to be the exact same doctors and nurses, just compensated from a different source.

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

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent is not tax, what an absurd comment.

I’m a landlord and yes it is. My taxes doubled last year because of the stupid housing bubble and so we had to raise rent as well. Gotta make a profit here for this investment to be worthwhile.

You should've raised rent sooner. People clearly willing to pay.

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

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

NH is uniquely tilted towards real estate property taxes because it has no income and no broad sales tax.
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