Tuesday, May 23, 2017

How will 39 million people pay 400 billion dollars more than they are already paying? I don't know, ask a whacko!

The whackos are at it again! There's a story out of the Los Angeles Times (see below) headlining a single-payer healthcare plan that would cost $400 billion dollars. In case you haven't visualized that in numbers, that's  400000000000.  While you're trying to conceptualize that figure why don't we take a look at another number; 39.14 million.  That's the population of the state of California and if you divide one into the other you'll come up with a figure over ten thousand dollars for every man, woman, and child.  I don't believe every man, woman, and child receives a pay check so I guess the ten thousand number will have to increase substantially in order to pay for this so-called "human right".  Where one gets the notion that health care is a human right is beyond comprehension.  What if there were no doctors, nurses, or health care professionals?  Who would provide this right?  Would the government step in and force someone to take care of you?  Seems to me that this world full of humans had many more years without any kind of health care except that which came from friends and family long  before the modern world of medicine arrived.  So someone figured out you could make a living out of getting people well so they became doctors and nurses...not very good at first but when they got better at what they were doing so did the price.  Before we ramble on too far I should point out that the average life expectancy back in the middle ages was only 35 compared to today's almost 79 years...a contributing factor surely is modern medicine to include those 'awful' (said with jest) pharmaceutical companies . 
But here's the irony of this human rights business... Where does it say that we can steal from one group to give to another? We have a right to live...a right to speak...a right to move about...a right to think...you even have a right to defecate but not on police cars!  Human rights come from our Creator and not from the government.  The minute the government says you have a right that does not exist anywhere else it becomes a dictatorship.  You have a right to a free education...what's that you say? Who's going to pay for it? Shut-up!  You are! You have a right to health care...what's that you say? Who's going to pay for it? Shut-up!  You are! 
Meanwhile I don't know who in their right mind would be caught holding up signs that are not only ridiculous but stupid as stupid can be...unless they were paid by the powers to be...to be dictators! ~ Norman E. Hooben


May 22, 2017, 11:15 a.m.

Supporters of single-payer healthcare march to the Capitol in Sacramento on April 26. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)
Supporters of single-payer healthcare march to the Capitol in Sacramento on April 26.
 (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)
A single-payer healthcare system in California — a galvanizing cause among the state's progressive flank — would cost $400 billion annually, according to a legislative analysis released on Monday.
The analysis, released in advance of the proposal's hearing in a key fiscal committee, fills in what has so far been the biggest unanswered question concerning the plan to dramatically overhaul California's healthcare coverage.
The analysis found that the proposal would require:
  • A total cost of $400 billion per year to cover all healthcare and administrative costs.
  • Of that, $200 billion of existing federal, state and local funds could be repurposed to go toward the single-payer system.
  • The additional $200 billion would need to be raised from new taxes.
The analysis proposes one scenario in which a new payroll tax on employers — with a rate of 15% of earned income — could supply the new revenue. But the measure itself does not contain a specific tax proposal, and therefore would not, at this point, need a two-thirds vote to approve a new tax.
The write-up also notes that a  universal healthcare proposal would likely reduce spending by employers and employees statewide, which currently ranges between $100 billion and $150 billion annually. Therefore, the total new spending under the bill would be between $50 billion and $100 billion each year.
Under the bill, the state would cover medical care for every resident in California, including those without legal immigration status. Enrollees would not have to pay premiums, co-payments or deductibles.
The analysis cautions that the single-payer bill, SB 562 by Sens. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) and Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), would required "unprecedented changes to a mature healthcare system."
"Therefore, there is tremendous uncertainty in how such a system would be developed, how the transition to the new system would occur, and how participants in the new system would behave," it notes.