Plan B Forum

Would you be willing to pay an additional 5% in income tax, dedicated to supporting a federally owned and operated national health care system, similar to what the Brits have?

This 5% increase is aimed at the average person. The poor would pay even less, the rich would pay more, and the super-rich would pay even more still.

No one would be required to use the system, but everyone would have to pay the tax. People could get their health care wherever they wanted if they were willing to pay additionally for it.

Of course.

The argument against is often made that the tax rates paid in democratic socialist countries in Scandinavia and others which have national healthcare systems are prohibitively high compared to what Americans pay.

But the reality is, Americans pay so much more when you consider all the costs associated with out of pocket healthcare copays deductibles etc. plus the limitations on people’s lives when they have to chase jobs for healthcare instead of chasing real dreams in their one precious life on this earth.

The studies have been done extensively and there is no question that in the long run the added taxes are less than the out of pocket for private pay.

And by the way, that includes if we add national childcare, paid maternal and paternal leave of at least a year, head start before K-12 and then university to all who wish to attend after 12.

The only obstacle to all of this is corporate greed and a corresponding lack of political will.

The support for capitalism among younger voters in the USA is the lowest it has ever been. If these bad times we are going through now result in a shift toward democratic socialism in America by 2050 it will have all been worth it. We can have a better country with more opportunity and higher quality of life for all of our citizens, it is within our grasp.

The American system: Unless you can afford a boutique physician, all money is to be filtered through an insurance company, and all expenditures approved by an insurance company, which has never treated a common cold, removed an appendix or birthed an infant. All treatment is to be done by/at a for-profit treatment facility.

When did illness and approaching death become a profit center?

This is supposed to be more efficient. Check the grammar authorities. "More" is supposed to be a comparative. The American system is more efficient compared to what?

snailgate

BP--Actually, I would think every system has that sort of cost containment built in; from what I understand of the UK system, there is a review of treatment options and it can be accepted or rejected, generally based on the likely outcome if the treatment is given. And this does make a lot of sense--any system that would cover all treatments on demand would eventually become cost prohibitive. That being said, a single payer system would remove the profit component, and permitting the system to negotiate for the prices of drugs would being our drug prices down to the level of those in many other countries.

And BSG, you are correct; I worked for a UK company and had people in England and Scandinavia reporting to me; for budget purposes we generally lumped the "social costs" into a single line--these included healthcare costs (including the payments for national systems) and things like PTO and family leave--the US costs were always higher, even though the health insurance generally included copays and deductibles and, often, using approved networks of physicians/hospitals/labs...

liberty wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 10, 2025 4:44 am

Would you be willing to pay an additional 5% in income tax, dedicated to supporting a federally owned and operated national health care system, similar to what the Brits have?

There is no need to pay anything more to fund a national healthcare system; to suggest that it would require an "additional tax" is complete horseshit. Everyone who has employment-based healthcare is already paying for coverage, so those premiums/contributions would not be necessary and instead could fund a national health system with a much smaller payroll deduction. Everyone who has ever worked (or is still working) has already funded Medicare with payroll taxes, so no additional tax is required for that. The five largest US health insurers make tens of billions in profits (not revenue) each year; requiring them to operate as non-profits (if they were allowed to continue operation at all) would return that money to taxpayers. Healthcare delivery as a for-profit business is fundamentally incompatible with a capitalist market-driven economy; removing profit from that segment of the economy would return billions to the broader economy. As I have repeatedly pointed out over the years, there is more than enough money in the US healthcare system already to fund universal healthcare coverage for the foreseeable future, not only without any "additional" costs, but at a lower cost than currently charged.

I find that report posted above informative and interesting--but I am bewildered by one missing set of data: what is the resulting product?

In other words what does each system buy? I am not sure customer satisfaction should be the goal. Where is the comparison of life expectancy, morbidity, mortality rates?

snailgate

Burning Petard wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 11, 2025 10:22 pm

I find that report posted above informative and interesting--but I am bewildered by one missing set of data: what is the resulting product?

In other words what does each system buy? I am not sure customer satisfaction should be the goal. Where is the comparison of life expectancy, morbidity, mortality rates?

snailgate

It’s in the article, but here they are stand alone. If you have trouble reading the attachments (my photos seem a bit fuzzy) go back into the article and these tables appear about 3/4 of the way into the text.

Basically Canada and Germany spend substantially less and have substantially lower infant mortality and substantially higher life expectancies than USA. The USA ranks 54 out of 227 countries in infant mortality (we’re so pro life!) because so many women get zero prenatal care and many receive substandard prenatal care. We of course spend lots more than any other nation on healthcare for substantially poorer outcomes.

Because the data in the article is a few decades old, here is a newer source but which reiterates that the USA lags behind other nations on life expectancy, which in USA actually dropped significantly during our disastrous handling of the pandemic. It has rebounded somewhat but we still spend a lot more and live shorter lives than the lucky citizens of countries with national healthcare systems.

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/cha ... countries/

Just imagine the reduction of stress from always knowing you can just go to the doctor or hospital when you need to and that you won’t face bankruptcy or homelessness as a result.

The last year I was living in Montana I picked up a hitchhiker on one of my PD riding circuit to rural courts road trips - he was from Oz and had been robbed in SF and was making his way back to NYC to catch his return flight home after seeing the country by bus and train and then hitching. We talked about various things but he talked a lot about how he was very struck by our country’s beauty and the sharp contrast with our failure to give a shit about each other. People from countries with robust social security programs have a hard time grasping why a country as rich as ours chooses to abandon its citizens on such issues.

I am bewildered by the assumptions behind his question: " Would you be willing to pay an additional 5% in income tax, dedicated to supporting a federally owned and operated national health care system,"

If the USofA adopted such a system, why would the fees and profits now going to the Insurance companies and the for-profit care-centers and the for-profit middle-man systems that now control such things as Rx distribution and communication between physicians and insurance companies and for-profit corporations now employing physicians to provide primary care to individuals and employers, not all be available to the Nationalized system?

snailgate.

The U.S. currently spends more than twice per capita on health care than any other country. If all of that were redirected into a universal system, you would have the best health care in the world, available to everyone.

That would be true if even half of it was.

Sue U wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 10, 2025 5:12 pm

liberty wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 10, 2025 4:44 am

Would you be willing to pay an additional 5% in income tax, dedicated to supporting a federally owned and operated national health care system, similar to what the Brits have?

There is no need to pay anything more to fund a national healthcare system; to suggest that it would require an "additional tax" is complete horseshit. Everyone who has employment-based healthcare is already paying for coverage, so those premiums/contributions would not be necessary and instead could fund a national health system with a much smaller payroll deduction. Everyone who has ever worked (or is still working) has already funded Medicare with payroll taxes, so no additional tax is required for that. The five largest US health insurers make tens of billions in profits (not revenue) each year; requiring them to operate as non-profits (if they were allowed to continue operation at all) would return that money to taxpayers. Healthcare delivery as a for-profit business is fundamentally incompatible with a capitalist market-driven economy; removing profit from that segment of the economy would return billions to the broader economy. As I have repeatedly pointed out over the years, there is more than enough money in the US healthcare system already to fund universal healthcare coverage for the foreseeable future, not only without any "additional" costs, but at a lower cost than currently charged.

I’m not an expert on finance or taxes, but I did a little research. From what I can tell, the UK spends about 11% of its GDP on taxes to fund a healthcare system, which comes to roughly $400 billion a year. The U.S. GDP is $29.18 trillion, and 11% of that would be about $3.2 trillion. If you redirected all the money that corporations currently pay for healthcare, about $1 trillion, that would leave taxpayers responsible for around $2.2 trillion.

By my calculation, each taxpayer would need to pay an additional $13,500 a year to fund such a system. I still think most people would be better off with a progressive structure: 5% for the average worker, 1% for the poor, 10% for the upper middle class, 15% for the rich, and 20% for the super‑rich. I realize this would be quite a burden and could have an effect on the economy, but that’s the best estimate I can come up with. Feel free to check it out yourself.

The problem is that with the national debt we already have, we simply cannot afford to add any more debt. That means there would have to be an increase in taxes, because the money has to come from somewhere other than borrowing.

It's a dumb question. Going from recollection, in my last year of work I was paying about $30K a year in federal income tax; and about $500 a month towards my healthcare insurance. So another 5% on my income tax would be $1500 annually; and that means I would be relieved of $6000 insurance payments. I'm not clear what point you are trying to make, lib.

LIb--it's pointless to fucus on the amount of GDP spent, loo more at the per captia expenditures. See this article:

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/cha ... d)%25C2%25

We spend the most per capita of every country by far

Big RR wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 16, 2025 9:00 pm

LIb--it's pointless to fucus on the amount of GDP spent

That's Trump's job

Indeed; very fortuitous typo.

Big RR wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 16, 2025 9:00 pm

LIb--it's pointless to fucus on the amount of GDP spent, loo more at the per captia expenditures. See this article:

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/cha ... d)%25C2%25

We spend the most per capita of every country by far

To pay for a national healthcare system, we need dedicated funds, not borrowed money. Twenty years from now, the rising debt may not affect me or perhaps even you, but it will certainly affect the people we leave behind. I care about them just as much as I care about myself. By then, interest on the national debt is projected to consume about a quarter of the federal budget, a level that becomes unmanageable. When that happens, what will be cut from the budget to cover the interest? Think about it. Do you care about your progeny?

The Village Idiot wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 16, 2025 4:00 am

I’m not an expert on finance or taxes, but I did a little research. From what I can tell, the UK spends about 11% of its GDP on taxes to fund a healthcare system, which comes to roughly $400 billion a year. The U.S. GDP is $29.18 trillion, and 11% of that would be about $3.2 trillion. If you redirected all the money that corporations currently pay for healthcare, about $1 trillion, that would leave taxpayers responsible for around $2.2 trillion.

By my calculation, each taxpayer would need to pay an additional $13,500 a year to fund such a system.

Meaningless drivel. Are you forgetting that the taxpayers are ALREADY paying for the government's share of health care through both dedicated and general taxation? So there should be no "additional" anything required.

Let's post some real health care spending numbers for 2023:

Total health care spending $4.9 T
Government pays............ 3.2 T (this sure surprised the fuck out of me)
Private insurance pays...... 1.5 T
Other private payers........ 0.3 T
Patient pays out of pocket. 0.5 T

The government spending (and the taxes that pay for it) are already in place. What needs to be replaced is the $2.3T total paid by private sources and out-of-pocket. Insurers must be charging at least $2.0 T in premiums to pay out $1.5 T in claims, so if those premiums are replaced by taxes, that only leaves $0.3 T, which can clearly be found in savings by eliminating dozens of government programs and thousands of insurers and replacing them with a single, comprehensive system. To say nothing about what can be saved in prescription drug costs alone by instituting both regulation and negotiations with one single, huge buyer.