Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: Medicare for All is a fatal loser in the general election [View all]Midnightwalk
(3,131 posts)We need to get a trillion dollars a year out of healthcare savings to get our costs in line with orher countries.
Some people seem to think that all comes from evil insurance companies. I agree they are evil but the waste is throughout the system and many jobs have to be eliminated to get the savings. The alternative is to keep spending money for no productive reason
Say 20% of the savings is employee cost and that the burden rate for a worker is 100K. Thats 200 billion a year (20% of 1 trillion) divided by 100k. I think thats 2 million people. A LOT.
Some say keep them anyway. Well only if we want to keep paying more than any other country for healthcare. Some say we dont need whip and buggy workers as if that is a valid answer to adding 2 million people to unemployment rolls overnight. That would have severe economic and political costs.
Spread over 10 years, that is 200 thousand workers dislocated a year. Im not an economist and dont have a good sense of these numbers but 200 thousand people a year might be manageable particularly as they would know change was coming. It still wont be easy.
Note that I made up the 20% of total cost is reflected in jobs. I didnt know how to get a better number and you can plug in your own guess. Same with my burden rate guess.
Id rather spread out reform longer and or pay for some transition subsidy than keeping unnecessary positions in the system.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden