Is universal health care possible in the United States without raising taxes?

Question

I personally do not think it is possible, I was just asking the rest of you for any ideas that I may not have explored. So please don't accuse me of being fooled into thinking that.

Heres an additional quesiton, is universal healthcare the best solution? What else do YOU THE PEOPLE think we should do with the nation's rising costs of healthcare services ?

Answer 1

We already pay for every uninsured Tom, Dick and Harry in an emergency situation with our tax dollars (regardless if they are legal or illegal residents). No hospital is going to decline an emergency situation, even if the patient is uninsured. Universal healthcare may actually be cheaper because it should (realistically) be more prevention-oriented and less emergency-oriented. It is actually cheaper to prevent illness than perform life-saving emergency measures as well as combat the massive spread of viruses by untreated people..

Answer 2

It could be if done correctly. If we were to simply stop pork barrel legislation that would possibly be enough to provide the health care. We could actually stop personal income tax and have a tax on profit regardless of where a product is made and a majority of the taxes would perhaps be paid by those companies which have established home offices in other countries where labor costs are pennies instead of dollars and the products are sold here.

Answer 3

Sure... The gov't could give tax breaks to insurance companies that have the best policies and who are willing to make it affordable to all. Competition would be created driving the price down. The problem is you will ALWAYS have people who choose not to have it, therefore, it wouldn't be universal.

I'm not sure how the gov't could create universal healthcare and nationalize 1/7 of our 13 trillion dollar economy and NOT raise taxes? I would think the answer to your question is 'no'.

Answer 4

Sure it is. Universal Health Care doesn't mean that it can't be run privately.

Let's imagine that the Federal Government administers and bids out the Health Care Providers by a mosaic of regions across the country.

In this scenario, every American is covered under the plan an would never be out of network regardless of whether they move or not or whether they are currently employed or not. In you move, you would simply fall under the "jurisdiction" of the Private health provider in that region.

In this arrangement, private health providers would bid on the business in a given region much like your cable TV provider does now.

Your employer would no longer provide your health benefits. Instead, they would still garnish your wages just like today and would match equally the amount of the employee contribution. This would allow companies to better budget for health costs and they would not have to worry with catastrophic illness conditions.

No American citizen would be denied treatment...(since life is a pre-existing condition). If you get cancer, you're covered ...not denied coverage because keeping you alive will cost money.

As with many corporate health plans, your premiums would be based on your income level.

Now it would be naive to think that such a plan would not require additional government funding. Certainly, it would need a federal (or state) commitment.

But, cut $100B (just for one year) from our bloated out of control defense budget and your easily there to ensure the solvency of the program. The incoming money from premiums will more than stabilize it as the decades roll on...of course assuming that Congress can't steal the money like they did with Social Security.

The biggest benefits of Universal Health Care are knowing that you are never out of network, can never be denied coverage or treatment and that it will always be available to you no matter your income or employment status.

And if our government thinks it's good for Iraq...then certainly it ought to be good for us.

Answer 5

it depends on what taxes you are talking about. for example, if the government raised the corporate taxes, and other value added taxes without raising the income tax, and cut down the middle men bureaucracy, then I don't see why the government couldn't introduce universal health care.

BUT, do you really want the US government to take care of the health care at all? I mean, you are not talking about any of the European countries where the government is relatively fair to the people. but the US administration, hmmm, they are happy with the current public education system where the kids are becoming dumber and dumber each year. so imagine the government run health care. good luck with that!

Answer 6

Can hypochondria be restrained?. Can doctors be managed without sacrificing the quality of patient care? Will the insurance industry survive? Too many questions and too complicated.
I have no faith that patients, doctors or administrators would be responsible with "free health care." It will cost more than short sighted proposals promise.
I can't afford another tax. I can barely afford gasoline. And Hillary wants to make insurance mandatory No, No, No.

Answer 7

of course it can be done.

What you do is you write your representative (you know, that guy you may have hired to represent you with a vote) and you tell him what you want. As a democracy, if we banded together and actually demanded something, our leaders are supposed to listen. It is not "we cannot make it work." It is "how can we make it work."


How many social programs would be dismantled due to universal coverage? Right there is a LOT of revenue. Instead of our income taxes going to those, they will now go to UHC. The thousands of dollars a year we dump into our nearly worthless insurance could easily go to that as well.

Those of you who think that it doesnt work in other countries... You better do more reading. If it didnt work, why would they all be using it?

Besides, to me, this is not about me me me me me as many of you feel so obligated to point out. It is about all of those people who cannot afford the FREEDOM of health! Who are any of you to say "i dont want to pay into a system that would save a little boys life" when our current system wont save him because HE CANT AFFORD IT????

Whats sad is that our nations laws claim that EVERYONE is entitled to treatments if they are life threatening.. yet people still get refused.. why? Because these places are for-profit!

Another mythical thing to consider (with the help of a wee bit of logic) is that yeah, any sustem will have inherent problems and people who whine about it. With UHC, some people are indeed going to die because they couldnt get the treatment they need. This is a rare instance in comparison to the thousands of people who die in the US each year because they cant AFFORD a treatment that is readily available to them.

What about all of these people that come to the US for treatment. Well, here again is one of those things where they are telling you the end result without all of the facts.. more logic is necessary to sift through the spin.... people do indeed come into the US for treatments. Number one, is that they often have the money to do it. This puts them higher up in the 'list' than they would be in other countries.

People also come into the US in emergency situations 'because their hospital doesnt have the technology of the United States hospitals." One example is a lady in Vancouver that was having... I believe it was quintruplets... and they flew her to Seattle for the emergency births because vancouver didnt have the appropriate hospital beds. Of course the news made a big spin out of it how the US has far more technology.. blah blah blah.

Logic: They flew her into the US in an emergency situation, just like in the US, they fly you to the best hospitals for the particular emergency. For instance, if you need a quadruple bypass, do they do it at your local hospital or do they fly you to a larger city with those kinds of resources? Yep, you got it. Why would canada fly those people into seattle? Number one, because it was the closest city with those resources. Why fly her farther to a place farther away in canada when canada will cover it anyways? But, would the US ever fly anyone into canada to get an emergency treatment? Nope! Why? because insurance wouldnt cover it!

Write your representative.

Support HR 676.

Answer 8

We'd have to increase taxes but not as much as you'd think because if the government is the only consumer they get to name there price pretty much. As an example like if I'm the only person who is every going to buy a car and I'm at a car dealership, as the only consumer, I get to name my price because it's my price or they don't make any profit at all. So the government can get lower rates for UHC, but it'd still call for some increase in taxes.

Answer 9

Cut the War in Iraq, And most of the US military expenditures, Let Europe, and Japan grow into real countries.

If the above sentence surprises you read (Rogue Nation)

Nationalize all the current private hospitals, keeping the staff, and only ditching the owners.

And the US would have PLENTY of money, while Reducing Taxes

Answer 10

No, and who have you been listening to? Who do you think will pay for all that new healthcare? You and me. And the care will go downhill fast and you better not have a serious illness, will wait months for treatment. If you don't believe me, try dealing with Medicare now, they are morons, can never get a simple EOB straight.

Answer 11

No, doctors, nurses and other staff must be paid. Nothing is free, even universal health care. Where do you think the money would come from for universal health care? The only place it could, tax dollars and the way congress spends no way could they take on such a program without raising taxes if they say they can they are lying.