The “majority of US residents” have private healthcare and don’t have student loans. That majority will pay more taxes to make life better for the minority of people who don’t have those things.
I’m in favor of universal healthcare, but billing it as something that will help the majority is disingenuous. This is the most likely outcome. Costs stay the same or go down a little bit, but nowhere near what it would take to make costs competitive, even as a percentage of GDP, with Europe. That means taxes will have to go up, and by a lot because our public sector is so inefficient compared to Europe. (It costs is 7 times more to build a mile of subway than France, why on earth would you expect building a hospital to be any different?) These taxes will have to be paid by the middle class—because that’s how it’s done in Europe. It’ll be totally unfeasible to have much higher capital gains or corporate taxes than France. (Which has low business taxes and pays for universal healthcare through regressive taxes.) At the end of the day, the middle class household making $80k/year will pay a lot more taxes, and their out-of-pocket healthcare spending won’t go down by much, because they had employer-paid healthcare to begin with.
But the hourly workers and those folks will be able to see doctors! And that will be a good thing. But it will also be quite unpleasant for the majority of people who we’re doing okay under the current system.
I’m in favor of universal healthcare, but billing it as something that will help the majority is disingenuous. This is the most likely outcome. Costs stay the same or go down a little bit, but nowhere near what it would take to make costs competitive, even as a percentage of GDP, with Europe. That means taxes will have to go up, and by a lot because our public sector is so inefficient compared to Europe. (It costs is 7 times more to build a mile of subway than France, why on earth would you expect building a hospital to be any different?) These taxes will have to be paid by the middle class—because that’s how it’s done in Europe. It’ll be totally unfeasible to have much higher capital gains or corporate taxes than France. (Which has low business taxes and pays for universal healthcare through regressive taxes.) At the end of the day, the middle class household making $80k/year will pay a lot more taxes, and their out-of-pocket healthcare spending won’t go down by much, because they had employer-paid healthcare to begin with.
But the hourly workers and those folks will be able to see doctors! And that will be a good thing. But it will also be quite unpleasant for the majority of people who we’re doing okay under the current system.