The one thing that no politician will ever say, medicare for all would have to be rationed. There would have to be limits, caps, formularies, procedures that would not be covered. I would love medicare for all but the devil is in the details. I prefer an all cash system. No money- you die.
1
The simple way to pay for this is to walk away from the Middle East. Cut off all parties, including Israel, and come home. Let them find their own way to peace, they are the only ones who can.
1
Another win for Putin.
1
Defense is the only thing the federal government absolutely, positively MUST do; everything else is discretionary. Spending a dime less than necessary to protect the US is a crime against freedom; spending anything whatsoever on welfare is deeply problematic in any event.
And, yet, whenever a ultra-leftist extremist suggests a budget cut, it’s ALWAYS in the military.
Furthermore, let Trump pull out a few dozen troops from a place they should never have been sent in the first place, and the Democratic House throws a hissy fit, with leftist media outlets whining about “betrayal”. Yet more proof that all that’s necessary to get a leftist to instantly change her mind about anything is to tell her that Trump agrees with her.
Funny, isn’t it, that the military might be the only place where leftist extremists support privitization?
And the same folks who berate the military for being wasteful passionately believe that governmentally-run medical care will be a model of efficiency.
Like all big governmental programs, the military is rife with waste, fraud, inefficiency, self-dealing, etc. Now, the author proposes to create a health care Pentagon. What could possibly go wrong?
69
This is a terrifying comment. Just terrifying. The US military hasn't protected freedom since the civil war. And even in that conflict a good portion of our military sided with the south.
8
Except our health care system doesn't try to cover the cost of Korean healthcare, or German healthcare, or anywhere else. Yet, because of guaranteed money to lobbyists and donors, we've kept sending money all over the world under the guise of 'protecting freedom', all the while destroying freedom for so many people in the world.
5
I anticipated your argument. Let me preface this by saying my father worked in the military and for military contractors. He was an aerospace engineer. It's not always about the military asking for more funds or more resources. Surprisingly, they sometimes ask for LESS: after all, our military spending is multiple times more than the next country following us (China) and even more than the 7 countries following us. What drives spending is not merely the need for defense or even offense but lobbying and demands by the military defense industry aided by Congress, who bring back some jobs and funding to their districts. However, the latter can be achieved in other ways and not just through defense funding.
https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison
4
Until we work to fix problems with our health care industry, it seems pointless to worry about who pays for it. There is waste, abuse and fraud. Let's pay for making people healthier, not others who couldn't care less.
We cannot change anything until we change campaign finance laws and end lobbying. Congress spends half its day dialing for dollars and if they don't they get replaced. We need to go back to public-funded elections. Even our media will try to kill Medicare for all because they are making millions off of the drug and insurance advertising. It's the money stupid.
1
Just like the apes-of-old developed the biggest sticks and stones to break the bones of all who dared to threaten them, the apes-of-now carry on that primal tradition to assure the same. And, hey, to this point its kinda worked though I think the due date of effectiveness of spending trillions on "defense" is about to boomerang. But, in any event, push a primal fear-button or two (as pandering politicians are wont to do) and multiple billions more will be sure to follow. In other words, this opinion piece, however well-reasoned, is a pipe-dream.
Old bull Democratic dinosaurs in tandem with some of the big corporate media predictably started the re-run of health care tax consequences. The specter scares people, particularly when Republicans tack on socialism.
My hesitation with Biden is his coziness with the status quo. The monumental problems of today can't wait for more study and "reaching across the aisle." As John Lennon observed, "there are no problems, only solutions."
Gee. We just pulled out less than a thousand troops from syria and Russia and Iran fill that vacuum in seconds. They are not are friends, both devoted to neutering this nation. While I agree our military is ridiculously bloated, it's also ridiculous for this country to let other nefarious players take over. Authoritarianism is running rampant and we may this world's last hope to promote a liberal democratic system provided we act responsibly. Right now our country is being run by a cowardly xenophobe, not only unwilling to push back on 3rd rate countries, but encouraging their bad acts. We need to get our house in order and reclaim our leadership in the world. I wish some other country would do it but they won't or can't. So whether you want that responsibility or not—it's ours so deal with it.
BTW, you don't have to cut a thing anywhere to get universal healthcare, we just have to take what we already spend, cut it by a third (like every other country) and get a better healthcare to boot!
1
Pacifists will be with you always, with no grasp of the fact that the world is, and always will be, dangerous. History is replete of cases when unprepared countries were walked over by belligerent neighbors. Machiavelli famously described how France invaded an Italian principality by sending in the billeting officers first to find housing for the troops.
1
Oy. This is the lefty equivalent to the Grover Norquist view of the world. Cutting defense spending to the extent described here would leave the US weak and vulnerable.
Here's the answer Warren didn't provide during the debate RE paying for healthcare for all. I'm all in.
1
Great read. Thanks, NYT, for publishing. Thanks, Lindsay, for writing.
All this talk about cutting U.S. defense spending is "literally a Kremlin talking point".
See how easy it is to end debate by simply invoking those five magic words? So the next time your opponent says something you disagree with, even if it's a fact, just say it is literally a Kremlin talking point. Better yet, call your opponent a Putin puppet or Russian asset. You'd think we would have outgrown McCarthyism, but everything old is new again.
1
And while we’re at it, how about taking a hard look at another sacred cow...the State Department. We reportedly have 5,000 employees at the US Embassy in Amman, Jordan. What possible reason could there be for stationing so many people there, on a walled and secure campus that most closely resembles a community college in Southern California? We have far more employees at our embassy in Amman than are employed by the entire Jordanian Foreign Ministry. What in the world is going on?
1
Well duh
Of course if "we" cut all the things that "we" do not want (but "they" do want) then "we" will get the things that "we" want without raising taxes.
Or
If a Radical Right Wing Defense Hawk came along and said "we can get all the F35s, submarines, and aircraft carriers we want without raising taxes if we get rid of pesky social programs, gut medicare, ..." ... I suspect that Ms Koshgarian (and more than a few of the commenters here) would have a vastly different reaction...
This article is bait and switch. It has nothing to do with "Medicare for All," a simplistic slogan that desperately needs serious discussion. Instead it lures people in with a promise (how to pay for a $3.5 trillion plan without taxes) and proposes something different - military retrenchment that could save $300 billion (though probably not.) Not even 1/10th of what is needed.
I suppose this says more about the current political debate than it does about healthcare or military spending. Perhaps 60% or more of readers won't get past paragraph one, and believe the headline.
This is a far-reaching program. It leaves much of the world available for conquest by whoever wants it - Russia, China, smaller rogue states, jihadis.
We need to see far more discussion about the extreme bloat in our military budget.
Excellent analysis and deserves wide distribution. As an aside, and while global warming is still a trending news subject (i.e., before the public gets bored) , the US military consumes enormous amount of fossil fuels to drive planes, ships, tanks, and so on. Just transporting the fuel around consumes a lot of fuel. Cutting our military down to size would keep a lot of CO2 in the ground.
The peace movement has been making these arguments since the 1970s. But democrats and republicans continue to support our outsized military budget; we have had a war economy for a long time.
Add appropriate taxation of our wealthy and corporate creations and we have plenty of money.
1
First, I think the Medicare for All supporters need to understand how it works. Are we talking about Part A, Part B or Part D? The last two are mostly private.
Why remove someone’s insurance if it works for the person?
1
Man's fear is reflected by the money he spends on defense. We all fear attack and so prepare for it, calling it justified. When the human species realizes the cost of fear, the cost of attack, the cost of defense against attack, it will be shocked. What we could do with these funds! Discover new worlds, heal this world, find new medicines, new ideas, new ways to teach, to aid the sick, to build without polluting, to care for the dying, the list goes on. But to do that we will need to see though a new lense - one that doesn't filter everything, everything, everything, through fear. Believe in God/Source/All That Is. See your brother as yourself. The loss we endure for not so doing is beyond comprehension. I am sick of it. We are sickened by it.
I am old enough to remember Eisenhower's warning of the military-industrial complex and its demands. We have ignored Ike's wise words - Republicans and Democrats alike. We cannot afford Medicare-for-all because our politicians get too much $$ from the big corporations, including the healthcare industry to keep Medicare-for-all off the table
This is a definite case for why Elizabeth Warren is right on the money (pun intended), while Mayor Pete hasn't done his homework and is plain wrong.
Just as we can walk and chew gum, we can pay for health care for all. Every other industrialized nation has worked it out. Is Mayor Pete claiming the everyone else is much smarter than us? Sure seems like it.
4
President Eisenhower warned that the military industrial complex would corrupt our democracy. His warning has come true.
If some of these expenditures seem surprising to readers it's because congress doesn't even debate them anymore. In fact, congress routinely adds pork to the already inflated figures that the Pentagon produces, turning the military into the nations largest and least productive jobs program.
We must also remember that our military is an extension of our world view and our foreign policy. We didn't create these endless wars out of whole cloth. There are elements in and out of government that have decided that America's role in the world is military and economic dominance.
But dominance for what? We have long abandoned real support for building democracy. We have turned away from leadership in humanitarian initiatives and routinely have far more military attaches to our embassy's than economists, educators and medical specialists.
The world of the 21st century requires recognition of our interdependence and leadership to move our international institutions in that direction. Our greatest enemy is not an insurgency in some far off place. It is the looming climate catastrophe and the massive social dislocation that is predicted to flow from it.
We must meet this challenge with a new vision and new means of functioning in the world. This means achieving the shift from military to domestic spending that this article supports. We must also support it.
No one who condems medicare for all considers how much money is spent on /by insurance companies, drug companies, uninsured ER visits, hospital CEO salaries. By adjusting or eliminating these money wasters there will be plenty to cover us all
3
American privately insured for profit healthcare costs at least double on a per capita basis than any other country in the world. That includes countries like Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Norway, UK, France, Sweden. ... need I go on. US healthcare costs $3.4 trillion per annum, which is about the same as the GDP of Germany btw.
Why not provide healthcare like they do. Extend Medicare to cover everyone and allow a top up for well off people to keep private for profit care. Combine Medicare, VA care, Medicaid and free american companies from the costs and hassles of managing healthcare - which by the way most companies detest. If America is paying twice the price that other countries pay, the annual savings could be as much as $1.7 trillion. But lets say its only $1 trillion - and we keep our military industrial complex
Why do seemingly liberal voices continue parroting the right's talking point that Medicare For All is costly when in fact it will REDUCE the county's total spending on healthcare?
The average American might pay a few grand more in taxes each year to cover 100% of all their family's medical costs. Right now those costs (insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays, etc) are many times more than the potential tax hike.
Are people really that challenged to do simple math??
3
This proposal/suggestion will never fly.
It makes too much sense.
2
Please end using "Medicare for all.
Then try Universal Health Care as practiced in country x.
Then tell us how that country offers UHC even though it is not the so-called richest country in the world.
"So called" since when I am in my USA each year what I see and experience suggests it must be quite poor.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
1
The total savings is $2,807 per household?? No thanks. Health care spending is over $3 trillion. That is $10,000 for every man, woman and child. I'm fine with higher taxes.
3
@ Justin Koenig - Justin the formatting makes it look as if you are replying to me but I don't think so. Nevertheless your opening question about $2,807.00 per household leads me later to look for that line in the article - via copy and past to Word.
Right now though your numbers suggest what I want some presidential candidate to do, really figure out what individuals in SES class x, y, or z pay for medical care each year over time and then make comparisons with what we who live elsewhere pay.
Here in Sweden since I turned 86 in 2018 I do not pay anything at all, that is right zero.
But in our family of 3 we have for the most part paid only token amounts in any given year $10 for a clinic visit, max $100 for some kind of treatment. Stated differently, we go through life knowing we will never face the catastrophic cost that I learn from reading 100s of comments on any given day ruin American families.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Hi Larry,
People say "fine with higher taxes", but they never answer my question from a few comments back. You probably know this, but US healthcare is so expensive and inefficient because we have had a tax subsidy for about 70 years now. It is the worst of both worlds, because there is no regulation but also no market forces to control what happens.
So I ask people the simple question: Would you vote to get insurance, from your employer if you like, but pay with after-tax dollars not pre-tax like we do now?
I gave the example that now you get a 20K policy tax free, but instead you would get, say, 15K and the government would get 5K. The government could pay for poor people without coverage, and you would make a decision about spending-- take from your other budget items to pay for the old policy, or get a cheaper one if you could.
My point is that you can tell people how wonderful your system (or some other country's) is, but if they have employer coverage now, they are already getting coverage and not paying the full price. Why would they vote to change that?
I think there is a glitch in the comment section. I did not intend to reply to your comment. I hadn't even read it until now. I agree with what you are saying, for what it's worth.
Brilliant, thought provoking analysis. Two cautions. 1) Cutting waste is far far easier said than done. Waste is a result of mindsets as much as accounting. 2) Unintended consequences will surface across the military and medical systems, the outcry will be substantial. It will take iron willed leadership and congressional agreement.
Tax all dividends and capital gains as ordinary income raising 160 B /year.
Tax unrealized capital gains at death raising 40 B/year.
About 400 B /year in tax due under the present tax code is not collected.
Let Medicare negotiate drug prices.
The military is the ultimate in pork and graft.
The cost of goods and services is astoundingly inflated.
I remember a military acquaintance boasting, more than forty years ago, of transporting for personal use a high end BMW from Germany--a model unavailable in the States--all at government cost.
I've posed this question multiple times, with no answer. Let's do a simple calculation instead of all the speculating.
Say an employer provided policy costs $20K, split however between you and employer. But that is in pre-tax dollars.
Say we eliminate the tax subsidy. You now get $15K in net compensation, and the government collects $5K in taxes.
The government can spend that money on, say infrastructure, or... it could pay for health care for all the uncovered poor people.
You, whether privately or through the employer, would have to decide whether to take $5K from other expenditures like car payments or a new iPhone to keep paying for the original policy.
The question is for both "we can do it MFA yay" people, and "anti-socialist except when I benefit" types:
If you currently have employer-based insurance, would you vote to eliminate the tax subsidy for health insurance?
Any honest people out there?
Change military pensions from defined benefits to defined contributions (aka 401k) and forbid retirees from working in defense-related private industry. You'll get more patriotic people who aren't in it for the money.
1
Much of the money we now spend on health care comes in the form of employer purchases of health insurance for their employees. Medicare for All would free this money for the employer to spend on other things rather than health care, and it would have to be made up somehow. If it were still somehow captured for health care, taxes would perhaps not have to be raised. But how would that work?
If we reduced our per capita health care expenditures to what Canadians or Germans pay, financing Medicare for All would be no problem except that reducing health care spending to that extent would eliminate so many jobs and profitable investments that the economy would crash. Hundreds of thousands of clerks and secretaries who do the paperwork, and thousands of professionals who manage it, would be unemployed.
Much of our economy consists of make-work jobs that could be eliminated without loss of value. Rather than eliminating problems, we allow them to fester and concentrate on repairing the damages they do.
1
Cutting all this defense spending will bankrupt many companies, dead-end many careers, and cost many jobs. People in these careers and jobs will tend to fight to preserve them, and believe what they need to believe about defense in order to justify this. A generous and effective transition and reeducation program would be expensive but be needed to make the cuts acceptable -- and fair. Just cutting a lot of spending would crash the economy.
I, too, think that it is possible to finance healthcare without raising taxes significantly, and while I'm sure there are excesses in our military budget, I think care must be taken to ensure that we have a strong defense system, especially as China expands its influence across the globe.
Instead, I'd like to point out that healthcare IS already bought and paid for--Medicare and Medicaid taxes covered 37% of national heath care expenditure in 2017 and private health insurance accounted for 34%; and out-of-pocket costs represented 10% according to CMS.
The total represented 17.9% of gross domestic product, up from 15.5% of GDP in 2005, likely due to failing to control pharmaceutical, biotech and even insurance price increases to enhance profit, something that must be dealt with for a national plan to be successful.
Furthermore, about 25% of the current total healthcare expenditure is waste--mostly administrative waste including the time and wages of healthcare workers/billing and coding employees spent on determining coverage (varying among 100s or 1000s of plans), filing paperwork and collecting payments (from insurers or private payers) plus the costs of insurance workers and insurance companies profits.
Finally, there is also overutilization at ERs by uninsured, which contribute unnecessarily to out-of-control total healthcare costs--and this would be nearly eliminated under Medicare for All.
Control these factors, and costs may be go down.
1
When I read the headline for this piece, I thought "oh boy, somebody has finally got it!"
Wrong! Not even close. What will it take for people to understand that the trillions of dollars, an idea that the insurance lobby has promoted, all fail to take into account (probably deliberate) that you have to subtract the hundreds of billions in premiums, the cost of co-pays, the uninsured costs paid out of pocket, drug costs, etc. The proof is in the fact that the cost of healthcare in advanced countries is half of what it is in this country and their outcomes are far better. The truth is that people will be saving a ton of money. If you pay $5000 a year in premiums and other costs, what does it matter if your taxes go up by $2500. You end up with an extra $2500. Think of it as a tax cut!
2
Good ideas, but we don't even need to do that. The problem is that insurers and provider managers are at war with each other. The providers demand $300 for a procedure, the insurers say we'll pay $100. So what happens? Next go round the provider asks for $1000 and gets $300. Nothing in healthcare costs what it should actually cost. It won't cost anything to implement Medicare for all because Congress can simply set caps on costs (probably very simply, by bench-marking versus a few countries that already set prices like Japan, Sweden, and Canada).
Example: new MRI machine costs $3m.
My wife’s MRIs cost $5k. The imaging center has multiple machines, is open 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Yearly income if they use the one machine for 10 scans a day is $15.6M.
Granted not all scans cost the same, but they also likely use it more than 10x per day. Even if the average scan is $1000, they still payoff the machine in one year.
The average family making $60,000 per year pays about $10,000 (and has deductables) per year. If they had their taxes increased by $5000 they would still have significant savings and assured complete health care. Of course with efficient use of medicine and the reasonable pricing of drugs all of this would decrease. Remember, about 60% of health care already paid for by the government.
Another consideration is the reduction in administration. The private systems require about 3X the cost of administration as the government,( 750 billion).
The Federal and State governments now pay 64% of all US health care spending (1.8 Trillion) and this will increase to 67% in 2024. Canada, single payer country, pays 71%. 20% of this cost in the US is due to the loss of revenue from the tax deductions for all costs paid by employers (300 billion). This means there is only a 4% difference in government costs between the two countries. Yet, the cost to individuals is 3X in the USA. (Am Journ Public Health 2016).
Spending $32.6 trillion for Medicare for All would save Americans about $2.1 trillion over 10 years. These are conservative estimates that some experts argue wildly understate savings; other studies report far greater savings.
Is the writer some kind of mole, wrapping a moral compass around trashing large parts of our defense? I think making the military work harder and smarter is the way to go. The military hires and pays contractors for work done on the bases. The WWII pictures of GI's pealing potatoes is long gone. Drones and intelligence are smarter and more nimble than fighter jets. Stop approving budget increases and purchases, and rethink it all. Pitting Medicare for all against the military is a great way to unsell it. Thanks for thinking of our well being, but no thanks.
1
Seems if we raise the cap on FICA we would have the money. Right now FICA is taxed on incomes to $120k or so, we should pay on all of our incomes.
1
Easy solution for at least some of the political aspect of this, transfer the spending to infrastructure projects, then the handouts get maintained for something that actually benefits this country.
Otherwise this piece is severely lacking. Can’t we address the elephant in the room? Medicare for all means the premiums we pay, and for most of us,the thousands our employers pay would go to this plan. That is not a tax increase, it’s just a shift in reporting.
But how can we do that? The military has been the "secret" jobs program that Republicans for generations have said that the US can't afford. It provides healthcare, work, education, a sense of purpose for millions. It's needs have driven the development of technology since World War II. Silicon Valley was created by the military for the cold war (check Leslie Berlin's history for the details). Sure, the US has to use military periodically to justify its worth, but what's the matter with terrorizing the rest of world for these higher goals? AND finally, the maintenance of the nuclear systems that can definitively wipe most life (at least human life) off the planet, with a design that gives one person the keys who may be emotionally disturbed has be preserved. What a perfectly impractical idea that paying more than lip-service to the idea that "we the people" doesn't just refer to the propertied might actually turn down the anxieties (status and other) than drive people into the drive is, perhaps, more of security threat than the ones (some real) that are used to justify the money put into the military. I'm no pacifist, but it's easy to see that bridges falling, extermination of specifies, climate alterations to the ecosystem, and economic uncertainties that raise cortisol levels to reduce the lifespan of the scared, might just hurt more people than keeping "our" corporations safe.
1
While if we had a decent health care for all infrastructure, a significant part of military medical spending could be transferred to that system, we will still have some troops and dependents overseas and will need a medical system to support them. Also, the medical personnel serving in war zones do not simply rest up when they rotate stateside. They go to work in militarily installations. There may be big savings available by trimming the military, but we should be careful about limiting our medical capabilities.
I’m afraid Ms. Koshgarian’s rehash of the social democratic “butter not guns” plea reveals that she doesn’t know what country she lives in. U.S. capitalism didn’t become the world’s dominant economic and political power without the real and threatened use of its military power. That’s not going away willingly. The idea that major corporations, let alone their political representatives, Democrat and Republican, are going to voluntarily trade a good chunk of those expenditures for government-run health care is delusional. Why a business class that has created the greatest disparity in incomes in nearly 100 years, if not in the country's history, would all of a sudden switch to looking out for workers’ health, short of fear of revolutionary uprising, is beyond me.
You forgot a big one: cut all government support for religious organizations, whether through direct payments to religious schools, or to so-called religious "NGOs" that have sprung up to cash in on all the money the country spends on foreign development assistance. Or simply through tax exemptions.
Jon Oliver's brilliant 2015 description of the "church" he invented -- Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption -- exposed the astonishing degree of corruption that has grown up around religious tax exemptions in a country whose constitution explicitly sought to separate the functions of government from religious influence.
This should have made Congress hang its collective head in shame.
It did not, of course. Instead, claims to Christian righteousness have marched front and center into the White House itself.
I can't wait to see if the ability to write off invented churches has been one of the dozens of tax tricks Trump may have played over the years.
Over twenty years, this proposal raises (by savings) 6 trillion dollars. Let's be conservative in cost estimates and say that it will require 32+ trillion to fund healthcare "for all" as we know it over the same period. How do we fund the$26T gap? Another peace dividend concept is worth exploring but to link the desire for peace and the desire for universal healthcare does fiscal responsibility a disservice. I don't think it's a good idea to have the whole country become the risk pool needed to make this approach to medical benefits worthwhile.
1
But alas, unless you're willing to repeal EMTALA (the law that requires ERs to take all comers regardless of ability to pay) the whole country is already part of the same risk pool, just with an incentive structure that is incredibly perverse.
That people in the individual market are subsidizing Google employees is just one of the truly crazy aspects of trying to fit the financing of medical care into a market based model.
1
What Ms. Koshgarian suggests is not without merit but it misses the mark with respect to one very important point. Well within what we currently spend on health care and health insurance in terms of insurance premiums and cash out lays by the givernment and individuals, we could cover the health care expenditures of every man, woman, and chikd in this country if we would end the scam that is the for profit health insurance and health care 'industry'. Of course we have wasted vast sums on indefensible military adventurism and the concommitent built in graft and corruption of defense 'industry'. No objection here. But even without that obvious step in the direction of reason, we could be a country of people who cared about each other's health.
3
"Private contractors consumed fully half the Pentagon budget in 2018, raking in more than $364 billion."
I was waiting all night for one of our so called socialist or "make capitalism work better" Democratic candidates to say something about this. Deafening silence.
I agree with Koshgarian's assessment. Military bases all over the world don't really provide peace. Plus, this idea of physical bases and the types of armaments they deploy are becoming outmoded. Wars are now fought with drones and robotic airplanes flown from thousands of miles and maybe even a continent away. If equipment needs to be transported someplace, it can be done so quickly. If we were less spread out we could deploy more efficiently with more modern equipment, more kept up, as needed. For millennium, countries have deployed armies around their perimeters for their defense and kept their armies intact, not scattered throughout other countries. I believe countries that rely too heavily on the U.S. are also weakened from within. When there is a President like Trump, we can become very unreliable, and it happens throughout history. Also, defense needs change all the time, planting large numbers of troops anyplace on the off chance they will be needed in a particular area can be wasteful. We need to work more with the UN, NATO and our allies' particular needs. We also need a President with a good understanding of the value of allies and who is willing to listen to a variety of people, i.e. historians, military scholars, etc. Having one that is moral, ethical, well-read and intelligent would also be very nice.
Ms Koshgarian focuses exclusively on military budgets as a way to fund Medicare for All. While I agree that military budgets need serious scrutiny, the proposals she makes will depend on multinational agreements in conjunction with US budgetary revisions, otherwise the effect will be similar to the isolationist fiasco we’ve seen this week in Trump’s unilateral Syrian pullout.
But actually, there is a much more straightforward answer to paying for Medicare for All. Though estimates vary, a widely adopted price tag is $34 trillion over 10 years, or $3.4 trillion each year. But right now, the US spends 18% of our $21 trillion GDP on healthcare, in the insurance premiums paid by businesses and private individuals, co-pays, deductibles, governmental appropriations allocated to healthcare agencies, etc. That is $3.78 trillion dollars each year that we are paying right now for our bloated and dysfunctional patchwork of healthcare. We already have the money in hand, because we are spending it piecemeal to a million different providers and agencies, each taking their cut of the profit. Streamline this, and perhaps we can apply the same techniques and efficiencies to other areas of our society, including the military.
2
While I agree with the sentiments expressed by this article and the excellent scholarship that went into it, I am still left with an important question. If we use whatever windfall we manage to squeeze out of our bloated military budget to overhaul our absurd medical "system," what funds will we use to cope with the climate change catastrophes that are occurring with increasing frequency? If you think (as I do) that it will be tough to revamp the medical system, just wait until we also have to deal with millions of climate refugees from Florida, or from all the soon-to-be submerged U.S. Naval facilities along the Atlantic seaboard.
Healthcare in America is a $3,000 billion per year industry. You can't cover that with $300 billion in annual savings. You can eliminate premiums paid by employers, employees and the self-employed, as well as out of pocket expenses, but you will have to collect at least half as much as that in new taxes, less the $300 billion in savings this article enumerates. This is just the reality of the situation. Anything else is a fantasy.
1
All of that which is currently kicked in by employers and employees into a clearly bloated and corrupt 'health care system' which exists primarily to boost the profits of health insurers and hospitals could, in an national single payer system, be used for actual care. The nonsense surrounding this issue promulgated by insurers, hospitals and their fellow travellers in the realm of self-described 'free marketeers' is chaff designed to lure the credulous into defeat of their own interests.
1
Ms. Koshgarian, I saved your article. I would love to read more from you in the NYT. You are brilliant. I have also shared it with my students. Many thanks for pulling the pieces together.
2
Agree,
I pay 25000 out of my earned income from my salary for insurance for family of 4. I am sure any tax would be less then that over income of 250K.
I am all for it, if it gives me confidence that I will never lose insurance for my family even if I am laid off.
3
Exactly - the average American worker who makes a $75K salary and gets health insurance from his employer (on average costing $25K for a family of 4 including copays and deductible) is in reality paying a 25% tax on his compensation. ($25K on a comp of $100K)
A 4, 5 or even 10% medicare for all premium tax on total compensation would be a bargain for pretty much anyone making under 250K
2
When was the last time the government did anything less expensively than the private sector?
Medicare for all could not be obligatory; that would be unconstitutional. That means people would have to voluntarily a) give up their current insurance b) accept massive increase in taxes even if they chose to stay with their current insurance. That turns medicare for all into medicaid for people who lack insurance. Wait, that turns pretty much into Obamacare.
1
“When was the last time the government did anything less expensively than the private sector?“ That would be current Medicare. Its administrative overhead is 1.2%; the overhead of private for-profit insurance industry varies between 12% and 18%, depending on company.
2
We can afford Medicare for All. If we did half of what the article suggests and reverse the Trump tax cuts, and raise taxes on capital gains to the level of what a gas attendant pays, we can pay for Medicare for All and begin to eliminate tuition for public universities and colleges.
What is missing is political will. Once more Americansrealize that most of our politicians are going to do what private interests want and ignore what the majority of Americans want, maybe we'll begin to elect candidates that reflect our wishes.
3
Military might is historically a distinguishing attribute of greatness as a Nation or Civilization, The military may not make us great but it gives us a form of security and power that is a key component of what sets us apart. "Speak softly and carry a big stick" are still words to run a Nation by. We don't need the level of spending we have but the feeling of ascendancy we enjoy will dissipate if we no longer dominate the world militarily. It is something all of us have taken for granted at least since the end of the Cold. Before we dismantle too much of it we need to ask our selves how much equality of power do we want with the rest of the world?
I would prefer to keep my tax dollars in my bank - I have no need to feel superior to the rest of the world, thank you. Especially not when the average American cannot afford healthcare and education - two basics of life that most people in other advanced countries don't need to go bankrupt over.
1
Let's get the problem of big pharma extortion out of the equation before we are put on the hook for universal health care. Ditto for all the other con games foisted on us by the medical/industrial complex. The two parties have taken us for a ride.
2
One could argue that the entire cost of universal health care in the US should actually cost less than the current system, but I wont go into that.
But another key point is that total US taxes as a percent of GDP are in the bottom decile of OECD countries. We are not, nor have we ever been, a highly taxed country. It is the elephant in the room.
Not only are we taxed at a low level, the underling policies of our current tax code create all sorts of perverse incentives including income and wealth inequality and all that flows from that. Our audit program is a joke.
But Americans have no vision of what it would be like if, perhaps, we were at 25 or 26% of GDP? They don't see the better roads. They don't see their better educated children. They don't see the high speed internet on their farm in rural Kansas. All they see is "takers", a racial code work for sure.
How do we create a vision of what the alternative to our current tax strategy might look like?
2
I agree completely. I’ve just started reading Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman’s new book, The Triumph of Injustice: How the rich dodge taxes and how to make them pay. I heartily recommend it. Among other things, while federal marginal rates have come down at the highest income levels over the past 40 years, it is really the states that have regressive tax systems, leading to a combined tax obligation at the federal, state and local level that is basically a flat tax, with a dip for the highest incomes.
1
This is a fantastic article, well thought out and well argued! I've been making similar claims to my students for the past decade. Comforting that there is a whole movement afoot to actually articulate the details of such a proposal. Thank you!
2
Nice try but it ain't gonna happen.
All these thing you are discussing that we can live without have been built by private corporations whose investors like the way things are going, and who have the ear of those who make the decisions. They don't want things to change because they are making money off the way things are.
The common man, the working stiff who is footing the bill for all of this, will not be listened to.
All people are equal, but some people are more equal than others. And that is what Eisenhower was trying to warn us against.
1
The world's "defense" spending offers a big target for those who believe it could be reduced significantly, especially in the US. Probably true if peace were the primary objective. Nonetheless, the US spends more per capita on "sick care" than any other country. So, regardless of the "source" of funding for "health care" we need to remember that we already spend more than we need to spend...this represents the "heart" of the debate... how do we structure the health care system to operate within the current funding level, or even less. Other countries seem to be able to do this so why not the US????
2
"Let's waste our money on social services instead of defense services." - the author.
1
Let me correct that - "Let's spend our money building domestic infrastructure instead of bombing others' infrastructure, saving lives at home instead of killing hundreds of thousands overseas"
What you consider a waste is a reflection of your value system.
I'm sure they'll say, "nature deplores a vacuum"... as is American Imperialism is somehow natural. Bernie/Tulsi 2020
2
Thank you Lindsay for achieving world peace. I'd suggest you work on your Chinese and Russian if you dismantle the military.
1
Yup.
Less guns, more butter
2
All we need to know is that the US spends on defense more than the next 7 countries COMBINED!!! I say let's spend more than the next 3 countries combined and we could save a few hundred billion.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/01/31/defense-the-u-s-outspends-these-countries-combined-infographic/#40400c7779b6
1
How about all the munitions Trump just blew up in Syria, and for what, his rash stupidity? How much did that cost the taxpayers?
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/16/politics/us-airstrike-storage-site-syria/index.html
3
I would like to point out that our military is in these foreign countries to prevent violence too. I am a lovely libby, but I don't think that us pulling our military bases out of everywhere is the solution, or even the most expensive thing we do. The tiny force that was holding Turkey of the Khurds in N. Syria is a prime example...we weren't involved in a very big way with our own blood. We were guaranteeing that our allies weren't hit.
I don't mind paying taxes. Especially if it gets me services, and saves me money. But let's not pretend that pulling our troops out of bases is going to do that with no cost. Especially since, as a military brat, I can tell you the money going to the military is not going to caring for personnel. If you cut military spending, it will come on the backs of personnel first and then military contracts.
This article is based on a false assumption:
that Congress will agree to all that is demanded.
That will never happen.
Medicare for All, as promulgated by Bernie/Warren is a pipedream that, for starters will deprive over 140 million Americans of private health insurance. Anyone promising to strip us of such insurance will never win.
Furthermore, the tax burden on the middle class will rise. Even Bernie says so though Warren refuses to admit this since she knows is is suicidal politically.
Mayor Pete and others are working towards Medicare for all who want it. Keep your private insurance. If MFA is so great, everyone will want it.
1
If you truly want to see how much waste the military creates, I suggest a trip to the Davis Monthan Air Force base in Tucson. Thousands of planes in the graveyard there. And that is only one base that stores the mothballed jets, planes and helicopters. You can google pictures if you don't have time to actually visit.
How to fund Medicare for All? How about 'how to fund every other area where our own government has failed us'? Public education. Infrastructure. Public transit. Affordable housing. Etc.
Our disgustingly over-bloated military budget (the largest in the world, and larger than the next 6 or so other military budgets, Combined!) likes to refer to itself as being more or less about 'Defense'. But then, 'Defense' (which in turn creates paranoia about the US being attacked, infiltrated and turned into a Muslim state, etc.) is a much easier sale to the American public, than a 'War' budget. But really, that's the main purpose of our military budget. So long as we keep the war machine going, that in turn keeps our economy going, and the Halliburtons, Boeings, etc. happy.
Just imagine what a better country this would be...how much our day-to-day lives could be improved, if we slashed our military budget and put it towards more altruistic purposes for our own country and citizens.
1
Well, why don't we cut the military budget even further, and, that should pay for free college, too! This has got to be one of the nuttiest ideas in the extremely nutty season. I hope Democrats go for it!
4
what's nutty about stopping endless wars, bombing other countries out of existence, creating tens of thousands of traumatized vets so that we can stop kids from going bankrupt because they want to go to college?
The right wing ideology has gone so far over the edge that people can't even think beyond bumper sticker talking points.
There really isn't any reason to print anything other than this on your front page every day. Everyone knows it's true, but they're afraid to say it because they believe, for no good reason, that nobody else believes it and that they'll be hung for treason if they say it.
"The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day the leaders of the world are going to have to give in and give it to them."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
John Lennon
1
Let's not forget that the money is actually there; We are already paying for the most expensive health care in the world. Tax the billionaires a little like Warren proposed and increase the Medicare payroll deduction. That Medicare deduction would still be less than what many people are getting fleeced for in premiums by private insurance. Make pharmaceutical prices negotiable too.
5
Great ideas, all of them.
But why are we missing out on the $3.5 Trillion a year it already costs the country and does not cover everybody? (U.S. health care spending grew 3.9 percent in 2017, reaching $3.5 trillion or $10,739 per person. As a share of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, health spending accounted for 17.9 percent.) https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/NationalHealthAccountsHistorical.html
Both Warren and Sanders plans calls for $3 Trillion a year, lesser than the current expenditure and they would impose some sort of a tax and cover everybody.
This $300 Billion in military savings would be a bonus. If Medicare for all is a tough battle, cutting the military budget would be a war.
4
Loomy | Australia
Don't forget that the costs given to fund Medicare for All assume that health providers, hospitals, equipment mfrs...everyone, everything and all who are currently charging and profiting so much by the system that has been allowed to get away with what it has...must stop.
Most are assuming everything about the current costs of the health system now, today and tomorrow will and are going to be allowed to cost more GDP per person than any other country by almost 50% forever...it can't.
If as the naysayers are saying that it's too expensive and cannot be afforded to provide all Americans with full Health cover despite being the richest country on Earth ...and unlike every other less rich country that has and can and in many cases been providing it to citizens for decades...Then America's inability to provide health care to all its people will not ever be because of a lack of money...but because of the lack of charity, compassion, empathy and unity together with those who are too selfish, greedy, willing to share or provide help to those they share America with as fellow citizens and countrymen.
Protecting all America's health needs and circumstances is the most basic yet effective defence a country can have to protect ALL of its people.
5
The argument presented is an insult to readers' intelligence.
There are many valid arguments both for and in opposition to Medicare For All plans. I think a person could make very persuasive arguments for either side. Similarly, there are many valid arguments for and in opposition to reductions in military spending.
However, the wisdom and appropriateness of Medicare For All is not the slightest enhanced nor diminished by the size of the military budget. Nor is the wisdom and appropriateness of the size of the military budget the slightest enhanced nor diminished by enactment Medicare For All. For Ms. Koshgarian to link the 2 is intellectually dishonest and insulting to readers' intelligence.
6
So you’ve never heard of “guns or butter ?
If you think the argument for Medicare For All is strengthened by a "guns or butter" argument, then it would also be strengthened by paying for Medicare For All from unemployment compensation funds or infrastructure funds.
The author doesn't even attempt to say there is waste in military spending that could be saved and redirected to better uses like Medicare. Instead, she attacks the value of military spending per se. Even if you believe that it is more valuable to the nation to provide even routine medical care for everyone rather than have the mightiest military defense in the world, surely you would have to believe that the same medical care is more valuable to the nation than unemployment payments (since much of it is paid to persons at times that they have other resources) and more valuable than some fancy new commuter line or bridge.
I am not making any of those arguments. I am saying those arguments are not relevant because this isn't a guns or butter choice. And, I must admit, if it were a guns or butter choice, in this world there would be no point in choosing butter since we would not live long enough to get much butter unless we maintain the guns.
It is bad enough for far out people like the author to want to deprive citizens of having guns to defend themselves. But wanting to deprive the nation of the confident ability to defend itself is just idiocy.
This did not even mention all of the wasteful spending and price gouging in Healthcare. That would be more than enough to pay for Medicare for all. One only needs to look at other industrialized nations. Taxes are the wrong discussion.
2
If we were to negotiate further reductions in nuclear weapons with Russia and restrictions with China it would make the world less dangerous and cost us less. Not easy, but worth a major effort.
TheTrump administration's plans to expand nuclear forces are insane and should be canceled upon the arrival of a sensible administration. They are insane because they create greater risk and, of course, the plans cost money.
And what on earth are we doing storing nukes at Incerlik, with a consequent risk of having them commandeered by Turkey? The deterrent does not rest on spreading nukes around the world, but on the triad. That's doctrine but it's the SSBNs which count. We need to lean our nuclear deterrent in order to increase our security. But a nuke free world would be unsafe, perhaps later but not now. First steps, curb the numbers and adopt "no first use".
I should note that decommissioning nukes and storing fissile materials costs money, reducing potential savings.
To cut conventional arms requires, in the first instance, a new, credible national security strategy.. That's a years work for a new, rational administration. Quick savings, aside from cutting waste (e.g. limit the number of F-35s) will be hard to find.
The proposal here overpromises.
Just to say that these countries that do offer healthcare for all and vastly cheaper higher education tend not to wage too many wars. With the author, I think the world might fare better with not quite as much US interference.
2
The existing Medicare program is already running a yearly deficit of over $300 billion, so even if these savings were made, Medicare would still be running a deficit without extending it to everyone. Secondly, I'd sure like to know how the entire health care sector, which currently spends over $3 trillion per year (about $10,000 for every citizen) could possibly be accomplished for less than $1 trillion without drastically reducing services and pay for medical personnel in addition to completely eliminating the role of private insurance companies.
I'm no fan of unnecessary government spending for anything, but I am even more opposed to borrowing from future generations to pay for today's government. The current $1 trillion annual federal deficit is more than all defense spending - and we are in a full-employment economy! I don't care if you think I'm a scold. I just don't think that 2+2=9. It equals 4, period. People who think the government can spend whatever it likes and send the bill to someone yet unborn are pink elephant Republicans who have been deliberately sabotaging the government by cutting the taxes of the wealthy for the past 40 years. They have already increased the national debt from $1 trillion when Ronald Reagan took office to over $22 trillion today. AND, they are more than willing to vote against extending the debt ceiling because their dream is to force the federal government into a fiscal train wreck. They thank you for your help.
2
You are right. That is why taxes should go up. And not only for the rich but for middle class, too, although much less than the increase for the rich. But that is for the budge and deficit side of it.
On the medicare for all, you do not need to burrow money at all. Medicare for all is easy to finance like we do for Social Security (contributions of which should be increased, too.)
For medicare, every employee will pay 3.0 to 5.0% medicare tax in their paycheck matched by the employer. It should also be aged based. Like if you are younger than 30 it should be 5% and older than 50 only 2.0%. The objective is investing more in the system for longer time.
And this tax should be separate from the Social Security tax.
And believe this amount of tax will be much less than the premium paid by people today. In addition, companies will get rid of the burden of providing healthcare to employees and will become more competitive against foreign companies.
1
Thank you SO MUCH! This outline is a perfect example of answering the question about "affordability" of national health care coverage. I realize that people can still take issue with every suggestion here, but it's nevertheless a clear, coherent, detailed and rational response to the nitpicking naysayers, as well as to the private insurance industry and Big Pharma--maybe even too rational for some people! It can work along with the appeal to emotion, which is a big factor in this whole issue and people with it in such heart-wrenching ways.
2
This country is $21.7 trillion in debt, with promised entitlement spending already at $30 trillion over the next 15 years with no way to fulfil it without cutting benefits, or taxing. The fact that the writer of the piece is unaware, that Medicaid, the healthcare program that pays for the healthcare of 75 million with no cost to any of them, is set to run out of enough money to pay the bills in less than 3 years. Although a federal-state partnership, the numbers that most states have added to the Medicaid program have been electing to add additional taxes or spending out of their state budgets, thus causing fiscal strain to their bottom line. Maybe, Ms. Koshgarian should do more in depth research on healthcare spending, problems, etc. as this piece doesn't cut it. The fact that up to 30-40% of the expenditures for both the Medicare and Medicaid programs are fraud, the government only recovers pennies on the dollar for that fraud, and the fact that this has been going on for 4 decades should of alarmed Congress, and previous Presidents, but not enough to effectively change how the programs are delivered.
3
I like the article
but there is another question that bothers me
won't federally funded medicare for all be another large corporate tax break
if I were a large corp - I could just cancel my health care coverage for my employees
?? am I missing something
1
All you'd have to do is require corporations to contribute what they would pay for employee health insurance into the pool instead.
1
I understand this is somewhat besides the point of the article, but Medicare isn't all that great. Sure, the price for seniors is attractive (if you don't count the hefty drug co-pays), but it doesn't come close to the employer provided healthcare coverage I had before retiring. I think reigning in healthcare and prescription costs as part of an overall reform of healthcare is long overdue.
2
Billions lost in the Iraq war ; and no one could account for what happened to the money . Halliburton and subsidiaries profited greatly off that war ; not to mention companies like Blackwater ; Eric Prince made a very handsome profit . Time to put an end to the military industrial complex once and for all but lets not go all out , we still need a military . Medicare for all is unattainable under the present circumstances ; we as a country have huge deficits , what we need to do is fix the affordable care act so that it works the way it was meant to .
It's mainly a matter of re-allocating the money that we already spend- as taxes, premiums, co-pays etc.- as taxes (or an involuntary Medicare tax) and reallocating the burden. We don't have to come up with the whole cost of the program out of thin air. We are already spending that money.
2
let's cut military spending because china and russia and iran and north korea will lay down during the next 20 years while we work on our health care priorities. right.
4
Medicare is not all it is trumped up to be. One pays $135/month for premiums.
One pays over $1300 for admission to the hospital. After 60 days, (although I don't know anyone that stays in a hospital for more than 60 days) one the has to start paying $341/per day. If you are in the hospital for less than 60 days and you need to be hospitalized again 60 days after your previous admission you must pay the $1300 again.
Most people in addition to Medicare buy an Medigap supplemental insurance policy which can cost other $200 or more a month. This covers the cost that Medicare does not cover.
Some people buy a Medicare Advantage program in addition to their Medicare plan.
Many poor people would not be able to pay the premiums or the premiums for the Medigap insurance.
2
We don't need to raise taxes if waste and non essential spending is eliminated from all Departments including defense and no new programs like Medicare for all ages below 65 are introduced until our national debt is paid off.
2
This proposal is very naive. First, all of the supposed $300 billion savings would be pocketed by the rich, not spent on anybody else. Second, this level of disarmament and retrenchment would weaken US power in the world to the point that it would put us on equal footing with China and Russia, tempting them to seize control of regions and shipping lanes, thereby destabilizing the world and making military conflict between the major powers much more likely.
4
The military is funding a great deal of research at public and private universities: universities are actually acting as military contractors, with money moving between federal sources, private military contractors, and research labs and academics. This is not only money that could be going to more needed places, but which itself influences policy at universities and beyond. It is a huge enterprise, this war machine, and universities are one of the parts that need to stop taking that money and return to their mission of serving students.
1
Anyone who tells you that the richest nation on earth can't afford something that every other developed country has, and at less than half the cost of what we're doing now, is making lots of money off the status quo.
7
I do not understand where Ms Koshgarian gets her figures for the cost of Medicare for All. The estimates I have seen are all on the order of $3 Trillion per year, not $300 Billion per year, not $3 Trillion for 10 years. It may be that $300 Billion represents the added cost over what we are now paying for health care ... but that counts the high premiums currently paid for private health insurance, so it doesn't exactly represent a savings.
3
The military industrial complex/war profiteers will never release their stranglehold on America. Therefore, I think we need to focus on what’s realistic rather than aspirational. I’m willing to pay a few thousand dollars more in taxes if it means that all Americans will be guaranteed free, high quality healthcare. I believe this should be a basic human right, so that’s why I’m supporting Senator Sanders campaign for president. Go Bernie!
4
An added bonus the author doesn't mention: if the U.S. really did scale back its military expenditures, Europe might finally get its act together and pony up its fair share for global security.
1
Thank you for this article. The conclusions are now quantitated.
Leaving aside the merits of cutting this or that, why do so many people believe that defense spending dwarfs everything else? It doesn’t. It is the largest category for discretionary spending, yes, but Social Security and Medicare eat up a far greater portion of the budget.
3
All this article proves is that MFA is going to be hugely more expensive than what we have now. And it doesn't address the most important questions: What happens to the 3 million health insurance industry jobs and what happens to the value of all 401K's and IRAs that are heavily vested in health insurance stocks? If anything, this article pushes me further away from wanting MFA at this point.
4
If you have not noticed the national debt under all presidents had increased. Even in the Clinton era the national debt increase by 36%. If you add in the unfunded retirement and healthcare obligations of the country it totals over $100 Trillion. Administrations always spend more than they take in as they spend money to try to get voters to re-elect them. I think Simpson Bowles got it correct. We need to raise tax revenues and initiate rational cost cuts to start to address how we pay for the future. Not a tough concept to understand, but one that means politicians have to face reality - which is bad for their business.
A very bad idea.
The concept of remaking our military as a defensive force surrenders the world to Putin and his ilk, who have no intention of following suit. The old bromide, "The best defense is a good offense" exists because, over centuries, over the millennia, it has always -- always -- proven true.
We are the foundation, the solid rock, of NATO. Retreating into our shell and hoping no predator takes advantage is foolish, and a total surrender to the megalomaniacs with power, from Putin to Xi Jinping to Kim Jae-ryong.
It would be national suicide.
10
This was my reaction to this piece as well. Is Ms. Koshgarian looking forward to World War III for some reason because that's what she appears to be advocating for. We'll have a *really* equitable health care system when our laws are made in Beijing.
2
@Austin Liberal
Thanks for this. I feel like the liberal world is forgetting what happened the last time we assumed totalitarian dictators would be pacifists, just because democracies decided to be pacifist. WWII, the most deadly and costly war in human history, is what happened.
We need to urgently attack Republican anti-tax propaganda for the nonsense that it is. We spend so much on taxes and see so little of it go towards the general welfare of 90% of Americans. We subsidize billionaires and allow for grotesquely bloated defense budgets while nitpicking over who deserves to not get bankrupted by an illness or accident. Meanwhile, the lack of effective environmental policy means the world burns to death while we protect the monied interests who've convinced so many that their tax evasion and corporate welfare will trickle back down to the rest of us one day.
I agree with everything the author says in the article. However, I would like to point out one important fact: the military budget is the biggest wealth transfer government handout to Republicans in existence. As the author says:
"Private contractors consumed fully half the Pentagon budget in 2018, raking in more than $364 billion."
Who do you think eventually pockets that dough? Republican shareholders or Democrats? Well, I'm sure some of those folks are Dems, but it's largely Republicans. The military budget is a cash cow for them.
They will not give up this handout easily, and they will constantly wave the flag in front of our faces to shut us up. The question is: how do you fight these folks without seeming wimpy on patriotism and defense?
111
"Well, I'm sure some of those folks are Dems, but it's largely Republicans."
Do you have any data for that?
Militarism and profiting off the military seems truly bipartisan.
Defense spending is 4% of GDP, healthcare is 18%, so your conclusions don't hold up, but being a liberal democrat means the numbers don't matter. Just get the people beholden to the government is the true aim of the Democrats. NPR proved on the air today that Medicare for all will cost an avg middle class family of 4 an extra 10k per year. That's why only Bernie will tell the truth, your taxes will go up. Trust the people with the facts and let them decide if it is worth doing, but not on lies like Obama did. The Dems can only gain supporters by flat out lying to the American people.
Yes, Sirlar, defense is necessary. Self-defense. Unfortunately, for the last 70 years, the U.S. military has been tasked with offensive, unnecessary wars which had nothing to do with our true national interests in self-defense. Ask the troops who fought and lost those wars if they believe now that they were justified.
You claim medicare for all will be as wasteful as the military. Yet Medicare takes care of the oldest, sickest people in America with an overhead of about 2 per cent, far less than private insurance, which also has to make a profit. Instead of ranting about far-left extremists, why don't you calm down and look at a few facts?
We are spending military money on ridiculous projects, like the F-35 which the article's author mentioned. She might have mentioned the navy's request for more aircraft carriers which run about $12 billion apiece and will be useless in a cyber war or one fought by drones.
I am not a pacifist; I believe in self-defense. But we are now engaged in self-destruction. Our country was once admired throughout the world for its devotion to freedom and democracy. Now we fight endless wars for no discernible purpose. Those who admire us see us as an empire of oligarchs, or worse, nihilists whose only goal is world domination.
Ms. Koshgarian is right to choose the military's bloated and misused budget as a shield for the defense of our citizen's health, rather than as sword of conquest
1
Great article but our Lobbyocracy seems incapable of this sort of logic and change. Bloomberg rated us 54th in the world for healthcare efficiency. We have the second most expensive healthcare in the world with mediocre results. Other countries are doing so much more with so much less.
Conservative and Republican commenters are all reeling about how the US Defense budget protects the US borders and our freedoms!! What these commenters choose to ignore is what good is 'freedom' if you are sick, bankrupt, and homeless which is what many Americans, especially our veterans are facing as they approach retirement. The opioid epidemic has reduced the average life span of white males under 40 - much of which is due to a corrupt drug industry and lack of access to healthcare.
The naysayers to Universal Healthcare or Medicare for All glibly ignore the catastrophic situation the American elderly face who will soon need nurse care, assisted living, medical care much of which is not covered at all by the current Medicare.
What good is our military defending the US interests throughout the world if our own population is suffering. Over 70% of personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills and it is getting worse every year.
7
This article isn't taking into account the HUGE indirect costs that such a massive cut to the military would create:
- Millions of soldiers, Department of Defense employees, and military factory workers would be laid off. This would have a terrible ripple effect, as towns and communities that rely on local military bases and factories would see their economies devastated.
- There's no accounting for non-financial costs. For example, this article seems to acknowledge that the cuts would result in effectively ceding Afghanistan to the Taliban. That's removing a financial cost on American taxpayers, but creating a MASSIVE humanitarian cost for Afghans, who will face an unpopular, totalitarian, hyper-patriarchal, openly genocidal regime seizing power. Is it really moral to condemn those people to suffer and die, just so America can raise some cash?
- This article has an extremely optimistic and naive view of world affairs. It seems to think that a mass global withdrawal of American military forces will decrease tensions and warfare. In reality, authoritarian states with few ethical or legal qualms, such as Iran, Russia, and China, will seize on the power vacuum to expand their influence- likely by force, in many cases.
This article repeats an extremely simplistic view of military spending: that it is largely a worthless money sink. In reality, most military spending is like insurance: it's costly, but you pay for it to ward off even worse costs.
4
I thought dependence on the government was supposed to be a bad thing.
3
@DA I’m afraid I don’t see your point? Dependence is never a good thing, but it’s acceptable compared to death.
The U.S. spends 18% of GDP on healthcare.
The next highest spending countries are at 12%.
The average is around 10%. 6% to 8% more than other countries.
For this huge additional outlay the U.S. ranks poorly compared to developed
countries. 30 or more from the best in most categories.
The U.S. defence budget is 3.2% of GDP, half that 6 to 8%.
How to pay for universal healthcare shoud be obvious.
3
The biggest war is already underway: climate change. So this column makes an excellent argument for redirecting our war spending, but there’s not enough money to fight both climate change and provide medicare for all. Pick one or raise taxes.
If I remember correctly, some of the Dems are proposing single-payer health care without deductibles. The strange thing is that EU countries have deductibles to defray part of the costs. I cannot speak for all of EU, but Sweden, a socialist country, makes the patient pay a part of a doctor's visit.
A deductible, with qualifications and limits, may be useful to discourage some people from making a visit to the doctor an all too-frequent occurrence.
4
Why is any new money needed? Medicare for all is going to involve two things:
1. Reduce medical costs to those levels that other OECD countries pay.
2. Collect premiums payed by employers to fund it.
I think if one does these two things there will be net savings to the country.
How not to have Medicare for all:
1. Companies pocket healthcare premiums they are currently paying for employees, increasing dividend payments.
2. Taxing people to pay for the current expensive medical care for all.
OPTION 1 PLEASE!
If the United Nations had more say in international affairs, they might be able to keep the peace. If that becomes impossible, they could send in a multi-national military force to resolve conflicts that get out of control. OUR military would chip in under that system, but we usually don't like taking directives from a UN-selected military commander. Short of this scenario, which was thought to be a necessity after WW-2 and the development of nuclear weapons, we fall back on what we have today. Certainly we could at least DEMAND (NOW!) that the Pentagon accounting office give us accurate numbers instead of failing to show what was paid for, when, and how much. That's the least they could (and must) do.
Bill Clinton did try to close some military bases, and the push-back was severe. Factories involved in manufacturing parts for the various branches would have to re-tool into making (for example) high-speed rail. We could expand scientific research, give more money to NASA, and to FEMA for disaster relief (we're going to need it!). Give more funding to the Army Corp of Engineers to harden our infrastructure needs. I have always wanted National Health Insurance, but seeing how instituting the ACA was difficult to do, we do need to plan this program out, try some regional pilot projects so people can see that it works, and instill confidence in the government. We built the national highway system so people could drive, and now it's time to do a lot more.
The defense budget is less than 15% of the total budget. You can cut it in half or cut it to zero, and it doesnt matter. Defense is small compared to entitlements. Proposals to increase entitlements makes this reality worse, not better.
6
Amen. Well stated. Let's change the parameter of the conversation.
Coming from a longtime, hardcore Medicare for All supporter, this article is extremely misleading.
The $300 billion dollar figure cited here is NOT the cost of implementing Medicare for All, which is actually trillions per year by all estimates. Thus, Koshgarian is being highly misleading by presenting military spending cuts as if they would eliminate the need to raise taxes. In reality, cutting $300 billion would only yield a fraction of the money needed to pay for Medicare for All, and taxes would still need to go up. I have written a more in-depth analysis of the issues with Koshgarian's argument here, and I hope you will consider reading it.
https://whitefleet.net/2019/10/17/defense-spending-cuts-would-not-pay-for-medicare-for-all/
4
The money for universal healthcare is already there, without laying a finger on the Pentagon. We're already spending it and much more every year. A fraction of what we all pay out of pocket, plus what we and our employers pay for private insurance will more than cover a universal plan for all Americans...and then some. And a vastly more efficient system it would be. That's certainly the case for everyone else in the industrialized world, but us. From citizens to corporations, it would save money for everyone. The question is getting there. Dismantling an infinitely complicated and entrenched system will be difficult and painful at times, but it's all for the better.
Memo to self: Vote Republican.
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Memo to Timothy: vote moderate Democrat
1
Timothy....be sure to sign up your son so he can keep Jubbabaland free. The reason the US has sooooo many enemies is because we have the hubris to think that we have the right to interfere in every others countries business. We spend money on the military to fight the last war....when will this idiotic madness end. Gee ,I wonder if people in Argentina worry about Iran getting theBomb...probably not because they are not messing with them and henceforth,Iran is not their enemy.
If 'self' can read, can it make a moral choice? If so, is it guilty for it to just follow that evil directive?
My advice, "Don't do it, self! You can be better than that.
ED
Is this a joke?
The NYTimes just ran an article in which the vast, vast majority of NYTimes readers/commenters were apoplectic over pulling out of Syria, trotting out the fashionable yet absurd arguments that led us into Iraq and, I presume, but wasn't alive for, Vietnam.
2
@Aaron - Time to research the mutation of the US occupation of Iraq after 9/11. It is a little more complicated and deeper than sorting Syria, Iraq and Vietnam into one silo. Are you old enough to have learned about the CIA funding the mujahideen under Operation Cyclone? This is the same operation that trained Osama Bin Laden and allowed him to build an underground camp at Khost from which he masterminded the African USA embassy bombings prior to his 9/11 orchestrated attack. The Islamic radicals who were trained to fight the Soviet Union later metastasized into Al Qaeda yet George W. Bush after 9/11 chose to invade Iraq under the lie that they had "weapons of mass destruction" even though the CIA didn't have evidence to support this scheme. Then Americans wanted soldiers out of Iraq after realizing we had been lied to. The vacuum left Saddam Hussein's Sunni leaning Revolutionary Guard were forced out or killed which led to the off shoot of Al Qaeda renamed ISIS who were intent on carrying on Bin Laden's legacy to destroy the West especially the US who invaded & ousted their beloved leader, Saddam. Add to that the fanaticism of Saudi Arabian money & the Wahhabism Islamic extremism that underpins ISIS & the notion that fighting the radicals "over there" was preferable to another terrorist attack on American soil. Thus the need to have allies to help stamp out the extremists whether in North Africa, Mid East or infiltrated into Western Europe & beyond. Not exactly Vietnam!
I don't get it. 300 billion is only 1/10th of our healthcare budget. If people no longer have to pay premiums/deductables/coinsurance for healthcare, they will be happy to pay a premium tax just as long as it is less than what they are paying now for healthcare, which it will be for all but the very wealthy.
Pollyanna, your table is ready.
Some of the funding ideas make sense, the rest are unbelievably naive.
Simpler choice, we currently spend 3x as much as any other country on healthcare? Force business to send their part of employee healthcare and the employee payroll deductions to the government. Since most healthcare is based on employer provided health insurance, problem solved.
Yes it is a new tax, but you sell it as no change in your take home pay, and we're making your employer pay it for you.
1
How many people on here, happy to cut the military's budget, are upset we pulled 50 troops out of Turkey's way in Syria? Just curious, but you cannot have it both ways. Do we defend those who need defending or do we pull back to the US and abandon our alliances including NATO? When the author writes about Germany why do you think we have a base there? Its to support NATO. So we close it, along with the other European bases, and then what? Become the island nation of America?
Maybe we should. It is time for us to get off a war footing, leave Iraq, leave Afghanistan, and leave Syria. However, our bases in Kuwait, UAE, and Saudi Arabia are too important too abandon just like the bases in Okinawa, England, Greenland, and Germany. Everywhere else though, we can let China, Russia,and Iran kill everyone they don't like and it will hardly bother us at all. South America can burn in their self-created Socialist disasters while Mexico slowly kills itself on drugs, guns, and corruption. Why do we care? Our own little island paradise ruled by Trump.
6
"Our cuts total $2,807 for every American household."
Very nice. That would come close to covering out-of-pocket costs for health care for a typical American household for a typical year. Of course, insurance costs the typical household (or their employer) about $12,000 per year on top of that ...
Sorry to let Math rain on the parade...
1
We the People, espcially national political and commuity and organizational/social leaders, have to supply the leadership and vision. Then poitical leaders wil have to respond with action.
Setting aside the utopian arguments made in this piece, the solution is a fairly simple one.
Currently, employers collect and remit Medicare taxes. Most of those same employers collect and pay health insurance premiums.
Simply have those premiums collected as Medicare taxes and paid like they are now.
The premiums won't be set, as they are now, through negotiations between insurance companies and employers, but by the federal government.
Thus, the answer to the legitimate question to Senator Warren regarding whether taxes will go up on the middle class is "For nearly every member of the middle class, the amount they pay now in insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-pays will be more than they and their employers currently pay for their health care coverage. This is because the risk pool will go from each employer's workers to the entire country."
Now, I'm against Medicare-for-All and favor an opt-in program, but the answer to the question that is seemingly bedeviling Senator Warren isn't that hard.
1
Certainly our current tax code favors corporations and the super-rich. Money sloshing around in our political elections favors the same people.
The best thing that can happen to this country is a stark demonstration that this very rich nation can afford to "promote the general welfare."
We don't need new taxes or to cut any other spending. medicare for all would be covered by the same source that now covers private insurance. Employers. Employers cover 80% of the cost of an employees coverage. Insteaf of that money going to a private insurance company, it would go to the Medicare Trust Fund.
These are good ideas but how in reality are you going to overturn the Military Industrial Complex in the US?
We can start by supporting political candidates who want to do this. Let's see, are there of those running for president right now? Well, lo and behold....
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Bernie!!!
The writer ignores what is broadly perceived by strategic military analysts as America’s gravest military threat. China, the world’s 2nd largest economy with the 2nd largest military budget, is vigorously challenging our Blue Water Navy to secure dominance of the Pacific. And investing in natural resources throughout the world to a degree previously unknown. As China increasingly move to becomes the world’s largest economy the threat of another Pacific War looms with the threat of casualties to an extent previously unknown with an “exchange of cities”. To suggest downsizing our US military would guarantee Chinese global dominance to a degree never seen before. And the end of our cherished western norms of civilized behavior and protections. We should remember the lesson of the 1930’s when Germany embarked on an unprecedented military expansion and then after invading Poland the Benelux nations nearly conquered the entire Soviet Union. Catching the European powers and the US flat footed. We owe it to the memory of the nearly 100 million casualties in WWII to be fully prepared for another onslaught by the soon to be world’s largest military and economy.
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China's military capability doesn't come anywhere close to ours. Meanwhile, in addition to our gigantic military, we also have NATO.
The second point in this argument, "Bring the Troops Home," shows lack of understanding regarding international relations and diplomacy. While the State Department is the diplomatic arm of the United States... arguably, the DoD is above that agency. So, I posit these questions: how does the United States say "no" to countries that seek assistance and military support? How should this be handled? Do we rescind ALL mutual defense treaties? If we do not rescind all, how does the United States pick and choose who to ally with?
Example: Norway asked for a increase in American military prescense in the Norwegian Artic Circle close to Russia's border. They've asked for 700 Marines, and the rotation of forces is expected to last for a five-year period compared to the initial six months it was intended.
Example two: the Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and Republic of Korea was signed in October 1953. Would the Pacific region be prepared for the repercussions and unintended consquences if this agreement was broken, especially with China and North Korea surrounding the peninsula? Earlier this year, South Korea has agreed to pay more for continued military presence.
While the "requesting" country does ultimately pay for this kind of assistance, the Pentagon must deal with the upfront cost.
5
Do we want a culture of death or a culture of life? Universal healthcare should be aggressively pursued by the "pro-life" movement. Doctors, hospitals and pharmacies protect us as much as or more than our soldiers, high-tech weapons, foreign bases and deployments all over the world, not to mention the military aid we give to other countries to protect their own citizens. "America First" should include the notion that our tax dollars be spent at home first.
1
Reminds me when we marched in the sixties proposing to "make love, not war". Would be "let us get health for all, not war" be more successful nowadays?
1
This thinking may be correct but it fails to take into account much of what has kept the peace since WWII. While Iraq and other regime change strategies are colossal mistakes (with some debate), the money for foreign militaries, nuclear weapons and other various military spending helps keep the superpower status in place. This status is an important and deliberate to keep would peace. If we dismantle it now without major considers and compensations, we risk additional nation state wars that put the whole world at risk.
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That's what the military-industrial complex and the Republicans, who are the beneficiaries of the largesse, want you to believe. It's like saying the rest of the world are a bunch of children and we the adults - in the form of our military - must separate these kids from fighting.
We can still separate potential combatants with multinational/U.N./U.S. forces when needed. We don't need standing bases all over the world and private contractors reaping billions for selling us useless obsolete-in-five-years weapons. That only fuels conflict, not ameliorate it.
Meanwhile China has built 21st century infrastructure including carbon neutral railways which travel at speeds up to 217 mph and accounts for 2/3 of the planet's high speed rail. It has reached out peacefully to strategic ports with its Silk Road initiative costing $900 billion in outlays. China has built relationships with African & South American countries helping them build infrastructure & thus has made tremendous in roads for trade in the near future. It is revolutionizing technology with 5g communication which will allow it to surpass the USA as the leading exporter of mobile devices. Anyone who has visited China or seen videos can only marvel at the industriousness with which they have revolutionized their country within only 20 years. Meanwhile the USA transportation grid is crumbling, our trains run at 90 mph inner city or max out at 125 mph and their hasn't been any investment since the 1960s. Our airports are a national disgrace & federal spending on research is being cut as well as the NSH (13% cut), NIH (12% cut) & no investment in clean energy technology. Any wonder Trump's trade war w/ China is nothing but a pipe dream as they hold all the cards including owning much of our national debt.
Agreed: "To be prepared for war is the most effectual means to promote the peace:" George Washington. Cutting too far, too fast, and too much, risks more dangerous times due to being unprepared. No one wants conflict-especially with Iran or with other nuclear armed rivals, but being unprepared for a war risks one: the Japanese viewed us as being weak and soft, unwilling to fight prior to 7 Dec 1941, and they based their policies accordingly. We all know what happened when they did execute those policies.
Great article. The obvious words oddly missing from the 331 comments, at this point, are TULSI and GABBARD. I guess independent thinking can be a little frightening.... but the absence of independent thinking is a LOT frightening.
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Certainly, Australia has Medicare for all, there is a small Medicare levy, but most of the funding comes from consolidated revenue. Health overall consumes about 10% of GDP, Australian life expectancy is higher than USA. A no brainer i would think.
2
We need a change in philosophy about our military. We now have the Department of Homeland Security, which is effectively our Defense. The Pentagon is effectively our Offense. We pay the Pentagon to project our power around the world, and unfortunately we find too many causes to exercise it. We can shrink Pentagon spending so that it's not equal to the next 10 countries combined, exercise our power more judiciously, and still enjoy being a superpower. But it takes political will, and very few in Congress or running for president want to pick on the military.
1
This thinking may be correct but it fails to take into account much of what has kept the peace since WWII. While Iraq and other regime change strategies are colossal mistakes (with some debate), the money for foreign militaries, nuclear weapons and other various military spending helps keep the superpower status in place. This status is an important and deliberate
1
Good piece. I would add that if we can actually leverage a single payer system to lower medical costs, the price tag may not be as high as estimated. A big part of medical care costs are driven by lack of local competition on the provider side. A single-payer system would act as a monopsonist counterweight their monopoly price power.
1
The military should be subject to substantial cuts, and their budget should be reprioritized to ensure soldiers' needs and safety are addressed. The level of cuts Ms. Koshgarian suggests would, unfortunately, create a massive power vacuum. The immediate consequence of this would probably be a scramble by Russia, China, and countless regional powers whose interests don't ally with ours to fill the void, enhance their power, and expand their influence. This, in turn, leads to instability, which will likely increase armed conflicts globally and worsen the global economy.
1
Making far too much sense is NOT the way to initiate change...
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How about we stick with ObamaCare and add to it! I'm so tired of this fool's dream of government health care for everybody. Both my parent work for the government, and they can't do anything without going through an endless sea of bureaucrats and red tape. Democrats, come on! ObamaCare is wildly successful when it's not being torn apart from the inside by a Republican President and Senate. Let's stop with the stupid slogans and do the practical, cheaper, and more effective option.
3
This country has more guns per capita than any other country in the world Those guns may be needed someday to fight off a dictatorial takeover in our own backyard. And it seems pointless to even think about allowing the military to grow to impregnable levels while people are starving. If there were as many guns in the hands of the populace of other countries who are under siege by a power mad government you would see MORE democracy and LESS refugees throughout the world. Do not make the mistake of using our security as a nation to place more power in the hands of those who may someday under a President like Nixon, Trump, Hitler or whoever try to make himself KING.
That may be so, IDK.
Whatever the case may be for funding the very reasonable ideas Warren and Sanders have we need to raise taxes to make up for the shortfall since 1980 to rebuild the infrastructure the tax cutters deliberately did not maintain, and to pay down the debt they deliberately ran up and to fully staff our federal government for the first time since 1980 or maybe even earlier.
The facts are that a nation of this size has certain mandatory expenses to run it properly and honestly and those have been deliberately under funded or cut off entirely since 1980.
We need to replace the rules and regs that make owners run their business well to keep people employed when they are profitable and not to make the people who rely on them suffer for poor management choices.
U.S. military expenditures are in one year the size of the next seven largest military budgets around the world, combined:
China, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Russia, United Kingdom and Germany
The yearly amount is roughly $1.6 trillion of which the US accounts for about 37 %.
This says it all !
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@MountainView There MUST be a way to give soldiers what they actually need AND heed Ike's warning about the military/industrial complex. If the amount of tax dollars now being spent does not give soldiers basic equipment, something is terribly awry somewhere in management. A great deal of money must be going to fund private business at the expense of our soldiers.
There is some waste and pork in the military, but honestly, what else can you expect-- it's run by the government after all. But the proposals presented in this myopic article would be nothing short of calamitous-- they would make Donald Trump's decision to withdraw our small contingent from Syria seem like like the a brilliant tactical move by comparison. While this article shouts numbers in big colored type at you, it doesn't explain the terrifying consequences of losing all influence in the middle east and letting every country in the region go nuclear in 10 years. It doesn't explain what the world would look like if Syria had fallen to ISIS, and it doesn't explain what the next generation would have to deal with if we had a hostile Taliban government in Afghanistan-- never mind the people in all these places.
This article sees a world which military engagement hasn't made perfect and says that therefore there should be virtually no military engagement at all. It completely ignores concessions and purchases granted by other countries as a result of our military support.
The authors of this article are trying to save lives, the US military is trying to save all human life by preventing the inevitable nuclear wars that will be the certain result of leaving the middle east to its own devices.
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The U.S. economy now spends $4 trillion on healthcare, or twice as much per capita than Great Britain, France, Germany, etc. who cover everyone, and their populations have a higher life expectancy. So, why don't we just adopt one of those country's far better healthcare systems, all be covered and live longer with better medical outcomes, and, oh, save over 2$ trillion dollars per year? And, we can do the defense spending cuts, too. What would an extra 2 to 3$ dollars annually look like in our economy? Could we have more to spend on say infrastructure? Childcare? Etc.?
Much productivity as well as quality of life is lost in the US with tying health coverage to employment. Fixing university and professional/medical school pricing with the idea of ending artificial limits on numbers of doctors and introducing a social service component as Pete Buttigieg is promoting, tied to med school residencies can go a long way to fixing problems. Its really not as complicated as people are making out - after all European countries have 70 years of experience with various systems we can draw upon. México has universal health care tied to social service for free medical school. If the US begins to recognise how opposite of exceptional it has become and look to others for advice well, would be a positive development. During my lifetime the quality of life in USA - especially beginning with GOP admins of Reagan, Bushes and this disaster - has deteriorated markedly. Get in there and fix it!
All those mentioned cost saving measures AND completely overhaul healthcare. Spent 30 minutes on a cot in an ER. Saw the resident for 8 minutes. Saw the nurse about the same. Sent for 2 x-rays which cost and are billed separately from the total. Saw the attending physician for 6 minutes. Disposable BP cuff, disposable O2 Sat tape, basically just sat there and although everyone was very caring and polite it was NOT $2200 worth of care. (billed to insurance) Thank goodness for insurance. Also $860 worth of care (my portion) The American people are paying very expensive rent for machines, expensive buildings, Hospital CEO salaries and other overhead costs, along with the padding to cover for uninsured people who cannot pay exorbitant prices for simple medical care. Healthcare costs are a true scam. As well as drug prices. All that money. All that selfishness.
1
I was just discussing this with a German colleague. We discovered we make the same amount and pay the same percent total taxes, but he gets way more stuff for it. Free healthcare, really long maternity leave, cheap childcare, etc. He said where do all my taxes go? I said, defense spending. At first he didn't think I was serious - but it's true!
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He shouldn’t have believed you. Defense spending comes in third, behind Social Security and healthcare payouts.
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The prerequisite for such a change would be campaign finance reform on a major scale. Until we get the money out of elections defense corporations will run the bipartisan corruption show.
Don't forget that the costs given to fund Medicare for all assume that health providers, hospitals, equipment mfrs...all, everyone and everything who are currently charging and profiting so much on by the system that has been allowed to get away with what it has...must stop.
Most are assuming everything about the current costs of the health system now, today and tomorrow will and are going to be allowed to cost more GDP per person than any other country by almost 50% forever...it can't.
If as the naysayers are saying that it's too expensive and cannot be afforded to provide all Americans with full Health cover despite being the richest country on Earth ...and unlike every other less rich country that has and can and in many cases been providing it to citizens for decades...
America's inability to provide health care to all its people will not ever be because of a dearth of money...but because of the lack of charity, compassion, empathy and unity together with those who are too selfish, greedy, willing to share or provide help to those they share America with as fellow citizens and countrymen.
Protecting all American's health needs and circumstances is the most basic yet effective defence a country can have to protect its people.
Defense comes first and foremost when it comes to budgeting, and everything else is secondary. While there can be cuts, anything that affects readiness, training, force structure, and modernization (does the author-or those who agree with her POV think that Russia and China will suddenly "Play nice" if we pull back as she suggests?) is unacceptable. We have paid the price in the past for cutting back: the military wasn't ready for WW II when it came for us on 7 Dec 41, and we cut too much back after that when Korea came. Those who fail to learn history's lessons are doomed to repeat them.
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I love this idea. Let’s stop acting as the entire world’s “policeman” and devote our resources to the direct wellbeing of our own citizenry! ( I still think folks should be able to elect supplemental private insurance as an add- on if they want, though. I am a proponent of choice and options in all things!)
Canadian here. Let's set aside military spending for a moment and just focus on healthcare spending. I am struck that the US has among the highest per capita health care expenditures of the developed world, at nearly 17% GDP, or, nearly $12,000 per person. Canada, by contrast, spends about 10.4% GDP for its "universal" healthcare, or $5,800 per person. (Canada is much closer to the OECD average, which is 8.9% GDP, or $4,862.) So then, that raises a troubling question? Why exactly do Americans pay so much for so little? Maybe it has something to do with the Healthcare Insurance companies record profits last quarter? Aetna - $1B. Cigna - 1$B. Blue Cross - +1$Bn. UnitedHealth Group - $2.6Bn. That's nearly $6 Billion in earnings in JUST ONE QUARTER for some of the US biggest health insurance providers.
Sometimes the most obvious answer is the right answer.
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How much would corporation contribute? They would release themselves from providing health insurance. The could downsize their HR departments. The cost savings would be enormous. And the saving would go on forever.
Also they just got a huge tax cut. How about clawing some of that back.
If you want to convince a moderate independent like me you are going to have better math. The MFA proposals I've seen cost $30 trillion over 10 years, or $3 trillion annually. This proposal saves $300 billion which only covers 10% of the cost. Where is the other 90% coming from.
I work with people from Canada, Sweden, UK and Denmark and ask them about their healthcare systems. None are perfect but none are the disasters the republicans make them out to be either. My Canadian friends like their healthcare coverage. Sure their are issues waiting a long time for specialists but in general they are satisfied. They also pay 50% income taxes for the services they receive. Why can't liberals be honest about the fact taxes have to go up and not just on the 1%; the math doesn't work. At least Sanders has the guts to be honest on this; can't trust the other MFA advocates.
Try a public option first. Proved to me the government (the same one you just ripped into for wasteful military spending) can get it right before going all in.
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I suspect it would be harder to get a public option "right," for many reasons. Republicans will not allow a government program to compete with a corporation and make the corporation look bad. They will do everything to make the public program fail, as they have the ACA, to leave the field to the corporations and "prove" that "government can't do anything right." If the public plan is not both better in every way and cheaper than the corporate plans, not enough people will sign up for it and without a large pool of healthy insureds to share the risk, costs will have to go up and they will oppose any tax increases to subsidize it. Then there's the employer-subsidized workplace plans that so many have. Unless employers are required to pay into the public plan, either directly to the employee or via taxes, the employee's cost for coverage under the workplace plan will be less than their cost for the public plan and few or none of them will choose the public plan.
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What people don't understand is relieving the military budget of 300 billion isn't free...that money was being spent, perhaps inappropriately, on soldier salaries and benefits, military contractors etc. Not saying that that the 300 billion shouldn't be reallocated but will cause some unemployment in the defense sector
Great opinion piece Ms. Koshgarian, thank you.
Let's not stop with military overspending, let's move on to subsidies for the fossil fuel and agriculture industries.
Entrenched economic special interests and an economic policies that do not factor in the full social and environmental costs and outcomes, good and bad, of our military, fossil fuel, agricultural, and other subsidies are what is really holding this nation back from broader economic, social, and environmental justice.
For a just, competitive, lasting society, we need continuing investments in American public infrastructure, technology, education at all levels, as well as medicare for all.
This nation affords what it wants to afford, and currently that is subsidising big business over investments in the citizenry and their future.
And the rotten fruits of these woefully misguided political and economic policies have caught up with us.
What we really need is a better educated, better read, and less emotive citizenry that is able to see through the shenanigans of our elected officials and businesses and make adult decisions based on the weight of credible evidence and not derive decisions based some social media feed.
It will be business as usual, with more trickle-up economics in our budding kleptocracy, until the citizen takes intellectual and moral responsibility for the state of their society and themselves.
If we want a better world, let's put the Common Good over Individual Greed and Power Lust.
MB
1
Excellent Ideas! But set aside a few million dollars so we can all buy facemasks to foil the Chinese surveillance state that will replace our military presence worldwide.
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It's one thing to cut military waste or non-necessity, but the author goes much farther into what I consider naive territory.
That said, I see nothing wrong with raising taxes - taxes are too low even wtihout medicare for all considering our deficit levels each year and growth in debt stock. Higher taxes on those who can afford it, and fewer loopholes, are fine with me. Arguments that raising taxes will stifle innovation or hurt the economy are obvious rubbish. The numbers from BEA from 1969 on show that every republican administration has escalated spending and slowed revenue over a democrat predecessor and every democrat president has slowed spending (and debt accumulation) and accelerated revenue over a republican predecessor.
But Medicare for all is only the insurance side, where doing it right whether public or private is more important than whether it is public or private; the unsustainable cost comes from the private provider side, and this is what needs to be reined in.
Ms Koshgarian, may I suggest you give a name to this project:
SWORDS INTO STETHOSCOPES
This alliterative meme will immediately come to mind as a "cri de coeur" for all hard working, struggling Americans. I came up with this one many years ago & thought it would be a good name for a non-profit website that could rally people around this cause. Please use it!
Yes, you can even call it a sound bite.
So often, the GOP & its "think tanks" has a clever but insidious way of luring Americans by attaching names, usually, deceptively oxymoronic.
It's time the rest of the Democratic public adopted such "names" to fight their "wars." Recall that the "1%" meme worked very effectively to cut to the chase.
It's a sacred cow that creates war to test new weapons designs by killing innocents. It's about time we reigned it in. Time to beat our swords into plowshares is an idea that religious fundamentalists seem to overlook in their religious teachings here and in Israel. Let's end their hypocrisy now.
I agree with much of what you say but the Pentagon cornucopia is so well-entrenched in our government that I don't see any practical way to empty it. Too many political and economic beneficiaries means that powerful lobbies will work overtime to stymie any efforts that look to be successful. Americans are too used to being the "big dog" and will be easily convinced to continue to support bloated military budget requests (just read some of the comments).
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I agree, and there also will be fierce and well-funded opposition to higher taxes for the rich and universal health care, whether it's Medicare for all or a highly regulated private insurance system. The chances of failure (the triumph of the status quo) are high, but the risks of not trying will be fatal.
Sad but true. Still, looking at military spending and what we get for it is way of a making the case that providing healthcare for everyone is not a "bridge too far" if our priorities are correct. Where there is a will there is a way. Squeezing a billion here and a billion there out of the federal budget, for things not nearly as important as medical care, is imminently doable.
I think the very idea of "just cut the Pentagon budget" and we have money for Medicare for All is wrong. We see China, Russia, and Iran are becoming more and more aggressive. I'm not a military hawk at all but US won't be able to defend itself and its allies without overwhelming military superiority. And what if we do have a major conflict (or two)? Cancel Medicare for All or get runaway inflation?
Also, important argument against Medicare for All has been nicely formulated by Pete Buttigieg. Let me put it in a more aggressive way: its proponents sound more like Soviet commissars who always knew better what all their compatriots should have. Americans deserve to have a choice.
5
There was talk of a European Army at one point. That would save us some money. I read a few articles about Trump wanting NATO to pay their fair share and Merkel say she has better things to do with her countries money. When in the last twenty years have we heard anything about cuts in Defense spending? The F-35 gets in the news once in a while but there's talk of a newer more expensive fighter jet. And there all this new technology we have to develop. We can go on forever printing money but what are getting in return?
I liked the shot at Aruba. It has oil refineries on it so it has some strategic value but I doubt the author or myself can intelligently discuss the value of keeping our military there but if it starts the ball rolling why not?
Great article but our Lobbyocracy seems incapable of this sort of logic and change. Bloomberg rated us 54th in the world for healthcare efficiency. We have the second most expensive healthcare in the world with mediocre results. Other countries are doing so much more with so much less.
So pulling out of all these places and leaving them to handle their affairs themselves is now the right thing to do? I thought just yesterday it was the wrong thing to do. But I guess that was purely based using that scenario to further the political position de jour. But now that pulling out means making money available for a social program it makes sense.
3
We need to stop being the weapons megamart for the rest of the world, while we're cleaning our own house. How much will we save by not having to defend ourselves from our own guns and ammunition? If we can wean ourselves and the world from the gun habit, we will have dealt with one of the most expensive health care problems-- in terms of people AND dollars -- we face. Sure, the folks who now make a living off of producing the means for killing others will need new, positive, jobs. Maybe they can find them in health care.
The question should be:
What will the USA do with the 1 trillion savings after transitioning to universal single payer?
Based on this article, 1 trillion could finance 3 wars simultaneously.
But of course the savings should be used for education, infrastructure, and scientific research.
Healthcare:
USA: 17% of GDP
Every EU country: 10-12% of GDP
The USA should transition to universal single payer to save 5% of GDP (roughly 1 trillion).
It's good to see the NYT publishing the military Industrial complex's cost to civilian policies, with projected numbers. The NYT used to print such OpEd's by Seymour Melman with regularity back in the 70's and 80's. As anyone can see in this opinion by Ms. Koshgarian, these same issues remain today. Military spending, which is non-consumable in our domestic economy, siphons off sufficient money to fund Medicare for All, free tuition for public higher education, infrastructure renewal, etc.
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/10/11/archives/fords-edsel.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/17/business/business-forum-the-peace-dividend-what-to-do-with-the-cold-war-money.html
84
So we should just disband the military? What is the appropriate amount of spending? Who gets to decide? Are we telling the world you are on your own?
Life is all about choices and being ready to both understand and live with the consequences. Do we really understand what those consequences will be? Do the people who write on here actually have enough knowledge on the subject to make those calls?
In my 40 plus year business career I have always found that it isn't about generating the ideas it is about implementing them. Usually the idea people have no clue how to actually translate the idea into a workable plan, they grossly underestimate the time and cost, and are really bad at developing the details needed to implement the idea/plan. They are the proverbial ship launchers who jump back on the dock just as the ship is setting sail, wish you well, take credit for the idea and blame you when it does not get pulled off.
8
Our priorities are reflected in who we elect. If we want to improve medical care for all, education, housing, and life in general for all Americans and others who live here we have to elect representatives at all levels of government who are of the same mind about it. That means we cannot elect another Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, or Richard Nixon. It means understanding that being rich and having a rich life are two different things. Most Americans think locally and don't care what happens beyond their neck of the woods. And that's how we got a Trump, a Reagan, a W. etc.
1
Although it would be a good idea to cut the military budget, it is not necessary. Healthcare is not a new expense. We are already paying for healthcare. While Medicare for all will be very expensive it is simply a matter of changing pockets; and, it will be significantly less expensive than what we are already doing. Medicare for all will save (SAVE) money. It will cost less! The question is not how expensive will Medicare for all be, but rather how much will Medicare for all save.
Americans are currently paying almost twice as much for healthcare as people in the other most advanced countries. Since we spend over three trillion dollars a year now. That means well over a trillion dollars a year in waste. Any attempt to move toward any form of universal healthcare would require Congress, first, passing legislation to dramatically reduce costs. There have been attempts to bring drug costs into line with what people in the other advanced countries are paying, but so far Congress has done less than nothing. This amounts to over a hundred billion a year in waste alone. The various ways in which the medical industry and insurance industries over charge for care is myriad and if Congress ever begins to put a stop to them, the American people will begin to gain the confidence to attempt a universal plan. But, not until then. Finally, since Donald Trump has decided to pull troops out of all manner of conflict zones, we should be able to get by with a much smaller military.
2
Articles like this, by writers with this agenda, polarize arguments, making compromise and coming together more difficult. Making all the decreases in military funding proposed here will create a political firestorm. The real world is not taken into account here.
2
I don't know whether you'll have to raise taxes to have medicare for all, but there are two important factors which seem to be overlooked in these discussions. The first is that while middle-class tax payers may pay more in taxes, they will pay a lot less in health insurance premiums. The second is that collectively Americans will save a ton of money by have a single-payer system rather than the current arrangement. Not to put to fine a point on it, the current system wastes a great deal of money. What's my evidence for this? Canadian health care outcomes are at least as good as, if not better than, US health care outcomes. But the per capita cost of the Canadian system is approximately 50% of the US system: in 2006 US$3,678 vs US$6,714. Much of the saving is connected with the fact that physicians and hospitals are not dealing with a myriad of for profit insurance companies.
And, if you consider that Americans pay twice as much for medical care than all other nations that have universal health care with poorer results, you know there are equally substantial savings to be had by paying the same for drugs that they do, eliminating ineffective treatments using evidence-based medicine, reforming medical malpractice to avoid excess, expensive and unnecessary testing as part of the practice of defensive medicine. Clearly, the U.S. can afford Medicare-for-All, but are the politics not worth the fight when you're talking about dismantling one-fifth of the economy. The economic dislocation coupled with the powerful push back from entrenched interests in the insurance, pharmaceutical and many hospital association may make this into a losing political battle for Democrats when a more incremental approach using a public option would achieve universal coverage without the bruising and likely losing political fight. It's time for Democrats who have health care as their issue not to let "the perfect be the enemy of the very good."
1
FINALLY this is being discussed in the "public square." Thank you for pointing out the bloat in the military budget. Based on economies of scale, how much would be saved by combing Medicare and Medicaid? How about eliminating the Dept. of Homeland Security, DEA and ATF? Why can't existing areas of focus for the latter two be handled by the FBI and local law enforcement agencies? If they refuse to cooperate with each other, start firing staff from the top. When will people understand that TRUE homeland security is quality, affordable health care; quality, free, public education; and a mandatory living wage for every job in this country. Imagine the tax revenue. Oh, and support your local businesses. Keep your discretionary spending in your community. Don't give it to the Jamie Diamonds of the world.
"The $14 billion provided to foreign militaries in 2017 is more than five times the budget of the United Nations."
This is not true. The UN Secretariat budget is about $3 billion per year. But this does not include UN peacekeeping, which costs about $7 billion per year. And it certainly doesn't include agencies like the WHO or UNICEF. The total annual UN budget is closer to $40 billion per year (consisting of a mixture of voluntary donated funding and required, "assessed" funding).
Here's my list of all the places we could get the money from:
1. The military.
Thank you for reading my list.
There are a lot of claims for the reductions in military spending proposed by Ms. Koshgarian. How about climate change, public infrastructure, waste water treatment plants, public education, etc.? Frankly, the battle for cutting the military and funding Medicare for All may be even more difficult than just raising taxes and cutting premiums. This next election will define the future vision of America.
If a 14.7 Billion dollar cut is more than the military budget of Iran, and still Israel and the USA fear them as a heeeeewwwwwge threat, then surely they are utilizing defense appropriations far more efficiently than the bloated expenditures of us and Israel. Perhaps we should take lessons from them in managing our spending? I am positive that they have streamlining procedures in place to eliminate the pork barrel waste that bloviates our slew of over administrative bureaucrats. I'm sure that corruption and kickbacks, though present on both sides due to lobbying for contracts is about the same. Only the penalty for getting caught is a slap on the wrist and a fine compared to death. Advantage USA corrupt vs Iranians.
Do the cost numbers of a Medicare for all plan allow for the fact that Americans and businesses already pay very big numbers for healthcare and a significant part of that revenue would continue feeding into the Medicare fund? It's not a case of the projected cost of the single payer system being piled onto the tax and insurance burden we are accustomed to living with. One side of the ledger gets big cuts and the other side grows.
How about we cut the defense budget in more modest ways and at the same time do away with the ridiculous tax cuts for the rich that began with George W. Bush? Combining the two strategies I can imagine a windfall of epic proportions.
1- I don't want medicare. I'm quite happy with my insurance.
2- Military spending is not just war related, the military also develops technology - i.e. radiation therapy, duct tape, satellite navigation.
This is not to say there are ridiculous military programs that should be cut that money should be used in our crumbling infrastructure.
4
Great Idea. Another sure fire way to lose the next Election. Can these blithering bobble heads just keep their thoughts to themselves until after the next election.
5
This article is one of the most irresponsible articles the NYT has published on this issue. $300b to pay for medicare for all? Medicare TODAY costs $800b alone and covers only a fraction of the country.
This article is misleading fantasy that prevents rational discussion of the REAL trade offs in a nationalized healthcare or single-payer program.
I am disappointed that it made it to print.
15
Not commonly known is that Hayak, the uber-economist revered by ultra right wingers, assumed that the government would provide for healthcare. He could not see a rational way for the market to handle this complicated need. Other countries have done all the necessary experiments of various ways to provide health care from full government involvement to all private with strong government regulation. They all work better (cheaper, better outcomes) than our non-system in the US. Nothing need be invented by us.
2
Interesting.
Can you give the name of his book or a link for what Hayek said about his issue?
Imagine that! Making saving lives a priority over killing! We can dream.
2
Yes! Thank you! Future debate moderators please challenge the candidates with this approach!
The U.S. Defense Department is the most successful communist country that ever existed. Amazing what happens when you just keep throwing gobs of money at something.
1
This is idiotic. First the calculation is off by a factor of 10. Second, world affairs would be substantially worse if money was not spent on the military. Third, military spending can be though of as a form of health care by preventing the same violence from reaching the United States. Fourth, without providing some resistance to the nuts in the Mid East and elsewhere, the condition would be substantially worse.
6
So are you saying that, if we assume America gets into a war with Iran to prevent it to get nuke, it will be to prevent those Iranian missiles (the same violence) from reaching the US????? Or will it be to protect Israel and S. Arabia?
Something tells me that Ms. Koshgarian is not an incrementalist...
Wow. And people wonder why the heartland thinks leftists are crazy.
5
Amen!
1
THANK YOU!!! for finally addressing the elephant in the room.
I'm so tired of all these candidates with good intentions who are scratching their head to find ways of how to pay for Medicare for all, education, & everything else that the American public is starving for.
Has any of them touched that obvious "third rail"? Or are they too focused on a "political calculus"? For heaven's sake, start acting like true democrats & take a courageous & daring path to solving all the problems---political ratings be damned!!!
The Pentagon has only been financially audited once in its history, and it failed. That should tell you enough about the willingness of the military to be transparent with taxpayers about what exactly goes into paying for its bloated budget. I suspect that, like every other industry in America, a lot of money is invested in making shiny new toys that are extremely expensive for what you get (F-35 *cough cough*), while the workers at the bottom get crap wags, poor working conditions, and a lack of care.
Of course, the GOP has pummeled the public with propaganda that military spending = patriotism for so long that any talk of cutting the budget seems like political suicide. I'm glad someone in the media at least has the gall to call out the absurdity of this stance and our military spending. Can't say I'd expect any politician to do the same.
2
We spend 17% of our GDP on healthcare now, most other wealthy countries spend about 11%. And given what's going on abroad, I'd rather we not raid the defense budget and instead do something about our profligate hospitals and drug companies.
1
Agreed w/ all that, Lindsay. But why not raise taxes? Particularly on corporations? They have worked for decades to manipulate the tax code to avoid paying their fair share of the costs of running this nation from which they derive enormous profits.
In 1960, corporate America's share of the federal govt's total income tax revenues was over 23%. By 2019, through repeated applications of voodoo, trickle-up tax "reform" by (R)eagan, Bush II, and The Current Occupant, The Corporatocracy had finagled to slash their share by more than 2/3, to 7%!
2019 Federal tax revenues are $3.4 Trillion. If the corporate share remained at 23%, they would contribute $791 Billion in taxes - $550 Billion more than the piddling $241 Billion they are reluctantly coughing up!!
Let's just return to the sane tax policies of years past.
It will cost trillions for the Medicare for All option. A few billion saved here and there won't cover it. We have the Affordable Care Act which was working until Trump and his merry band of thieves removed the mandatory coverage rule.
Right now, the United States is paying on the order of $3 trillion dollars a year for healthcare. Let me repeat, as a country we are spending $3 trillion dollars a year for health care. The administrative cost of Medicare is 3%. The administrative cost for private healthcare insurance is on the order of 12%-15%. Even if there is no benefit in reducing the direct cost of healthcare or drug prices, Medicare for all will save (SAVE) the country a significant amount of money. If we had straight up the government run single-payer healthcare system in Canada we would save $1,2 trillion dollars a year. While it is true that the Medicare for all will cost $trillions of dollars a year, it is also true hat it will cost less than what we are doing right now. Do you want to save money?
1
There's far too large a money-ed deck stacked against universal health care for all in the U.S. You'd have to defeat the lobbyists of the defense and insurance industries. Not a chance.
An excellent piece that is both rigorous and precise in its estimates, as well as visionary in terms of the benefits to the country and the globe.
Now, most importantly, Democratic Primary voters need to ask themselves this question:
Can you see this type of transformation happening in a Biden administration?
1
Yes, reducing military bloat by $300B per year is a highly worthy goal. But it won’t put a significant dent in funding Medicare for all. Consider the numbers
Medicare 2018, $731B
Medicaid 2018, $592B
Total Medicare/Medicaid 2018, $1.32 trillion
Military 2019, $684B
US entire budget 2018, $4.1 trillion
Per capita health care, 2018 $10k
Cost to insure 330 million people, Medicare for All: $3.3 trillion per year (nearly the entire US budget)
So $300B is only 10% of this $3.3T. The editorial author is off by an order of magnitude
Now consider:
Average per capita health care of major European nations and Canada , $5k
Imagine US health care halved from $10k to $5k per capita
Medicare for All would be $1.65 trillion, and $300B from military slash would then actually close the gap with current total $1.32 trillion
Now, consider how bloated and corrupt the U.S. healthcare system is (2x Europe costs), due to many causes; e.g. MDs leave school with $250k debt, Europeans $0 debt, malpractice insurance and defensive medicine costs, for profit insurance companies, hospitals, and clinics, scandalous drug prices, and more. (Good luck goring all these oxen to achieve 2x reduction)
Bottom line: Entire U.S. healthcare system needs to be re-structured and de-corrupted and costs halved for Medicare for All to be affordable.
(Tax the Rich? Great idea, but they’re experts in minimizing/evading taxes. Guess who ends up paying?)
3
The fact the US health cost per capita is roughly 60% more than other OECD nations clearly indicates the huge potential for savings that could be directed towards health care.
Likewise streamlining and cutting pork from the military budget could in principle improve US defenses by focusing on cost effective robust systems that would be viable through an actual life and death of the nation war.
But this opinion piece doesn't mention either of those. What we can infer, however, is that this author, and by extension the movement they are associated with, place zero priority on cost-effectiveness and will deflect that issue with moral absolutisms.
3
Find it ironic that the same commentators cheering this on are lambasting President Trump for pulling our troops out of Syria. If we follow a plan like this there will be many more drawbacks of troops, much like we saw in Syria this week.
4
Now if we could just convince Trump to stop supporting the Saudi's war in Yemen, and stop trying to start a war with Iran, your statement would make some sense.
"I am glad that all of us knew, as a few of us already did, what was up and what readjustments in human life and in political institutions would be called for. Those are the days when we all drank one toast only: 'No more wars.'"
-Oppenheimer (1954)
28
Oppenheimer is talking about the Bomb and the felt necessity towards the end of WWII to drop a few of those on Japan. Hardly the words of a pacifist.
Reduce the debt first. Then there will be money for everything.
3
In the 3 years of the Trump administration the annual budget deficit has nearly doubled. In fact the budget deficit went down under Clinton (actually balanced), up significantly under Bush, down significantly under Obama, and now back up again under Trump.
Our multi-Trillion dollar defense system AND a hawkish military-loving Republican administration (with it's industry supported, conservative "Think Tanks") totally missed (or deliberately ignored) the 9-11 attacks. From Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq, all we've accomplished with our military is death, destruction and waste. I certainly don't feel safer, but a lot of con-artists have gotten a whole lot richer.
I guess you’ve forgotten how hawkish Hillary was.
In a better world denouncing the folly of the US ruling class and its addiction to war and imperialism would be common sense.
Washington has and still is making a mess of the world through their endless wars for corporate profits which are returned as campaign contributions. It's how the system operates.
And the Establishment's propaganda, coupled with the vices of greed and self-interest ingrained in our society, result in the fact that many people just don't care.
When only 1% bear all the burden of fighting/dying in needless imperialist wars then 99% will remain alienated and apathetic to the "sociocide" of stable sovereign societies and the genocide of indigenous populations.
Needless wars that have no objective except to the transfer all wealth to the arms industry, banks, Wall Street, and multinational corporations.
If anyone dares speaks out against regime change wars they're immediately demonized.
Tulsi Gabbard dared to speak out against regime change wars and has been brutally demonized, slandered, and smeared by the MSM as being an Assad apologist, Putin stooge, and a traitor.
The MSM, totally controlled by the intelligence agencies, employ propagandists to promote the US imperialist agenda which has devastated the lives of millions.
The public's apathy and ignorance will continue as well as the endless wars until Americans see their own children killed.
Then they may get a clue of what others are suffering right now, in their name, with their stolen wages.
Sad.
2
Right on. Yours is the ONLY comment at this point (out of 332) that mentions Tulsi! This article totally reinforces her platform and none of the NYT faithful have drawn this connection yet. They can't be so brainwashed that it never even occurred to the them. I think they just don't want to go there. It's a mystery to me what they are so afraid of. I guess they don't want to rock the boat when the water looks to be pretty deep. Mach's gut.
Noble intent, and rooted in data. However, the opposing forces are formidable. Demagogue politicians owned by war profiteers denouncing the "hollowing out of US Army supremacy". Republicans excel at misnomers and propaganda and fear sells goods and ideas.
And then you have your run-of-the-mill racists that cannot afford social mobility for "those people" brought to you by don't-worry-you're-covered coverage. Poor whites need poorer colored people to look down on and feel better about themselves.
The only hope is changing demographics and racists dying out or becoming the minority.
"We’ve identified more than $300 billion in annual military savings ..."
No you haven't. Your "full" report merely restates some vague generalities, abstract ideas and presumed benefits.
8
The military budget is a separate, but important issue. Right now taxpayers pay 2/3rds of the nation's health care bills. Medicare, Medicaid, VA, CHIP, government employees, and subsidizing employer health insurance plans.
Thirty trillion for MFA is a large number. However, the present system will cost 40* Trillion. Under the latter, people die, go bankrupt, have care limits, and pay for a bloated bureaucracy. Add in networks, co-payments, deductibles, and co-insurance. Out-of-pocket expenses also become a barrier to care.
Public options add to bureaucratic expense by being another insurance plan sold on an exchange. Underwriting practices by private insurers will push the sickest subscribers to public options. The OCB has estimated only 6 to 10% will navigate to public options making it costly and splitting the country into more risk groups. Taxpayers will have to pay for subsidizations with minimal improvement in access to doctors.
Although paying for MFA has not been put in print, those sponsoring have offered multiple sources with payment reflecting an 8 to 10% tax on household income after $29,000. That means a family earning $100,000 would pay $7100 yearly. No fees are due at offices, lab, or hospitals.
By reducing bureaucracy to less than 5% is where the greatest savings occur.
1
In our famous democracy, multi millions lack access to medical care, still in 2019, or are plagued with high costs even if insured, to keep big insurance and pharma profitable. Those excessive profits are then shared with politicians as campaign donations.
Dozens of countries have HC for all--- not LEFTIST, BUT CENTRIST in their politics. They might argue about funding levels, but not the principle--of paying respect to their citizens with health care rights for all, no matter income.
If not single payer, then use insurance mandates, BUT with regulation of premium costs by the govts that their people elect. That's the purpose of having a democracy. These are capitalist systems, but they don't let profits dominate their laws.
We still have to fight about what other countries have long ago settled.
Our politics lets big insurance PR maniupulate some public opinion to equate high profit medical care with American 'Freedom'.
It's both funny and tragic. A life and death matter, manipulated for private profit, in the world's greatest democracy.
1
Yes, yes ,yes!
It is genuinely outrageous to get hung up on the cost of progressive programs while we still have outlandish military spending and allow hundreds of billions each year in individual and corporate tax avoidance
1
Before we start offering free stuff, let's pay what we owe. The national debt is way out of wack, and paying it down should be the first priority. Sure all the free stuff sounds great. I remember when junior colleges didn't have a tuition. It's a great goal, but this isn't the time. I'm in favor of a national health care system. I wasn't until I had to make the financial decision to go to Kaiser because my PPO was becoming too expensive. I've never looked back, and regret not switching earlier. But that doesn't mean able bodied, working people, in the prime of life can't contribute to a national health care system.
As it was pointed out several weeks ago, it's the Congress that will investigate, and put together a bill for the President to sign. All this handwringing over what candidate said what fills airtime, but in the end will have minimal impact on the final legislation. If we have a President Warren, and Congress send her a bill to improve the Affordable Care Act, she'll sign it. Just like if Congress sends President Joe Biden a Medicare for All bill, he'll sign it.
4
Unfortunately, we have a culture of fear in the US, where you can't spend enough or do enough to keep safe. Witness parents driving their children 8 blocks to school, or the open carry proponents and assorted gun nuts.
Getting us to rationally cut defense spending will be very difficult, and take some true heroes among congress to point out the waste, similar to how Harry Truman stood up at the beginning of WWII, touring army bases to eliminate waste and inefficiency.
1
Medicare for All has enormous consequences... there is another way, explained by a physician. It's about negotiating aggressively pharmaceutical costs, reforming patents, eliminating hospital and physician waste by investing in preventative care/primary care - spend money on THAT. Make it competitive - pay cash or employer coverage or if you're poor, government can pay. Then government can pay for catastrophic coverage only. https://youtu.be/SlzRs5bgV-k
America spends as much on it's military as the next 8 nations combined, including 10x Russia and 3x China.
When was the last time that America deterred, detected and defeated any American enemy and won a peace?
4
LOL...In capitalist terms all this "investment" is called a poor REI (return on investment).
If a 14.7 Billion dollar cut is more than the military budget of Iran, and still Israel and the USA fear them as a heeeeewwwwwge threat, then surely they are utilizing defense appropriations far more efficiently than the bloated expenditures of us and Israel. Perhaps we should take lessons from them in managing our spending? I am positive that they have streamlining procedures in place to eliminate the pork barrel waste that bloviates our slew of over administrative bureaucrats. I'm sure that corruption and kickbacks, though present on both sides due to lobbying for contracts is about the same. Only the penalty for getting caught is a slap on the wrist and a fine compared to death. Advantage USA corrupt vs Iranians.
Late in the Obama administration an internal Pentagon study identified $125 billion in potential savings (here's the link: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-defense-waste/pentagon-buried-study-that-found-125-billion-in-wasteful-spending-washington-post-idUSKBN13V08B). Of course, it disappeared without a trace. If the federal government could simply identify some key priorities and the pro-government and anti-government forces could put aside their differences for once and agree on a national agenda to rebuild and modernize our country on a number of fronts: military, health care, infrastructure, education think of what we could do!
2
In the ongoing debate for the level of isolationism that is suitable for the US going forward, and its attendant savings, it would be helpful for more balanced arguments about the risks.
As such, below is the number of mentions of the following countries in this article:
Afghanistan: 4
Iraq: 2
Iran: 2
Russia: 1
China: 1
North Korea: 0
Turkey: 0
Israel: 0
Saudi Arabia: 0
I am sure the authors can present a broader picture of the costs of their proposals, historical reference, current strategic options for various regions and the likely long-term impact to the US.
1
I have some problems with Medicare for All, including its continuance on the fee-for-service model for paying providers, and the myth that it is the only way to provide universal access to high quality healthcare as a right. Other countries manage universal access without single payer, much less socialized medicine. That said, the criticisms of Medicare for All on cost (or worse, labelling costs with the Republican bogeyman's favorite word, taxes) is exaggerated. Let's look at some numbers.
Total US GDP for 2018 was about $20.5 trillion. Of that, about 18% was for healthcare, or about $3.7 trillion. The US federal government is already spending more than $1.1 trillion of that through Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA alone. And it is estimated (recent JAMA article) that 30% of healthcare expenditures are wasted (where one person's waste is another person's profit). So we are talking, worst case, of the government taking charge of about $1.5 trillion in expenditures that are already coming out of peoples' pockets one way or another, and possibly, by reforms, reducing that amount. Bottom line: Elizabeth Warren is right about the cost savings of Medicare for All for all but the wealthiest of Americans, who would not feel the pinch of any added tapping of their wealth to make this happen.
1
Thinking that somehow we will overcome the power and campaign dollars from the Military Industrial Complex and funnel them into health care is foolhardy. They feed off of each other but ultimately both off of the taxpayers. People who are employed by a company that offers them some type of medical insurance leave that decision up to their employer and to the extent their employer is willing to pay for some or all of the premiums. It is logical to think that if you took this decision and financial responsibility out of the company hands that your pay should increase by what the company previously paid out for the health insurance premiums. Right now our US health care costs 18% of our economy (GDP). Most nations with single payer or some form of regulated health care spend 13%. Our GDP is projected to be 21,35 trillion dollars in 2019 and 5% of that is $1.067 trillion dollars. Simple solution adopt one of the time tested health care programs of one of our neighbors all of whom seem to be much smarter on this issue that also produce the best overall health care results )currently the US ranks 27th in overall health care results). The chances of reducing all of these programs as meticulously outlined by the author including the pork is just not realistic.
1
If you derive your healthcare insurance through your employer, you have NO FREEDOM...you are chained to that job & you have no freedom from insecurity, anxiety, debt, etc. In short you do not own your life. Your beloved 2 weeks vacation is as close as you'll get to owning "free time."
It seems odd that I haven't heard any Democratic candidates suggest this, or have I just missed it? Because "taxing the wealthy" won't provide nearly as much revenue as most people think it will. In fact, confiscating every penny owned by each person worth $50M or more won't deliver enough funds to sustain significant increases in domestic spending. The military is the one source of massive funds which could theoretically be tapped every year. Perhaps a genuine America First policy would allow us to accomplish something. I find this more appealing than defending the Kurds or having troops in Mali, Central African Republic, Germany, Okinawa, etc. We don't need to spend $750B per year for defense.
1
Can no one do math? Medicare for All will cost three trillion dollars a year. Finding billions is irrelevant. The entire military budget is less than a trillion. The scope of medicare for all seems to be beyond the numerical limits of the writer's imagination. There's no magic place to "save" this money to pay for Medicare for All. It will have to come from taxes -- a lot of taxes. There are about 150 million taxpayers in the country. That's a tax bill of twenty thousand per household. With a graduated tax and assuming multiple people covered by that tax, it's still pretty close to what we pay now in medical insurance. And the polarization it will cause will be epic. If you think the country is divided now, it will be worse if this passes. It's pie in the sky, and I don't trust suggestions from people who can't even make simple estimates using the concept of order of magnitude. Saving billions in a budget does nothing for this problem.
6
So who do you think pays the $3.5 trillion now?
We already have universal health care, it's called go to the hospital. A hospital will not refuse an indigent care.
Why would a for profit hospital give care to indigent patients? It's not because of the free market. Hospitals are required to provide care to everyone by federal law as an unfunded mandate.
So where do they get the money to provide indigent care? They get it from you and me. Hospitals charge you and me (or our insurance carriers) more than our actual cost of care.
Where do we get the money to pay for care? Most people are covered by health insurance provided by our employers. How much is that? It varies by employer and the type of coverage but it generally amounts to between $7,000 and $20,000 a year. It could well be that if you are making $50,000 a year but have great health insurance you are actually being paid $70,000 and your employer is "taxing" away $20,000 to pay for your health coverage (and the coverage of indigent patients at hospitals). Technically, if the Federal government provides Medicare for all, then employers would not be paying for your health insurance and your income could go up by as much a $20,000. However, that $20,000 would probably be taxed away for Medicare leaving you with the same income that you started with.
So the idea is not whether or not you will be taxed for your healthcare, you will. It's just whether or not you will be taxed by your employer or the government. It could well end up being a wash.
1
But wait! There's even more savings to be had. This article hasn't talked about the number of aircraft carriers and support ships in the US Navy. This article hasn't talked about military retirees who receive military pensions also receive VA disability benefits rose from 33 percent in 2005 to 47 percent in 2013.
1
The size of our military footprint isn't representative of the defense of our nation. Its representative of our national interests abroad. Its more about influencing other countries, either through direct threats or protection, than keeping an invasion from happening here.
All we really need are two big oceans, two neighboring countries as allies and the current domestic military equipment to keep us from being invaded.
1
The military is there for one reason: to protect the Empire's interests, in other words the corporatocracy & its greedy global aspirations. (Of course, America is only one example)
As a nation that started out as a well meaning Republic, it became endangered the moment it started expanding into an empire. And as we all know (from history's lessons), empires are not sustainable & eventually perish under that weight, it inevitably self-destructs.
"All we really need are two big oceans"
Yeah, that really worked in 1941 and 2001.
Why cut anything?
The US spends $10,220 per head per year on its healthcare system but gets poor outcomes and doesn't cover all its citizens. Europe spends around $5,000, gets better outcomes and gives universal coverage.
The secret is no secret. In every other developed country, governments ensure fair prices -- as opposed to giving free rein to an industry that's ready, willing and able to say "Your money or your life."
5
What has the US spent on its military over the last 50 years?
Is the world any better off as a result? Ask those affected by our actions.
"Europe spends around $5,000, gets better outcomes"
That is false. One example, CDC data show US has better outcomes for leading cancers.
https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/research/articles/concord-2.htm
YES! Bring military spending under control instead of the never ending rampant budgets they have.
1
the question is not whether we can afford it--of course we can. It is, can Dems
get elected on it. With Dems in office, the inevitable shift to medicare for all will begin.
1
It is about time someone said the obvious. I am sick of conservatives constantly opining that 'Dems just want to give things away', when we have been wasting untold trillions over the past couple of decades on military nonsense that does nothing to insure our country is safe. I continually argue that there is plenty of money sloshing around our system, we have all allocation problem. Allocating hundreds of billions to invade and destroy a country half a world away is done as an almost cursory act, but heave forbid we were to use that money on our domestic needs - suggest spending hundreds of billions on anything besides raining down death and destruction and suddenly the sky is going to fall because of the national debt. The national debt doesn't exist because we spend too much taking care of our citizens and domestic needs; it's the result of more than 3 decades of increasing military debacles and a military/industrial complex (thanks for the prescient warning Pres. Eisenhower) that sucks up every dollar it can like a vampire. Not too mention all the ridiculous subsidies to industries that don't need it (here's looking at you Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Agriculture), and Republicans myopic need to continually lower taxes on the Americans and corporations who can most afford to pay more.
2
Let's try this:
You can rationalize the military, refocus, fine tune, better mange it. All of which sounds better to me, and less provocative than "SLASH!!!"
But how about you use that money for infrastructure improvements. For desperately needed investment in education. Since we will be kinder and gentler maybe we could encourage something wonderful in architecture and city planning other than this post-East-Germany faux-Internationalist glass shoe-box hell we have been building.
Don't worry about single payer health care (different and way better than what most of these jokers mean when they say "Medicare for All:).
We'll pay for that by quickly and entirely dismantlement the private health insurance industry; an industry currently logging almost a trillion dollars a year in income, spent primarily on finding ways to deny care and enrich investors and executives.
Entirely, I say because if there's any shred of it left it will be the seed of the same corruption greed and incompetence that brought us where we are now.
I say quickly because unless the move is total and irrevocable we'll spend decades dithering among fake ideologies and plays for political or economic advantage that will have the nation twisting incoherently in the wind, and those who need care suffering as much as thy are now.
Later, if we like, we can add very tightly monitored versions of private services. Maybe.
Yes, shrink your military. But there are better places to put the savings.
The Koch brothers have already funded a study the shows that Medicare For All will cost $2 trillion LESS than our current for profit health system over ten years. Cutting waste is way past due, but we do not need to do it to justify moving to a Medicare For All healthcare system.
https://www.thenation.com/article/thanks-koch-brothers-proof-single-payer-saves-money/
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Nice try...but fail. Your approach would have over 2000 hospitals in America close their doors in year 1.
From Politifact...
It assumes that provider payment will be reduced to Medicare levels, that negotiation with prescription drugmakers will generate significant savings, and that administrative costs will be cut from 13 to 6 percent.
However, in an alternative scenario in which cost-control works less effectively (see Table 4) Mercatus found that over the same 10-year period, national health expenditures would actually increase by $3.252 trillion compared to current law.
So while the number Sanders chose really does appear in the report, he’s cherry-picked the more flattering of two estimates.
2
Yes. And it was a surprise to and an embarrassment for those brothers!
John Lennon's Imagine is humming in my ear. I wish there was Peace On Earth.
Finally a common sense approach to using tax payer's money appropriately. Our military, for which I was a member, remains a sacred cow when it comes to cash. It may be the 11th commandment ..."Thou shall not slash the budget of the Pentagon..." However you say it, the military is a very wasteful institution.
The emperor is naked, for all to see. Thank you for printing this article.
1
It's a sacred cow that creates war to test new weapons designs by killing innocents. It's about time we reigned it in. Time to beat our swords into plowshares is an idea that religious fundamentalists seem to overlook in their religious teachings here and in Israel. Let's end their hypocrisy now.
1
This idea is a non-starter.
After all, how do we expect to pay for a permanent troop presence in Syria and 100 other countries?
1
I'm so glad this article is out there. The most frustrating thing about (basically) all of the democratic candidates and the debates is that nobody will touch the military budget with a ten foot pole. Only Joe Biden brought up its budget but just to dismiss the idea that defunding it would have any last impact. It's truly disgusting how much we spend on our military (more than the next 7 or so counties combined if I remember correctly) and it's about damn time people started asking why we need to spend so much, and ask about what good we can accomplish with just a fraction of that money. People are dying or going bankrupt because they can't afford their medical bills or medications, while billions are spent on faulty jets and walls nobody wants.
2
Surely, you jest as does Elizabeth Warren. There’s a lot of money to be made in the military. Just think of all those nice Saudi Arabian contracts. We live in a capitalist society. Everything we get from jobs, food, housing, utilities, education, medical care on up is controlled by money and how much monied interests will allow. Politicians who promise stuff are lying or deluded. Money controls the political process and politicians cannot only do what they are allowed to do. That’s how we got Obamacare. You want anything else you’re a left wing crazy. Don’t mess with the money.
2
Great, if politically unrealistic for Repubs and Dems, ideas. I say aim for half these cuts and raise the rest of the 300B by higher taxes on the highest brackets. What are Bezos and Adelson and the Kochs doing of societal worth with their bazillions anyway?
1
The old economic debate of ‘guns or butter’ is at play here. For as long as mankind has had militaries the debate has always been how much should we spend on defense versus social programs. I agree that now is the time to tip the scale from defense to social programs. Exactly how many times do we need to destroy mankind with nukes, or how many men and women do we need in the military to be safe? Further, with the global threats today we are better protected by swift and small strike forces rather than large scale armies and weapons systems. If WWIII starts we can scale up much like we did with WWII if needed. Let China and Russia waste their resources on a large military, it gains us nothing anymore.
3
While funding Medicare for All is a formidable challenge that should be addressed by looking at many sources including taxes and spending cuts. Funding however is not the only challenge. Currently about 55 million people are on medicare, 155 million are on employer sponsored plans, 90 million on personally funded plans and 27 million uninsured. Our medicare plan alone is significantly larger than Canada's plan for there whole country. Medicare for All, if not an option but mandatory, will add some 272 million people to a program that is currently administered by 6000 government employees. Also medicare, by CBO estimates, pays hospitals and doctors 35% to 60% of charges that employer sponsored plans and private plans pay. This cost shifting subsidizes medicare and allows many hospitals, especially rural ones, to remain open. To create the largest government run health system in the world, day one as Sanders/Warren propose is not just irresponsible it could be catastrophic. Remember the problems with the roll out of Obamacare? Far more challenging system designs and implementations will be required for Medicare for All. A public option that competes with private plans (and eliminates cost shifting so private insurers and medicare pay the same rates for service) makes the most sense and allows for a transition that doesn't throw the system into chaos.
6
First choice: economic warfare
Last choice: nuclear weapons.
Nothing in between.
1
I so agree, and, of course, Eisenhower said it best years ago when he warned about the military-industrial complex. One concern: what will happen to the troops we no longer need? Where will they find jobs? One solution: Let's get very busy building the infrastructure we have needed for decades.
1
We have a "Medicare for All" program in Canada.
You won't find many Canadians who would endorse the US health care plan, and most Canadians wouldn't endorse possessing a bloated military.
We are near the end of our five week federal election campaign in Canada.
More money is spent by most of the current leading Democratic and Republican candidates a year out of the US election than all Canadian politicians running in our federal election combined.
Canadians don't have a lot to complain about. We have universal health care. We don't have a bloated military. We have guns, but not the out-sized access to guns across the border. We have an independent body, "Elections Canada" which sets the riding boundaries, and prevents any partisan gerrymandering. We have a parliamentary system where the Prime Minister is the leader of the party with the most seats, and has limited executive power, unlike the unbridled power of the President of the USA. Like most Canadians, I couldn't tell you how many Supreme Court justices we have, or what their political affiliations they have.
Canadians have access to the "Breaking News" drama every night on our TVs from american media like CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. We watch with amazement at the never-ending crisis concerning issues that are non-issues to Canadians.
1
Yes, in addition to a need to reduce healthcare costs to levels in other similar countries, a huge and complex problem I haven't read a solution to, we could obviously make huge military cuts. The last military attack on our country was Pearl Harbor, but in my lifetime we've killed millions in Vietnam and at least hundreds of thousands in other countries that never attacked us. I've never understood why, especially post-cold-war, we need a huge military with or without a wasteful budget.
3
Agreed. Why can't USA be a normal country, using its power to defend its own territory. Overseas relationships to be handled by diplomacy, cooperation and negotiation.
It appears that's what Trump is trying to do.
Use Russia to manage their proxy Syria and Iran.
Use Saudi's to counter balance Iran.
Deal with China directly.
Create a stronger North/Central American axis that is stronger economically.
My only question is why is Pelosi delaying the vote on the trade deal with Mexico and Canada. It has all the votes it needs in the House and Senate and the WH has said they'll sign it.
Does she really think she's going to dictate the minimum wage and union requirements in Mexico..or the amount of "clean energy" they have to use in their factories?
The woman is in the early stages of dimentia.
You could tell when she walked to the podium yesterday outside the White House barely able to walk a straight line and shaking and quaking while she spoke. If I were a doctor, I might suggest it's early onset of Parkinsons.
I hope she gets help. She's going to need it.
Why does the US need to spend 4x on military as compared to China? How about we cap our military budget by law to be no more than 2x the next largest budget.
2
Or how about we not pay another dime to NATO until every member of NATO honors their commitments?
As another commentator said, the GOP has successfully tied military spending to patriotism in the minds of most Americans. This is very true and to counter that we need a sustained long term campaign to bring to the public eye the realities of defense budgets.
We need investigative journalism reporting on every penny and dime spent on defense contracting over a long period of time. Filter it down to make it digestible by the masses. Once public sees the massive scale of spending, they will be able to compare it to how much the government spends on infrastructure, healthcare, scientific research and public services (which ludicrously is an extremely tiny fraction of the total budget). Then, we might see the tide of pseudo-patriotism turning against defense spending.
Keep in mind, these are extremely powerful forces with a ton of cash which they use to leverage the politicians. I know there is no hope for ever reversing the Citizens United decision, so voting is the only thing that might be able to help us in the long run.
1
Excellent Idea! I'm no peacenik. I don't mind spending $5 trillion on war. What I mind is spending $5 trillion to lose wars. It's clear that since 9/11, the record of the US Military has only been eclipsed by the record of the Cleveland Browns, a team with which I am sadly all too familiar.
2
Um, the US hasn't won a war since 1945. Sure has killed a lot of folk, tho.
Per the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, cms.gov, “Private health insurance spending increased 4.2 percent to $1.2 trillion in 2017.” Look no further for trillions of dollars! A large percentage of those dollars could be redirected to a “Medicare for all” plan that allows everyone to choose private insurance and the costs that come with that, or a “Medicare” plan with a supplement, just as most Americans over 65 already do. Not everyone over 65 chooses Medicare! Our Medicare system works pretty well. We could expand it without rearranging all other priorities!
2
I think she's taking it a little too far. If we slashed our defense budget in half we would almost have to completely disengage from world affairs. I'm not sure if that's a great idea, especially after watching the fiasco that's happening in Syria right now. I don't understand why we can't just raise everyone's taxes so we could all pay for it instead gutting the military or raising corporate taxes. People feel like they deserve social security and Medicare because they pay their fair share of it.
1
Halving our budget would still leave us as #1 military spender by a margin
While I agree that there is significant cost savings available in the Pentagon budget, there is also the fact that the Russian Federation has committed acts of war against the United States in their brazen influencing of elections, and installing their puppet president.
They MUST pay a large price.
2
Cutting down on military spending, particularly in the middle east, seems like a good idea. (At least at first.) But it's easier said than done. Have a look at US withdrawal from Syria, and the almost universal reaction to the withdrawal.
1
We will fare no better than any other empire. Rome, Constantinople, the Incas, Egypt and on and on and on .... In our country and others, many of us are wary of standing armies. Our forebears have been wary of alliances with foreign nations. When we pursue the use of power in aggrandizing and conquering other nations we are not focusing on our country, our citizens and our welfare. Cutting down the size of the military, the armaments we stockpile and the increasing use of police and the use of power instead of the tending to the citizens of our land our freedom.
2
I am overjoyed to see this information in print. Maybe there is hope for the
USA after all. With the brief exception of Eisenhower's prescient remark in1960, but otherwise throughout my entire life, the bloated military budget has been exempt from political criticism. The founders of this republic feared the consequences of "a standing army" above all and for good reason.
280
Yes indeed Ivan Light. Why o'why haven't potential solutions like this been in the mainstream of the conversation for years now? I suppose because too many fat cats, waving the flag of militarism and mega-capitalism, don't want it discussed and too many Americans are too mesmerized by the false-equivalency of militarism and patriotism.
Pity the poor President who tries to cut the military budget.
They have a hundred ways to get even with you.
You didn't think this was the exclusive domain of the IC, did you?
1
@Ivan Light: Having no standing army was the rationale behind the Second Amendment, “a well-regulated militia,” which meant that in times of war, the citizenry would be recruited to fight. The Second Amendment has been completely distorted now to allow the slaughter of children.
Finally, a vision for engagement abroad that actually makes sense.
Huge thanks to Ms. Koshgarian and the Poor People's Campaign for all their hard work and unyielding determination to make this a country that works for everyone.
People should be proud to support peace, it's the most patriotic thing you can do.
137
Yes. A detailed analysis rather than the vacuous talking points we keep hearing. Certainly 30% of the military budget is Congressional pork, like for the F-35, rather than needed programs.
Two other points:
1) The defense budget does not contribute to economic productivity. We create vast piles of bombs and ammunition to supply a war, should it break out. That is all tax money essentially down the toilet. Should we have a war it is likely to go into bombs to turn more of the Middle East into a pile of rubble and generate more millions of refugees. Then more money will go into foreign aid to fix part of the mess WE made.
Healthcare for the lives of the people who pay those taxes might seem, just possibly, to be money better spent. It makes me furious to hear about how money is going to be "wasted" on health care with the vast non-productive waste of the military.
2) How about the same detailed analysis on the "cost" of medicare for all. A large fraction of medical costs in the US is paid for by employers. It isn't tax money, but it is a huge expense for companies. Now just suppose that expense goes to zero with a single payer system. Then impose a tax on businesses for 50% of that amount. Talking point, "Oh, my, crisis, taxes went up" and then we rend our garments. But the total cost went DOWN! I think we sent politicians to college to party and not to take math classes or to be able to do or understand any realistic analyses.
11
Please close foreign bases. There's no need for bases near the Straits of Hormuz or in the Black Sea facing Russia. There's also no need for "Freedom of Navigation" operations along the coast of dozens of countries. All this unnecessarily provokes other power centres, fuels regional backlash and militarisation. China has increased ballistic missiles facing the US base at Okinawa and Iran has inducted anti-ship missiles to counter the US 5th fleet. In turn, US "defence" expenditure increases and increases to confront these "threats". As though spending $4.9 trillion on guerilla wars already wasn't enough...
49
My uncle, centuries removed, had much to say about this.
The soveraignty of the British seas : proved by records, history, and the municipall lawes of this kingdome : written in the year 1633
Author:
John Borough, Sir
"There's no need for bases near the Straits of Hormuz"
Yes, there is. Most of the world's oil passes through the Straits. Removing US forces gives local powers (namely Iran) the ability to strangle the global economy unless their demands are met.
"or [bases] in Black Sea facing Russia."
Yes, there is. Russia occupied all of Eastern Europe in a totalitarian grip of steel that lasted decades. Russia's current leadership considers this to be "the good old days". You can see why the local countries want US troops stationed there.
"All this unnecessarily provokes other power centres, fuels regional backlash and militarisation."
You're making the classic isolationist mistake: you assume that other the aggression of other countries is purely a response to US "aggression", you don't realize that they have their own interests, many of which involve expanding their own power.
We learned this in WWII: troublesome actors don't magically become peaceful just because you pull back the troops and talk about peace. The French and British let Hitler annex multiple countries, and each time, people who wanted to intervene to stop him were criticized as "unnecessarily provoking other power centers, fueling regional backlash and militarisation". By the time France and Britain got wise that Hitler wasn't going to return the favor, it was too late.
But now that eighty years have passed, people are forgetting that lesson.
Before getting all happy about cuts, maybe speak to soldiers in the field. My child is in the army and tells frightening stories about the lack of working equipment, low quality food, and making do with broken vehicles. So by all means, we do not need a trillion dollar plane, but remember that you're also speaking about real men and women, and their families, when you reduce the military to nothing but bloat and waste.
80
Isn't there something wrong with a system that supplies our defenders with a "lack of working equipment, low quality foot, and making do with broken vehicles" no matter how much it spends?
4
Your child's experience in the field highlights, not that there isn't enough money, but that the obscene amount of money being spent towards defense isn't necessarily going where it needs to go.
That's the downside of this bloated system, right there. This money is going to corporations, consultants and contractors and there are countless unrecognized 'entities' that get their slice of the pie long, long before it ever reaches the grunts in the field.
63
But that can be remedied not by more spending but by redirecting the spending from whatever fancy equipment the military-industrial complex can think up (the MX missile on railroad tracks, the Star Wars concept, to name two silly and wasteful ideas from my lifetime) to equipment for the troops on the ground.
Or, better yet, don't go around trying to fix other countries.
34
First of all, do away with employer provided health care. Half of America doesn't want to rock the boat, because they are afraid of losing out on what they are made to believe is a good deal. If those people had to pay for their own health care (like the rest of us) the screaming to fix the system would be deafening. The problem isn't finding the money, we have plenty of money. The problem is half the people in this country believe "I got mine, you get yours."
206
In case you have not noticed (or cared) the U.S. currently has a federal debt of $21 trillion, $9 trillion of which was created during the Obama administration. The same Obama administration that created Obamacare (remember Obama declaring "You can keep your current physician, and the average family will save $2500 under my plan"? What bunk. ). As for me as a retiree, I'll keep my employer sponsored health care plan, for which I paid dearly with 35 years of hard work. I wouldn't trust the federal government to do half the quality job being done by my private insurer.
3
With half the country afraid to see the system change, it's safe to charge the other half higher prices. Large companies are required to help with insurance not because the government/insurance industry wants to keep people healthy, but because they want to keep them complacent. In this perverse arrangement, people in the best position to pay for their own health care get a discount, and everybody else gets overcharged to make up for it. The goal is to maximize profit for the insurance industry. it wasn't the government that wanted businesses to insure workers, and it wasn't the businesses either.
The insurance companies spend all day, every day, trying to figure out ways to make money. That's all they do. They created this schism because it is to their benefit.
1
You hit the nail on the head.
The bloated military budget that is out of control because of no checks and balances is exactly why it would be a bad idea to allow the government to take over the health care system. While capitalism has it's downsides, such as profit and stock holder returns, I suspect that added cost would be FAR less than the government inefficiency and bloat that will result from Medicare for All.
2
It's so obvious: tax the rich. And it cannot be said aloud before the election.
142
Define rich.
More than $50,000 a year for a single?
Anyone more than 120% of minimum wage?
What about someone working 4 jobs with 3 investments that are yielding $100k a year? Are they rich? What if they live in Joplin instead of Overland Park? Then are they rich?
Point is...you can't make the budget work by only focusing on the rich. You need to focus on everyone and anyone who is working and making money.
Fact is...every person in America should have skin in the game. They each should pay something in federal taxes..but that's not the case.
50% aren't paying a dime in federal taxes.
How is that fair to the rest of America?
We didn't get to where we are with freeriders dictating policy. Otherwise we'd already be called North Venezuela.
3
Here's a documented fact: The rich (I'll define them as the top 10% of all earners), already pay more than 80% of all federal taxes collected. And you want more. You can tax the "rich" and corporations at 90%, and it will still not provide the money needed to provide free health care for all. But for people like you, even a 90% tax rate for the highest earners (leaving them with a $1 for every $10 of earnings), probably isn't enough, is it?
3
I totally agree. When we had progressive tax brackets that went up to 90% or so 50 years ago, our economy was fine. But there isn't enough tax money out there to fund healthcare for all without also making spending cuts in obvious places like the military, or without cutting healthcare costs in half to match rates in other countries - and nobody is talking about that very seriously. We talk about gouging by insurance and pharmaceutical companies, but the costs charged by hospitals and doctors never seem to come up.
Common sense. This is a real dose of common sense.
Why can't we find some politician to state it as simply, as matter-of-factly as this? Do we want to continue to invest TRILLIONS in far away lands or invest in our own population's health, education and ingenuity?
(BTW, no other country is going to mess with a nation with almost a million-man standing army, a robust army & navy, and tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. Why do we act so vulnerable?)
1
I'm tired of all the "How do we pay for Medicare for All?" agonizing. No one blinked an eye when Trump and the Republicans passed their massive tax cuts for the rich and corporations, creating a massive deficit.
Why is it OK to create a massive deficit with giveaways to the riich, but we are expected to have every penny covered with health care for poor and elderly people?
The simplest answer for how to pay for Medicare for All: Reverse the tax cut giveaways for rich people that Trump passed.
15
While I opposed the tax cut, it’s nowhere close to the amount of money required for M4A.
1
Just the current private plans: subtract the 20% overhead to private insurance, how much would that be. Medicare pays 80%. Assuming very limited or no deductibles, what is the trade off here? And if Medicare for all premiums are collected through FICA withholding, how much would that be?
What all these projections don't take into account is that people with insurance already pay a lot. If anything their premiums will go down and the coverage will be better. And everyone else who do not have insurance now will be paying premiums through FICA taxes into the system, and they will have insurance. Lots more money in plus an incentive to work in jobs that pay the premiums through withholding in order to get the insurance. Why are the Democrats afraid to say "middle class taxes"? Their premiums and out of pockets are already taxes.
Private insurance companies will do just fine insuring the 20% not covered, and we should assume part of the law will be to assure that there is a competitive market.
On the military side, where there is essentially non-competitive bidding, just lop 30% off the top and let them adjust--take it or leave it, with no compromises on quality. The mergers in the Defense industry were intended to be in restraint of trade, or violations of the anti-trust laws. Ditto telecom and media companies.
2
THANK YOU for publishing this.
Unfortunately, not a single candidate for President is talking about this. Cutting military spending is essentially verboten in Congress due to the massive amount of money that the military spreads into both Dem and GOP districts.
It's basically the 3rd rail of U.S. politics. The fact is that we are a military state, and all our elected officials know it. It would take an avalanche of public opinion to sway that. We need a Dwight Eisenhower for the 21st century but I don't see anyone stepping up to the position.
3
While I completely agree with this position, it's never going to happen. The GOP has so successfully linked the military with patriotism that even Democrats are afraid to vote down massive budget increases for fear of being labeled unpatriotic by their constituents.
2
And what about the space program, how much is that nonsense costing per annum?
1
Do you mean NASA? It would be very foolish to stop all space programs. I can't wait till the Webb telescope is in service, it will yield immense returns in our understanding of the universe. Our space explorations have been extremely useful for the US and the whole world.
3
It would be extremely short sighted to stop scientific exploration before cutting defense spending. Defense spending is nothing but a massive graft to benefit corporations and wealthy contractors whose only desire is to line their pockets. The benefits of basic scientific research into space can hardly be overstated given that human race is poised to extinguish most life on this planet within the next 200 years.
3
I've worked as a civilian at military installations. Every office I worked in could have had its budget cut by 30% and work would have gone on as usual. It is stunningly wasteful. They are spending other people's money and it shows.
6
During the height of WW2, the chief of Army Ground Forces, Gen McNair, imposed a 10% cut across the board on all Army units. He was sure there was fat, and he let them decide what it was, but he demanded the cut. He got it. He was right.
7
YES. YES. YES. YES. Praise to the Times for giving a knowledgeable writer prominent space on the editorial page to state this blinding flash of the obvious. Do I agree with every one of these proposed defense budget cuts? No, but for all our sake's, let us get this debate started and make it continue until this country achieves more common sense in balancing priorities between domestic and military needs. The status quo of unquestioned, ever-increasing defense budgets while citizens lack basic services and our infrastructure crumbles is not making us safer -- quite the contrary.
10
I agree our military is too big for our needs. In the late 18th and early 19th Century, the fear expressed about having a Navy was that it would cause us to use it. Fear of a standing army was of domestic dictatorship. Fear of a navy was of foreign wars done because we can instead of because we needed to do them.
However, we don't need to change our military spending "to pay for" Medicare for All. That phrase is a lie, told by the enemies of Medicare for All, principally by those who defend the current abuses for the money they make by abusing us.
The question is really just how we claw back the vast amounts of money now being ripped off by the medical care monster. The extra they steal is by itself twice the entire defense budget.
We don't need to cut defense just to feed that too to the medical care monster.
There is no "how to pay for it." There is only "how to take back the money now stolen that way."
14
Two or three years ago I read an article in this paper citing military officers that the nation could reduce its nukes to just about 300-400, and we'd be fine. We are spending on maintaining about 2500 now. And do we need eleven aircraft carrier battle groups? Bet we could ditch two or three.
Does the air force really need a new B-21 bomber?
3
Yes, and besides cutting the defense budget, let's claw back those tax breaks then we can do everything we need to make this a thriving society again. The trouble is that the political will is too easily bent to the rich who control our society. Lack of political will is what killed the Romans and the British Empire -- both of them, before and after the American Revolution.
13
Can we please stop "pipe dreams" and not lose another supreme court seat and the WH for good!
Or ask China/ Russia/ N Korea / Iran/ Saudi Arabia etc to disband their military first ! a lot of money will flow to the stick market for world food development and fight climate change!
3
If we can't accomplish the "pipe dreams" then we may as well lose those supreme court seats and the WH for good. So what?
If we must live by Republican rules in order to win, then let the Republicans rule their way.
If we are to accomplish anything, we must try. We must believe in it ourselves. Just give up and do it their way? That isn't a way for Democrats to "win" it is a way to give it to the Republicans win or lose. Only Republican Lite wants that. It is democracy of Me! I want to win. I want to run it. I don't care how it is run, so long as Me!!!
2
A very bad idea. The concept of remaking our military as a defensive force surrenders the world to Putin and his ilk, who have no intention of following suit. The old bromide, "The best defense is a good offense" exists because, over centuries, over the millennia, it has always -- always -- proven true.
We are the foundation, the solid rock, of NATO. Retreating into our shell and hoping no predator takes advantage is foolish, and a total surrender to the megalomaniacs with power, from Putin to Xi Jinping to Kim Jae-ryong.
It would be national suicide.
4
We are bigger than all the rest of the major powers put together, and most of those are our friends.
The slight power of our enemies won't win if we cut back to something within reason.
We don't need to fight and lose half a dozen wars at once. No matter who our enemies are, that doesn't advance our interests.
5
@Austin Liberal
Republicans like to believe Reagan spent the Soviet Union out of existence because they couldn’t keep up with his military buildup. Well, now we are doing it to ourselves. We won’t be safe from Putin if we collapse from within. A strong middle class is more important than a military on steroids.
1
"We are bigger than all the rest of the major powers put together"
Totally false. You're just going by the budgets. The US military budget has a lot more personnel expenses. When you look at hardware and troop strength, we have no such advantage over Russia or China.
1
The military-Industrial complex offers millions of well-paying jobs. These are distributed throughout all the states so that there is no appetite for eliminating any of them. Once people have sucurred their dream jobs, or their pensions, good luck trying to take those away.
3
I take the opposite lesson.
The problem with Globalization as we've done it is that it takes from everywhere, and has no allies at home, just victims.
We need to run our economy with some of the insights that run out military. Ensure buy in. Make it benefit everybody.
After all, our economy isn't some thing outside ourselves, that we serve. It is simply us, all of our activity. We should do it in ways that benefit all of us. Spread the wealth.
1
I cannot identify any candidate, or any member of Congress, who would take on the military-industrial complex in any meaningful way that could significantly reduce the DOD budget.
It has often be said that Social Security is a "third rail" no politician would touch. DOD (including all the extra post 9-11 security costs) is another "third rail."
3
We have so many third rails that our politics is jammed entirely.
Some of those are a good thing. They do however need to be examined.
2
Good ideas! However, one has to wonder if the military/military-industrial complex would "allow" some or all of this to happen? To what depths would they go? A military coup?
3
Of course we could afford healthcare for all. It's simply a matter of priorities: whom do we care about -- wealthy defense industry investors/contractors or run-of-the-mill voters trying to stay alive and avoid "medically induced" bankruptcy. But the defense industry C-suite denizen would just reinvent themselves, switch their PAC contributions and jump ship into the healthcare industry. More importantly: WHAT would VP Pence do without Space Force?!
2
i definitely support this, in theory. given the decisions that the criminal-in-chief has been making, however, i think we'll need to more focused on defense than we would like.
3
You haven't even started on the WAR ON DRUGS. This war costs many billions at the justice department, the DEA, federal and state corrections and policing, and lost productivity to incarceration. It is a major driver of refugees and migration which brings additional costs.
We need to better understand who is consuming all these drugs and what drives the demand. Using law enforcement to wage a war on drugs has created and sustains organized crime. There must be another approach.
3
Finally the NYT's addressing the elephant in the room, for fear of being un-patriotic but we could do so much good for the country and people if we cut back the military. Since 9/11 when the annual military budget was near $250 billion, it has escalated to $720 billion. around 60% of our debt. It can't continue like this.
10
Bravo! Finally, someone thining out of the box. Of course the U.S. military presence is not needed around the world. It's just a way for the rich to become richer off the corporations which focus on war.
When I worked in Turkey and Jordan, none of the people I worked with wanted the US Military in their country. The friendly relationship was fine on the surface, but at a deep level they wanted the U.S. military out of their lives. We are getting a taste now of what it's like to have a president wedded to Russia and the decisions that come about from such a relationship.
In my opinion it's ludicrous to have military spread over 800 military bases around the world. By pretending to be the world's baby sitter, we need to focus on our own healthcare, educational, and infrastructure issues. Reduce military spending and increase funds for improving the welfare of our entire country from the homeless to universal healthcare to improvements for social security. Get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Enough is enough.
2
Positively awesome writing. Towards the end of the article I started thinking about the argument that with government run health care we would lose all sorts of innovations and research in medicine. If you consider the defense industry, it completely debunks this theory. If the government put the money and enthusiasm towards health care that it puts towards the military, we'd all be living healthy lives into our 100's. Imagine.
4
"That’s a terrible model. Just imagine if the U.S. still had thousands of troops in Afghanistan in 2076."
Well I certainly hope we don't have thousands of troops in Afghanistan in 2076, but those troops in Germany are what kept European peace during the cold war.
3
In the previous cold war that (troops in Germany) made sense.....but one has to change with the changing situation, so have troops where you need them, but not all over. She may mis-state the savings by cutting all...but surely can cut half. That is $45 billion saved. Lots of medical care for that.
3
I'll take a strong and fully armed military over free health care for all, including a lot of deadbeats who pay little or no federal taxes, any day of the week. Without our overwhelming military dominance, how long do you think it will take for Russia, China, Iran or North Korea to expand their despotic regimes within their regional spheres of influence?
5
So you do know that the Chinese, Russians and North Koreans are already doing that right? And the Chinese are adopting the model we used in the cold war, bankrupting us through defense spending. Our current spending isn't to contain China and Russia. It's to protect spheres of influence.
1
The author probably thinks that Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea would follow our example. Naive at best, and foolhardy at most. If this author thinks that, and she does come across as such, we'd get along with that ilk if we held hands and sing Kumbaya, then I have beachfront property in Wyoming for sale.
Slashing the military to pay for anything (besides tax-cuts) is not happening. And should Trump or his liberal antithesis remove the United States from the world stage what will happen?
1. End of Pax-Americana. Not to worry; turn over that burdensome super-power obligation to the Chinese. The Russians will help too. What a fair and peaceful world we can expect!
2. The dollar as the world's reserve currency? Hmmm... maybe not. Look what happened to the Pound sterling when Britannia stopped ruling the waves. Then we can pay our already enormous debts in a currency other than our own - ouch! Check with your local economist to see how much this would cost.
3. Hey, how about looking into the seemingly inexplicable rise in the cost of medical care? Do you think we could do some cost control before expanding entitlements or should we attempt something harder first?
3
Well, I guess if we are going to just throw allies out to dry and not do anything to counter growing Russian aggression/interference throughout the world, we might as well gut the military and spend the money elsewhere.
2
You mean our NATO allies, or our temporary allies who are not really allies, but hired mercenaries killing a common enemy?
3
Cutting the budget...not eliminating the military but wiser use of it and resources does not throw anybody out to dry. The Russians are in a lot fewer places/conflicts than the USA, and their primary "aggression' is electronic, so let's double our budget on that...still saves billions while countering the Russian electronic mischief.
2
Specifically NATO.
I totally agree with your points about our absurd bloated military budget and waste. But what makes you think government takeover of the largest industry in the US will be immune from this kind of colossal waste?
3
"We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." President Eisenhower, 1961
[sigh]
2
But think of the impacts on the portfolios of our brave, selfless congressional representatives, who've invested heavily in defense industry stocks.
Oh, the [lack of] humanity!
4
"Medicare for all"? Why not Social Security for all? Why bother with paying in to systems for decades to fund them? Why not start sending a fat monthly check to each newborn? We could fund it with a tax on unicorns!
3
From your lips to God's ears.
2
Very good article and a very much needed discussion. When even Democrats like Biden are going about screaming 30 Trillion Dollars for medicare for all, it is time to have an honest discussion (and Hillary/Biden wing of the party which voted for Iraq war). Here in Canada we have medicare for all and no we are not bankrupt. Not even close. We have a very good basic health plan and we can add private insurance on top of it through our work etc. Works just fine. No need to scare the US population by saying it is not doable or just too expensive. Completely false. As false as Trump statements these people criticize. Why are you lying yourself ? You are like Trump in this regard Mr. Biden. Warren and Bernie have it right.
4
You're not bankrupt, but you also pay 2x the taxes we do and now we hear story after story where people who actually need serious medical care are buying supplemental health insurance policies so they don' to wait 6 months to get their knee replaced or stent implanted.
We are much more about personal responsibility here, even if the Democrats don't want to make anyone personally responsible for anything..other than voting D on election day.
If you notice, we also don't allow a picture of the Queen of England on our money.
We know where your loyalties lie, which is probably why Pelosi is holding up the trade deal. She flat out doesn't trust you Canucks any more than she trusts Trump.
1
No brainer. But, in this country, spending billions on the ridiculously bloated military is never a problem, spending dollars on human beings is an outrage. So, don't bet on that, not any time soon.
3
30-40 trillion dollars for medicare for all. Get ready for higher taxes middle class! Just remove the military and open the door to communism!
1
How to lose in 2020: Medicare for All, funded by a slash in military spending.
1
Amen to that.
Enough with perpetual war. Enough with a bureaucracy that can not even audit itself.
We have a need in this country that is growing exponentially, which constitutes a direct threat to our aging population. Let's address that first and foremost.
4
With all the talk about the need to "raise taxes" to fund healthcare for all, something important gets lost:
1. When people have employer-based plans, they are already paying *something* for healthcare in the form of deductibles and the employee portion of their premium.
2. When people are self-employed or unemployed, they are paying a HUGE percentage of their income in the form of premiums and deductibles, etc. Personally, our family (income just out of the subsidy range) pays somewhere between 20% to 30% of our income every year for healthcare. That's insane.
3. Employers who provide health insurance are paying a lot of money to insure their workers. Taxing employers to fund part of the cost would offset how much "taxes" need to be collected from individual taxpayers.
If you think of the costs that individuals pay (premiums, deductibles, etc.) as "hidden healthcare taxes", then most middle class folks will NOT see a rise in their overall taxes for healthcare under a universal plan. In fact, most of us would be paying LESS. It would just show up
Only the 20% who consume 80% of the healthcare in America would be ahead under your proposal.
Good for you..but 80% of the country gets hosed.
How is that fair?
1
My calculator says that $300 billion divided by 141.2 million taxpayers equals $177.05 a month [ per person/population it comes to $76.22/month]. We pay monthly for Medicare. It's not free after 65. They deduct $137 a month from your SSN check. Even without cutting military spending this should be doable for basic coverage. But, that's also an issue that's problematic, though one that shouldn't stop the move to a national health care system. Basic care is good. But, it doesn't cover audio, visual, dental, prescription costs and care beyond the very basic and preventative level. We need to view medical skills as essential to national security and cover much of the education debt for medical school. We need to cut the prescription drug costs to a reasonable level. And we need to understand the costs of job losses when we cut back into the economies of states on gov't. spending [military] and provide for those disruptions through skills assessment, training, and support for new enterprises [encouraging new companies to relocate]. It's not rocket science. It's prioritizing needs for a stable society.
3
Politically, how would reducing military spending ever be sold to the American people when anyone who suggests it will be painted as "making us vulnerable" and scaring the wits out of half the electorate? Most people have no conception of what the US spends or on what. (Thirty years ago, my great-grandfather thought the debt and deficit came from free school lunches. People out there today still believe these types of things.)
11
The military doesn't need to be slashed, they just need a new mission: Build a Clean Energy economy. Again, for the ten-thousandth time, Universal Healthcare will pay for itself because it will be cheaper. With the savings from the cheaper Universal Healthcare (#10,001), we will give everyone in America a Freedom Dividend. We can raise taxes on wealth, or use a VAT, to pay for free Pre-K and affordable college.
1
After slashing the military budget, where does anyone get the remaining 90% of money needed to fund medicare for all? After the military budget is slashed, I'm guessing that we will really need medicare for all, and more. Brain surgery for the originators and followers of this idea will cost a fortune.
2
Guess you forgot to factor in the savings from declining NEED for high-cost healthcare if people are able to readily, cheaply access prophylactic care BEFORE they are so ill that it bankrupts them. Novel idea, huh?
1
Obviously hearing a rather liberal view point of defense spending in the NYTimes is quite unexpected.
More seriously, even as a veteran and supporter of the military it's impossible to disagree tat far too much money is spent on the Pentagon. People might be surprised to find out if you could pull more of the politics out of the process, there are plenty of ways the military would love to reduce spending if given the chance by Congress.
If anyone thinks that the average person in uniform is looking forward to our next war, think again. Elect better politician and this problem gets a lot easier to fix.
1
Great idea. Reduce to double the spending of the next in line and save $500 B. Would $500B be of any help ?
2
There are real advantages to being the worlds unquestioned Superpower. American hegemony springs from winning WWII and the Cold War and maintaining that unmatched strength of arms. Our position in the world is more due to our military strength than is commonly thought. Our cultural and economic advantages are not the sole source of our influence and our economic prowess is also, in part, due to our military superiority. The hegemony of the dollar goes hand in hand with our military hegemony. The cuts outlined in this article will eliminate the US from its lone superpower position. Others will fill the void we leave. It is fine to debate the merits of our huge military expenditures but it can only be responsibly done with a clear vision of what privileges our current stature gives us and what the trade off will be.
1
w/ trump, mc connell & the gop, that " Others will fill the void we leave" should be past tense.
1
All that status is based on having a nurturing, vibrant society, which ours is not. I think you mistake the source of American mojo. It isn't our guns that scare our adversaries: it is our unbelievable capacity for inventiveness. We have reinvented this country a dozen times over. This comes from a belief that success comes from within; it depends less on who your daddy was and more on what you can do. We've lost that in a generation.
2
I never said that our military power is the key ingredient or even the only ingredient to American prowess. We are admired for our rule of law and our ability to progress as a society (the damage of Trumpism still needs to be assessed). However, our military position gives us certain advantages that we would not possess without it. Power matters, the arc of history has not changed that much since the end of the Cold War.
Elizabeth Warren is being intellectually dishonest when she says one of the biggest reason people file bankruptcy is because of medical bills.
That is patently untrue and not supported by facts.
People who file bankruptcy due to unforeseen medical events do so because they failed to insure their income.
This is called Disability Insurance and if you have assets or income you want to protect, then you best take that $75 or so a month you use for Latte's and put it into a Long Term Disability policy or rider for what your work may or may not cover.
Imagine having to endure 6 months of chemotherapy treatments that are 99% paid by the health insurance company..but not having any income during that time because you had other priorities other than insuring your income.
This is why people file bankruptcy and there is no amount of "healthcare reform" that is going to fix this.
In Warren's world...the same # of people will file for bankruptcy because of moral hazard. People have to pay for the mistake they make. You can't simply put that off on the rest of us who are protecting our income and assets.
There is one other note from the debate this week that seems to be missed by most. It was made by Amy Klobuchar who suddenly wants to put Long Term Care insurance into the Medicare for All Program..which would make this a $100 trillion program instead of the mere $65 trillion program as envisioned by Warren and Sanders.
2
It all sounded good . . . until a coffee needed to be capitalized and hyphenated.
2
Oh, seriously? You want to question someone who has done a detailed, decade-long study of consumer bankruptcy? Do you know difficult it is for a working man to buy the insurance you're talking about? Even if such insurance were available the premiums are too high to pay out of a typical paycheck.
There's plenty of money around. Dare I speak truth to power? Sure, here's some low hanging fruit.
1. Stop oil industry subsidies.
2. Tax the rich and super-rich fairly.
3. Corporations should no longer get away with paying zero tax.
4. Follow what this article suggests and cut the military.
38
Thank you Bill De Blasio!
"Over 18 years, the United States has spent $4.9 trillion on wars, with only more intractable violence in the Middle East and beyond to show for it. That’s nearly the $300 billion per year over the current system that is estimated to cover Medicare for All (though estimates vary)."
Beyond the tax dollars that were spent on these failed war efforts, hundreds of thousands of innocents were killed and thousands of US troops returned to our county with horrible injuries----while many others died in these efforts. Nevertheless, we are no more safe and secure than before, and arguably are more frequently targeted because of these ill-fated wars that benefitted only the war profiteers and arms merchants.
If this does not make us think long and hard about priorities, nothing will.
31
Slash the military...but take care of the veterans. If Congress insists on handing out pork barrel contracts to the defense industry, tack on a 10% (or more) tax that is specifically used to take care of people who returned home with serious injuries, disabilities or chronic illness.
The crime of military spending is how little goes to take care of the humans who are tossed on the scrap heap like outdated machinery when they are no longer useful.
34
This piece wants to dissolve the VA - the purely socialized medicine that exists to serve the unique needs of the troops and plow the money into Medicare for All. Talk about abandoning our troops...
This article conspicuously fails to mention that even if we eliminated the military entirely, it still wouldn’t pay for even half of M4A, and that’s estimating the costs conservatively.
The CBO estimates one of the skimpier versions of M4A would cost $3.3 trillion per year (on a par with the entire US federal budget). Our military spending is $700 billion per year.
Extremely disingenuous.
4
Talking about ways to save federal dollar spend makes sense. And reduction in military spending does make sense, although some of the cuts I read here would clearly compromise our national security. Our drug overspend by us overpaying for all drugs in this country is about 180 billion per year, or close to 5% of our annual health care spend. Critical fix. No negoatiations needed, just set reimbursements to OECD averages.
The real issue for a true no premium single payer system is the case where a household earming 70,000 is paying increased federal taxes for healthcare whereas an American Household making 40,000 a year is paying no federal income taxes at all. This issue will eventually come to light one way or another no matter how evasive Warren and Sanders are on this. The middle middle and the upper middle classes will not vote to pay for the lower middle classes healthcare premiums. It will never happen. And it will take the total middle class buy in to make any health care change of significance work.
2
This is a really good idea -- I wish our political parties had the courage to do it. The media has some responsibility as well. On the CNN/Times debate the journalists were only interested in getting Warren and/or Sanders to say they'd raise middle class taxes to pay for Medicare for All.
No questions about how compromised the candidates might be by taking corporate money. No questions demanding to know why the so-called moderates were so soft on Big Pharma, Insurance etc. Or why they vote for trillions in defense spending. ALL the pressure was on the only two candidates who are trying to address this appalling health care crisis.
12
Given that trump is withdrawing America from the world we won't need a military presence overseas. After all, who needs NATO and the Kurds didn't help in WWII.
2
The Kurds did fight on the Allied side in WW2.
They helped break the siege following the 1941 pro-Nazi Coup d'état in Iraq & were part of the (pro-Allied) Iraq armies. By 1942 Kurds made up 25% of the force. By 1943, 10 of the 44 companies comprising the Iraq army were Kurdish.
3
Oh please. Anyone with basic math skills can verify cutting the military budget isn't going to come close to funding medicare for all. Especially if you propose things like decriminalizing illegal border crossing and giving medicare benefits to "unauthorized immigrants".
4
Ever use your basic math skills to figure out the cost of "staying the course" to support this obscene waste of money and the cost of 13% of every health care dollar going to insurance company overhead?
2
I couldn't agree more.
No other nation feels that they need military bases in 90 countries to be "safe"...
"USA World Police" needs to be put on the garbage pile of history.
34
For years, when acquaintances raised the subject of creating a U.S. health care system that would be on par with those of the other wealthy nations, my response has been, "You can provide health care for all or be in a state of perpetual war. Pick one."
It amazes me that this point of view is seldom discussed. I'm grateful for Ms. Koshgarian's piece and the NYT for publishing it.
82
You have to prepare for war ahead of time, as the 1930s showed. Second, you can't have universal healthcare if you don't have a sealed southern border.
2
We have had our private for profit health insurance/care system for over 150 years. We have never made it work to the point that all Americans are covered, We bankrupt 500,000 families a year with our system and don't even cover 27.5 million Americans and have another 29% of those with insurance being under insured. We have never achieved the best health care results. Apparently we Americans are very slow learners.
Its not only wealthy nations. Mexico has universal health care and free university education including medical schools. Quality of life has soared here past 20 years while it has deteriorated drastically in the USA.
The myopic view of the far left Liberals is appaling.
You cannot castigate the President for trying to get out of one costly war, and 'abandon our allyes in the region'.
Then demand we slash the military because we do not need to be involved in every conflict in the world.
We pull out of wars and slash their budget. Or we support the poor defenseless people in the world.
Choose one.
5
Actually, you can. You can make the argument that while we need to avoid future quagmires, that we still need to honor our previous commitments to our allies. Ostensibly, the president* is leaving our friends to get slaughtered in order to pay for tax breaks for billionaires.
9
But this administration is choosing neither.
2
$4.9 trillion divided by 20 is $225 billion per year, which is not "far more than the $300 billion per year over the current system that is estimated to cover Medicare for All".
Hey, I generally support defunding our military adventure overseas, but ya gotta get the math right.
7
The rest can be easily ensured by cutting costs that are 10,100 1000 times higher than in Europe.
2
Did you account for inflation? At a 4% growth rate that would cover $346 Billion a year.
Well, the math is close enough for government work. Keep in mind, both the military budget and medicare cost will be changing overtime.
1
Women are Brilliant and this Article is proof. Absolutely Brilliant Piece. And cutting Military greatly benefits the Environment.
10
All these ideas are multiplying Trump's isolationist strategy by a factor of ten. If you want to hand the world to China on a silver platter, this is how.
4
Finally, some common sense!
1
We should cut military spending AND tax the rich and the corporate tax dodgers and spend the money on infrastructure, healthcare, mass transit, voting rights, green energy technology.
But none of that common sense is possible with radical, right-wing, Randian Republican Reverse Robin Hood Robber Barons in office who have created a 0.1% campaign finance corruption system that destroys the will of the people with moneyed propaganda that successfully frightens and dupes the masses into voting for 'God', Guns, War and their own pigmentation.
We must kill dollarocracy before democracy is possible.
202
In the current Congress, there's no appreciable difference between Democrats and Republicans as far as support for massive military budgets. The Democratic-controlled House approved a 733 billion dollar military appropriations bill for 2020. The Republican-controlled Senate approved a 750 billion dollar bill. 36 Democrats joined 49 Republicans in approving the Senate version.
In other words when it comes to bloated 'defense' spending both parties are equally to blame.
Everything you say is right on about the US warped military spending priorities but sadly this is a bi parting problem... both parties are pro war and both parties love feeding the military industrial complex with our tax $$. Even so called progressive Elizabeth Warren voted for a bill that INCREASED military spending by 80 billion.
I hope everyone posting here is pleased as punch with Trump's withdrawal of American troops from Syria. That will save some money, no?
4
how about no.
freedom isn't free.
proud navy veteran.
3
Where's the freedom in having a military presence in 180 countries?
2
Thank you for your service. YOU should have benefits and support during and after your time in the military. You're worth more than another billion dollar plane or tank.
1
No slashes will occur until we have Democrat leadership in White
House, House of Representatives and Senate.
2
We've had Ds in the WH for decades and no slashes happened.
2
Slash the military? What a dumb thing to say. It's again "America First" - have we already forgotten about the Kurds, Turkey and Syria? About Russia and its constant threat? I think Biden and Buttigieg are the only ones who make sense and have some knowledge about foreign policy in the Democratic field. We do not need another president who has no clue. Have we learned nothing? The next president has to do more than just get "good advisors" - he/she needs to know something themselves. They need to hit the floor running. No more isolationism!
3
Amen...
and Awomen...
Right on!
An Idea Whose Time Hath Cometh!
1
This seems like a great plan, to pay down our soon to be $30,000,000,000,000.00 National Debt.
Not sure who's making the pies in the sky that will be necessary to fund the Free Stuff Movement...
3
Are you suggesting there is no such thing as Santa Claus, Pots of Gold at the end of a Rainbow, Unicorns, or Lucky Leprechauns?
:(
2
Hello, US health care spending is about $3T/year. $300 billion is but a down-payment on that cost.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/10/upshot/medicare-for-all-bernie-sanders-cost-estimates.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=The%20Upshot
Nice thought, but not even close to anything that is realistic.
1
yes yes yes!!! I wish any one of the democratic candidates could have the spine to say this, the obvious!!!!! thank you!!!!
2
Finally, someone has the sense to speak half of the obvious.
The other half is tax the churches.
Yes, many churches do some good things--so, why not have them account for them and write off those good things as expenses, the way the rest of usd hard-working Americans do? If you're running a soup kitche, by all means write it off. If you're dribving a Porsche or funnelling all the money to The Vatican---um, no. Ditto payoffs to mistresses or out-of-court pedophilia settlements. The NYC Diocese alone would add about 500 million a year to Medicare.
The Pope can afford it---so can Pat Robertson.
1
This has all been figured out by counties all over the world. None of them is perfect, but we have the advantage of selecting and trying out different systems and assembling our best version.
Only..,that would mean an end to one of the largest corruptive influences in our society, and that would not suit the suits, would it? So let's just keep arguing about how we can't afford it, and we're not like them, and it just isn't possible. Isn't possible? Of course that wasn't how we defeated the British in 1776, or the Nazis in 1944, or built the country that was once the envy of the world. But that was yesterday. And tomorrow? Looks like tomorrow is impossible.
2
Unfortunately, a massive bloated military industrial complex pouring trillions of dollars down the toilet every year is basically a constitutive part of the United States. Imagining the U.S. without it is like trying to imagine Saudi Arabia without Wahhabist Islam.
1
Medicare for all will be provided by Communist Chinese doctors after their military takes over our democracy.
3
Amen.
1
Why is the Swiss flag on top of the hospital in the illustration?
3
Drive across the US and you will quickly realize that the US military has a whopping big footprint! Air bases, military installations, naval yards, naval air, etc., then all of the national guard locations. The US is bristling with armaments, while millions of its citizens die from untreated conditions. Upending the military’s lock on massive budgets is essential. But with the inter-twined pentagon-business consultancy mess so deeply embedded, common sense change like the one presented will be an uphill fight.
2
the cognitive dissonance here is amusing.
somehow, the govt cant be trusted to handle a bloated bureaucracy like the military, with all kinds of waste and bad, costly decisions....
but this same govt can be trusted to manage health care with little waste, inefficiency or bureaucracy.
uh huh.
the govt will handle health care like it handles the post office, the DMV and public education. cant wait....
here's a thought- thank god, the free market does wonders for every good an service we buy- low cost/high quality. how about letting the free market do the same for health care insurance, and issue vouchers to those who cant afford it.
1
Yes, we can, and should, vastly reduce the investment in the military,which would free up all that money for things that actually help Americans, like MFA, free college/trade school tuition, free pre-school childcare, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, investing in renewable energy development. But it can't happen overnight. We need to account for the loss of jobs, and investment in businesses that the current military spending supports. It can be done, but it will have to happen over time, otherwise the economy could collapse.
Many parts of the country depend primarily on the military to provide jobs and money to their economy. Without that, these areas would become ghost towns reminiscent of the Dust Bowl days. But by ramping up investment in green energy production and support, and infrastructure upgrades, these areas would bloom far beyond their best years.
We need the vision and courage to follow a new course for America, not based on the Imperial America doctrine we've been following since Korea, but one that is prepared to meet any enemy, but bases its strength on building up America and Americans.
1
These suggestions are for the most part excellent, and I am on board with your strategy. However, I believe that the U.S. military is our premier jobs program, especially for young men, and I would recommend that any cuts do not minimize the size of the force. Each of those military personnel represent an employed American.
See Iraq 2003 for an example of what happens when you suddenly ax the primary employer for military age males. I'm not suggesting an American insurgency will follow, but certainly a level of heartburn. And anyway, a jobs guarantee is a valid goal, and the U.S. military is an important part of meeting that goal.
2
"Remaking our military as a truly defense-based institution"
A military without immediate, serious offensive capabilities is somewhat of a joke. Deterrence is based on offensive capabilities. No deterrence will eventually mean more war, unless turning the other cheek is the proposed military strategy.
For a superpower, all this means no longer being a superpower.
Just as an aside, how many jobs of civilians will be lost on all these cuts. How many serving in the military will be discharged, since the type of armed forces envisioned here does not need a large army. So what happens to all these people.
Well at least they will have free medical care along with their unemployment insurance.
5
Amen and amen again! Since Eisenhower first raised the alarm in his farewell address, the U.S. has continued to spend more on its military than any rational analysis would require. The F-35 and aircraft carriers are weapons in search of a mission and costing us billions while they conduct that search. And nuclear weapons are unusable and dangerously destabilizing. We would have a perfectly adequate deterrent force with only 250 of the deadly things, not the thousands that currently exist. Cutting half the Pentagon budget immediately would be a good start.
6
I think a start to the whole debate is to figure out how much Medicare for all actually costs. The estimate here is more than 10 fold less than on The Atlantic. The Atlantic cited the CBO in estimating a cost of 34 trillion over 10 years. If that number is accurate, slashing the military budget won't get even close to making up the difference.
2
The current cost of our current HC system over 10yrs is much higher than the 10yr. cost of M4A.
Now add in to that 10yr current HC costs the 45,000 who die ea. yr. from lack of access. Add in the 600,000 that declare Med. Bankruptcy ea. yr. Add in the hundred of millions that don't have coverage, that cant afford to use said HC and those that lose and have to change ea. yr.; times 10.
M4A makes better financial sense. As is does humanitarianly also.
4
Sorry, this just isn't enough money. Even if you eliminated the entire defense budget, including pensions for retired service personnel, you would only save $660 billion. Total medical spending is $3.2 trillion, so you've got about 1/5 of what you need.
9
How much are we already spending for our crappy HC system?
The money is already being spent. Double the costs of M4A.
It is a matter of reallocating. And cutting out worthless middle men.
1
The political will to do this will be toughest thing to overcome. For most politicians, patriotism and militarism are often entangled.
8
We could fund a lot of needed domestic projects (healthcare, infrastructure, education, etc.) by cutting military funding. After all, it's been 78 years (i.e. since Pearl Harbor) since the territory of the United States was last attacked by a foreign nation. What exactly are we spending $500 billion a year defending against? We certainly aren't facing any military threats from foreign nations.
Eisenhohwer warned us about how the military-industrial complex would take over our government....it appears he was right.
10
I guess Russia and China are imaginary threats in your way of thinking....This paper's op-eds and editorial boards never met a weapons system they didn't like. Said it before: any cuts that affect modernization, training/readiness, and force structure are inviting future troubles with peer or near-peer rivals. George Washington and Teddy Roosevelt both said it best: "Being prepared for war is the most effective means to promote the peace." Ronald Reagan's way was similar: "Peace through strength." Being prepared and willing to use force tells potential enemies that it's not worth it. Battles you can win without firing a shot are savored, unlike those that are soaked in blood.
The author makes astute observations, but I think that before funding Medicare, the US should first try and preserve its status as the leading world power.
In twenty years, the US expended $4.9 trillion on wars. But between 2001 and 2018, Chinese GDP grew from $1.3 trillion to $13.6 trillion.
While universal healthcare is a worthy goal to work towards, the consolidation of hard power ranks as more important. The US needs to learn from China and actively enhance its economic strength. The author is right to say cutting the defence burden will free up money for a whole range of uses. However, it is also important to rejuvenate American industry, especially in the manufacturing sector.
Medicare will work great for Americans, but it won't help the US gain the lost ground it has ceded to other powers like China in the 2 decades it was preoccupied with wars. China is now the largest trading nation and the Trans-Pacific Partnership - meant to preserve US economic influence - was shot down by the Trump administration.
The response to America's long wars cannot only be an insular one. Recuperating economic strength, promoting trade links with the rest of the world are also important if the US intends to retain its hard power and influence.
Also, the Russians and Chinese have upgraded conventional fighting capabilities tremendously while the US was fixated with guerilla conflicts. In short, their militaries have been preparing for the real thing. And that's a concern...
1
I think the economic debate of "guns or butter" is an old one and the answer always seems to be that we need both.
2
In general, I'm on-board big-time.
Good, thoughtful article; thank you for that. I'm glad somebody works on such complex, arcane subjects.
There's such a thing, especially among men, as G.A.S., Gear Acquisition Syndrome: the more gear you have, the more you want. You see it in musical instruments, cars, motorcycles, guns, even stamps and books. I've got G.A.S. for electric guitars and amplifiers; it sneaks up on you, like any addiction, I suppose.
Such an addict often can help himself; he needs intervention. We must intervene with our generals and admirals, bless their courageous, hard-working souls. Surely, we need not spend more than the war budgets of the next seven big nations combined. True, that money creates jobs and security, but those jobs can be diverted to other fields, and we can still be secure. I don't need 25 shotguns, AR-15s, and .357 magnums to provide for my home defense.
So let us, my fellow citizens, bring out the GAS-X. Moderation in all things, as Aristotle argued.
(A serious comment can have a touch of humor, no?)
1
Thank you, Ms. Koshgarian! This discussion is vitally important and long overdue.
7
If we wish to rethink our military entanglements around the globe, we should do so: but not as a budget discussion. We should address the inherent value of war -making and peace-keeping, rather than imagining that these things are somehow in competition with other values.
Because the fact is (as economists often mention in this paper) that, if we were to rethink the connection between taxes and publics goods, we could find the money for all of the projects. We can choose to fund national priorities, without having to choose between national priorities. And then we can debate each of those priorities from an ethical or moral perspective, rather than avoiding that hard work and making such choices merely fiscal.
1
The U.S. military budget is twice as big (or something like that, speaking anecdotally) as those of the next biggest 19 foreign militaries combined. If we take a slice out of that to completely finance universal healthcare, I don't think we'll be at risk of losing any wars.
We can still count on incompetent politicians (ahem) for that.
17
Cutting the military budget in half is a good start. Once you understand that the Military-Industrial Complex is really just the world's largest government-welfare program, cutting it should be fairly easy. Redirecting the funds to health care only makes sense.
Here is the question to ask of the defense hawks who demand increases in military spending instead of cuts: "Exactly who and what are you defending?"
There's no point to spending the money for those missiles and jets and ships if the people at home whom you purport to defend are sick and dying because they can't get health care.
Redirecting military spending in concert with eliminating the for-profit health "insurance" industry would go a long way towards solving our country's health care problems.
33
They are defending the wealthy. That's what all publicly-funded security is for (including your local police), to protect the interests of the wealthy.
3
I totally agree with this premise. However, the prices in US healthcare - tests, MRIs etc - should be slashed by a 00 or 1000 to be like in the rest of the world. Once these prices go 100 or 1000 lower, all this Medicare for All will be a LOT more affordable.
7
What about the math?
The author states: "Over nearly 20 years, the United States has spent $4.9 trillions. [...] That’s far more than the $300 billion per year that is estimated to cover Medicare for All".
However, $4.9 trillions is $4,900 billions. Over 20 years, that's only 245 billions per year, i.e. less (not far more) than the $300 billions for Medicare.
Am I missing something?
2
I think it was Bernie Sanders who said, duding the last debate, that totally eliminating the Defense Department, including all of the ships, buildings, and so on, would fund only 4 months of Medicare-for-all.
2
We are already spending double the costs of Single Payer in every OECD country.
The 10yr. breakdown of our current costs, is easily more than the 10yr. costs of M4A.
The money is already being spent.
Better coverage, everyone covered, everything covered, can't lose it. Can't be taken away. Can't go bankrupt or turned away.
All under M4A.
It's just a matter of reallocating where/who gets the money.
Cutting defense spending lowers the cost of M4A for everyone even more so.
5
A large part of your your plan seems to amount to this: cancel the modernization of the nuclear triad. End modernization of ICBMs, cut development of new strategic bomber programs, and end the development of new attack submarines. Our current stock of ICBMs are 50 years old. Our current attack submarines are no longer a guaranteed second strike capability. The B-52 strategic bomber fleet is 70 years old. How about instead of cutting things we actually need, we reform the procurement process and cut down the size of the standing army? Wars of the future will not be fought with million man formations. Your cuts preserve the army of the past while preventing the development of the military of the future.
10
This is an excellent idea in general, but a different approach must be taken. Cutting whole Pentagon programs may be work in some areas (e.g., the unfixable F-35) but not in others. Rather than the proposed "meataxe" method, we should mostly scale back the majority of programs (numbers of aircraft carrier groups, troops, tanks, planes, etc.). It's true that the savings will be smaller, due to economies of scale. But we would avoid major, unpredictable disruptions and surprises. The simple truth is that our military establishment is much too big. Our nation can be just as safe - or safer - with a smaller, leaner/meaner force.
4
Better health care can cost less and save more lives when an intelligent, group of professionals in both areas working together is added as a single Government Office. Maybe rolling back most of recent tax benefits to the top income class will also go a long way in paying for both needs when revised.
10
I am a liberal democrat, but I have family in the military. I know how hard they work, how little compensation some receive, how disruptive military life can be for their families, and how shoddy their medical care can be. I'm all for no wars; but I know we can't live in this world without military strategy, protection, and engagement when necessary. I would love to see an article/OpEd in the Times with facts from the other p.o.v. to be able to compare and contrast with this one.
3
But how can we do that? The military has been the "secret" jobs program that Republicans for generations have said that the US can't afford. It provides healthcare, work, education, a sense of purpose for millions. It's needs have driven the development of technology since World War II. Silicon Valley was created by the military for the cold war (check Leslie Berlin's history for the details). Sure, the US has to use military periodically to justify its worth, but what's the matter with terrorizing the rest of world for these higher goals?
AND finally, the maintenance of the nuclear systems that can definitively wipe most life (at least human life) off the planet, with a design that gives one person the keys who may be emotionally disturbed has be preserved.
What a perfectly impractical idea that paying more than lip-service to the idea that "we the people" doesn't just refer to the propertied might actually turn down the anxieties (status and other) than drive people into the drive is, perhaps, more of security threat than the ones (some real) that are used to justify the money put into the military.
I'm no pacifist, but it's easy to see that bridges falling, extermination of specifies, climate alterations to the ecosystem, and economic uncertainties that raise cortisol levels to reduce the lifespan of the scared, might just hurt more people than keeping "our" corporations safe.
1
We only had one necessary war in the last century--WWII.
The United States citizenry had been perverted into thinking somehow the formula will work forever-it won't. The world of military golf courses, bases around the world, you name it, should have been disbanded decades ago.
Younger generations were not educated about mid century United States Read the book kids: The Depression and The War.
That was then, this is now.
40
Unfortunately, a lot of people have been brainwashed to believe that joining the military is "serving your country" and "fighting to defend our freedoms," even when that is obviously not true, as in the Iraq or Vietnam wars.
A further problem is the "poverty draft." Too many young people believe that joining the military is the only way out of their dying rural towns or rundown inner city neighborhoods. I suppose that accepting the idea of "fighting to defend our freedoms" makes the idea of possibly dying or being maimed as the end result of this escape attempt more palatable.
2
Didn't Biden claim during the last debate that defunding the military would only cover a tiny percentage of M4A costs? Where does that argument fit into this? Was he only talking about direct military engagement? Pentagon funding?
2
Um, maybe Biden was being inaccurate to make progressive proposals look unfeasible?
4
US spends 3T annually on health care. Reminds me of arguments for Brexit: save the NHS millions of pounds! Oh, wait, no.
This article is completely useless except as an argument to cut military spending.
1
Yes he did, and he was correct.
Eisenhower knew it was too late when he made his famous exit speech regarding the military-industrial complex, "way back when". There has been a strange shift over the years,beginning around 1970, when the Pentagon started shifting their "budget" dollars (much of which is "in the dark") from obvious and visible bases and troops, to "R&D" and other, invisible (read "black") projects.
The vast sums of money go directly to "contractors" and their revolving door relationship with Pentagon "retirees", who the work both sides of the "money fence". There have also been huge underground (literally) bases developed that we know little about. Case in point: Denver's new airport "network", the one we cannot see.
Cutting off 50% of these tax dollars would allow us to actually rebuild our country. And I'm a veteran.
99
How about we begin by taxing the poor?
This is why Trump is asking Nancy Pelosi to bring a bill to the House to authorize military use of force in Syria.
That way she can explain why the Tax $ we have in our federal budget need to go to send 250,000 troops to Syria and Turkey to fight a NATO ally.
Only if poor people are paying for this war effort can they begin to feel like this is their country to.
That's the only way this becomes fair, just or equitable.
2
Eisenhower might have made the speech but he advocated for the bomb and wouldn't hesitate to use it if he deemed necessary and used it as a negotiating tool to end the Korean war. He told them he would drop it on them if they didn't come to the table.
One of the problems I see is no really knows how the payment for this will work out. For example many people get health insurance as part of their work benefits. The amount of money it costs is usually covered by the employer and the amount paid is not taxable.
If the Government provides this benefit the worker will have to pay something in the from of extra taxes to cover the costs. How much will that be. I do not go out to buy a car without knowing the price, why should I buy health insurance that way.
This even affects retired folks like me who have Medicare and my Medicare supplement is a continuation of the Blue Cross I had as a federal employee. That Blue Cross plan will no longer exist under Bernie's' plan. I suspect he has no idea what plan I will be able to buy in the future or will my retirement benefits still pay a portion of it as it now does.
I will voter for a Democrat next time, but I do not want a change in health plans until the prices are in plain view.
5
Work health benefits are not completely covered by your employer and the amount that is paid by your employer is a tax deduction for your employer. The employee pays 8-10% out of his pay check and in addition is stuck with deductibles up to $13,000/yr. for a family in addition to co-pays and extra costs if you don't use a medical provider in your network. If private insurance was eliminated the employer should be more than happy to give employees the amount they are actually paying for health benefits simply to get out of the work and confusion caused by private insurance.
Although changing to an universal plan would be difficult and would have to be phased in, the result would be better coverage that is less expensive, less confusing and would provide coverage if a person changes employment.
10
Consider "Modern Monetary Theory".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory
Absolutely. We spend on things that we don't need -- that are destroying the world and us along with it -- and then claim not to have money for health, education and climate.
Let's do something smart and turn our budget around.
24
There are a ton of ways to pay for healthcare. Slash the military (ONE Blue Angels show alone costs $5 million, and why are we paying for 72 military golf courses?), apply gas guzzler tax to all private vehicles, and tax the churches.That's just for starters.
77
It's appalling to me that churches don't pay taxes, yet maintain powerful influence over the minds of people as well as directly lobbying.
Get money out of politics and get religion out of my government.
2
Wow ! Good article. It confirms what I've believed for many years. Have you noticed the lack of new major infrastructure projects by the govt.? It's because we are artificially poor due to our extraordinarily bloated military spending. And people sleeping on our streets...
190
Major infrastructure projects need to be funded evenly between state, local and federal sources.
I could care less if Chicago's highways and overpasses are crumbling.
You'd think if Chicago wants new highways and bridges..they'd carve out some money from their budget to pay for it instead of paying teachers $140k a year to get to a 50% graduation rate with CPS kids.
Or raise taxes in Chicago and Illinois. Why is it the federal governments job to finance these projects when we've been incurring $1 Trillion annual deficits ever since Bush took over and the .con era imploded and 9/11 happened?
Let Chicago solve Chicago's infrastructure problem.
If they've got an airport issue..let the airlines fix the problem..and travelers.
Paying unions pension $ that are insanely high while starving infrastructure might help you win your next city council election, but on a whole..it's really bad policy.
3
Two comments regarding, in my view, this rather ill thought out column. First, there is only one thing worse than war - losing a war. Given the position of the US in the world, it is essential that we maintain a robust military (Although, some of our foreign adventures have certainly been ill thought out and not worth the cost). Second, what about the deficit? If we reduce military spending, the money should clearly go to reducing the deficit not some other social program of questionable merit.
10
"foreign adventures"
War is not an adventure. It's carnage and bloodshed. I have another way to describe the Iraq War which began in 2003: A virtually unilateral invasion of a sovereign country launched under false pretenses by a chickenhawk president who will never be held accountable for his crimes.
Also, having health care and insurance provided mostly by private sector, for profit entities is of far more questionable merit than having an essentially de-commodified system where shareholder dividends are not an issue.
5
We won't win any wars with an unhealthy nation either. Many people are not physically fit enough to serve right now.
3
Rob-Chemist,
Since WWII, we stalemated in Korea, lost Vietnam, will probably lose Iraq and Afghanistan (meaning desired outcome won't happen). Perhaps you can argue that Vietnam was a battle in the Cold War which we did have a desired outcome, but nobody really talks about it in that way. And it more than appears that the war with Russia is not over as their cyber attacks and installation of Trump as president, one (the Kurds and our NATO partners) can argue that we may have even lost that war.
And further if you have for example any medical pre-condition and are under 65, the social program you refer to is not of questionable merit. It would probably save your house and most likely your life.
4
These are all good suggestions and worthy of consideration. I'm not an expert on foreign affairs, so I cannot say how accurate the author's conclusions are about what the effects of his proposals might be. But giving deference to his expertise, let's agree he's correct. Then what we have to confront is whether we have the political will to implement his bold ideas. I hope so. But even if it's done incrementally, over a period of years, the impact could be life-changing for the average American. The real danger that I see is that the money diverted from making war would find its way into some pork-barrel boondoggle instead of Medicare, Social Security, education, etc.
17
The author is a "she."
That said, I agree with what was written in this article. My father retired as an aerospace engineer. I used to marvel at the prices of projects like the F-35 and B-2 Stealth bomber, which -- at the time of his work -- cost $1 billion per plane. Now it's $2 billion per plane. In contrast, as a medical scientist, we pretty much have to beg to get a few hundred thousand or million to fund healthcare projects.
6