American Republic Online

Medicare is currently costing the US almost $500,000,000,000 per year (and growing) which equates to 5.77% of EVERYONE’S paycheck.  Unfortunately we are currently only taxing 2.9% of everyone’s check so we have a $180B shortfall.  Which is currently being picked up by the general budget and some past overages.  Once the overages run dry, it will become difficult for the general fund to cover the entire difference.  But I digress.

Medicare currently covers around 40M people or 13% of Americans.  Now I think most people will agree that the medical coverage of medicare is mediocre at best but it allows for a reasonable comparison of the costs of baseline (borderline) coverage.  So we do the math and:

EveryoneCare would cost Everyone’s Paycheck 44%!!! - and I mean EVERYONE just like Medicare taxes the Fry Cook along with the Wall Street Banker.  So can we really afford universal health care?

Of course, these numbers assume that the burden is shared equally like Medicare.  If you imposed a “progressive” structure that omitted or reduced the burden on anyone it would result in an even higher numbers for those still footing the bill.  And remember that this is ONLY the cost of Medicare expanded to everyone.  This would be in addition to your current taxes and what not that come out of your check.  It also doesn’t include any increases related to providing care that is better than the admittedly mediocre Medicare.  It also omits any additional expenses in expanding the current systems bureaucracy tenfold.

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Bret Stephens had a brilliant piece last week in the Wall Street Journal.  Using an old bit from South Park, he provides the single best explanation for Obama’s policy initiatives I have seen in print.  It was good enough to grab in it’s entirety:

Sometimes it takes “South Park” to explain life’s deeper mysteries. Like the logic of the Obama administration’s policy proposals.

Consider the 1998 “Gnomes” episode — possibly surpassing Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose” as the classic defense of capitalism — in which the children of South Park, Colo., get a lesson in how not to run an enterprise from mysterious little men who go about stealing undergarments from the unsuspecting and collecting them in a huge underground storehouse.

What’s the big idea? The gnomes explain:

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Back in December, Senator Bob Corker advocated letting GM go through bankruptcy as a way for the company to lose some of the millstones around it’s neck and emerge a stronger company that could stand on it’s own.  Democrat’s decried the suggestion as a terrible idea and “un-American”.

Two bailouts of GM and $20,000,000,000 later, Obama is taking GM to bankruptcy court as the “best solution”.  Wow, why didn’t we see this sooner? We could have saved all that money.

Unfortunately, Obama is not removing millstones so much realizing that the 3rd bailout in 6 months would probably hurt his approval numbers - so he’s calling this government intervention a “structured bankruptcy”. And worse still for the taxpayer, Obama is leading with his strong suit which is politics not profits:

Every decision the feds have made since December suggests that nonpolitical management will be impossible. First they replaced Mr. Wagoner — whom they are nonetheless still paying — with the more pliable Fritz Henderson as CEO and Kent Kresa as Chairman. The latter are good at playing Washington but unproven in making popular cars. Then Treasury bludgeoned the bond holders in both Chrysler and GM to take pennies on the dollar, which will not make creditors eager to lend to the companies in the future.

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A Rasmussen Poll found that this is definitely not an area where Obama’s general likability numbers came through on the issue…

Only 21% of voters nationwide support a plan for the government to bail out General Motors as part of a structured bankruptcy plan to keep the troubled auto giant in business.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 67% are opposed to a plan that would provide GM with $50 billion in funding and give the government a 70% ownership interest in the company.

Even when presented with the stark choice between providing government funding or letting GM go out of business, only 32% of voters support the bailout. Most voters (56%) say it would be better to let GM go out of business.

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