Sanders: Universal Healthcare and Free College Aren’t Radical Ideas, They Are ‘Human Rights’

[the_human_being]

Well then say good-bye, and good-bye to jobs as well.

Tariffs and taxation doesn't work because you can't pick and choose companies which you tax. You either write laws that we tax all or none of them.

You might have a point if our effective corporate tax rate wasn't the 16th lowest of first world nations in the world.

The problem with our corporate tax code is it's not an even playing field for all industries. Some are paying 39% while others are paying 0% or maybe slightly above. The ones in the 30% bracket hit the road and take jobs with them.

I would abolish corporate taxes altogether. That would provoke companies that had moved offshore to move back and keep companies here that were considering moving. That would create millions of jobs right away. The revenue would be made up by the taxes gained from the taxes on those gaining employment. All goods manufactured overseas would face a tariff equal to the tariffs imposed upon American made goods offered for sale in each county effected.

 

[The Rabbi]

LOL! Open the dictionary at random and pull out words you didnt know?
You are the biggest poseur on this site. You dont have a clue what you're talking about.

Let me guess; Did the word 'didactic' stump you?

No, but it obviously stumped you. You dont have a clue what the word means.

 

[The Rabbi]

yes, and where is this billions going to come from? Nothings free you stupid libs.

The hundred trillion plus corporate America and the wealthy are sitting on is a start.

You stupid idiot... it's like $1.4 trillion... not $100 trillion. Geeze you're a dope.

He learned to count at his masters in busiiness course at Columbia.
LOL! He's the biggest poseur on this board.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Well then say good-bye, and good-bye to jobs as well.

Tariffs and taxation doesn't work because you can't pick and choose companies which you tax. You either write laws that we tax all or none of them.

You might have a point if our effective corporate tax rate wasn't the 16th lowest of first world nations in the world.

The problem with our corporate tax code is it's not an even playing field for all industries. Some are paying 39% while others are paying 0% or maybe slightly above. The ones in the 30% bracket hit the road and take jobs with them.

I would abolish corporate taxes altogether. That would provoke companies that had moved offshore to move back and keep companies here that were considering moving. That would create millions of jobs right away. The revenue would be made up by the taxes gained from the taxes on those gaining employment. All goods manufactured overseas would face a tariff equal to the tariffs imposed upon American made goods offered for sale in each county effected.

One of Romney's agendas if elected was to abolish the tax multinational companies had to pay to bring money from overseas back to the US. Companies that thought of making investments in the US shy away from doing so because of these taxes.

That would be a further incentive to create US jobs.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

And bernie is a loon bag.

 

[dblack]

Well then say good-bye, and good-bye to jobs as well.

Tariffs and taxation doesn't work because you can't pick and choose companies which you tax. You either write laws that we tax all or none of them.

You might have a point if our effective corporate tax rate wasn't the 16th lowest of first world nations in the world.

The problem with our corporate tax code is it's not an even playing field for all industries. Some are paying 39% while others are paying 0% or maybe slightly above. The ones in the 30% bracket hit the road and take jobs with them.

Exactly. And the manipulation of that playing field is the bread and butter of Congressional graft.

 

[dblack]

If free health care and free college were human rights, they would have been preserved in the Constitution, with free speech. And guns.

NEXT!

Which is why our 200+ year old business plan needs to be updated.

Government is not a business, and should never be run like one.

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

Bernie...

You clearly don't quite understand how this works. Allow me to help!

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

Bernie is correct.

 

[Disir]

They still have the vo-tech in some high schools. It's a real good deal for everyone too. If you don't think the trades are a good vocation, just call a plumber, electrician. heating and air conditioning repairman, or take your auto to a mechanic.

That's what I am talking about. A lot of schools took that out and then tried to turn it into a for profit school.

There are a lot of kids that want to go into the trades but they don't know how. A lot of stuff that the for profit colleges offer, kids used to have access to in high school. Screw 'em. Put them back in the high schools if possible. The for profit schools can exist but the job could be better done and less expensive all the way around with the schools having their own vo-tech.

The solution is simple, and obvious to me. Just issue vouchers. Issue every child a school voucher. Then if vo-tech is the way to go, or trade-skill is the way to go, then they can take that voucher to the whatever school they want. Their parents can make up whatever difference.

You act like people don't know how to do this... what are you smoking?

When I worked at Columbus Cadillac in down town Columbus Ohio, we had a guy work the car wash, who used his money to get trained in welding. He's now a master welder for a big name company. He's doing just fine.

Come on people.... Work... earn money... pay for education. You don't need a Ph.D in self improvement to do this.

This couple came here from Laos, got training in CNC machining, while working crappy jobs in fast food joints. Now they make $100K together.

This isn't super hard. You just have to do it. It takes time, effort, and attitude. You have an entitlement belief system, and you'll never make it anywhere. People who think they should be given stuff because "I'm an American, and I deserve everything because Sanders said I was entitled to it......" and you are going to end up a train wreck.

The voucher program is a rip off. I'm over every little jack off coming along to rip off the public education system---which is, I remind you, for the public.

The mantra is that you can send your kids to a private school like the rich people.

Then they give you a voucher that wouldn't buy lunch in a real private school.

Here's the problem....

You are looking at a system that has eliminated the market for low-end private schools.

This is common in any market with government involvement.

For example, the cost of private health insurance in the UK, is extremely high. Why? Because there is no market for low-end insurance. The poor and middle class, sit in line at the public health clinics for free. Why buy insurance?

So only the rich buy health insurance, and of course the rich want the highest possible care, which is a high price. So only high priced insurance exists.

For example, in New York in the 70s, only high end luxury apartments were for rent. Same happened in Israel. Why? Because subsidized low-cost apartments killed the market. Why build low cost apartments, when the government would undercut your price for a better quality apartment? So instead, only luxury apartments were built and offered for rent.

When government offers the low end at a subsidized price, no one is going to pay for a low end.

James Tooley on Private Schools for the Poor and the Beautiful Tree | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty

So this guy James Tooley, professor of education at Harvard, was walking around in India, in the poorest slums of India, and discovered a private pay-for-service, Capitalist based school for the poor. Entirely private, no government money involved.

Then he found another, and another and entire networks of private, poor-service pay-for-service private schools.

When there is a market, then someone will serve that market. But there has to be a market. In India, there is a market.

Same with Chile. Chile has a private pay-for-service school system. And while there are of course high-end expensive elite schools, there are also low-end cheap schools that serve the lowest income people of Chile.

So here is my response to you...... I think this is a win for you and a win for everyone else.

Allow Vouchers. Every Student get's a voucher. Allow unregulated education. Anyone can open a school.

Allow the public to choose where, and who, gets their money.

If you are right, and there is no one able to pay for a private school with the voucher, then they end up at the public schools as they would anyway, without the voucher.

What have you lost? Nothing. You are back in the same schools you'd be stuck in, under the current system.

However, if there is a private school that you want to send your kids to, and you might be able to send your kids there by adding some of your own money to the voucher, why not? Called "choice". Right? No big deal.

And then possibly in the future when there is a market for low-cost education, there will be people to fill that need. But you can't have the government eliminate the market, and then be shocked no one serves that market. Does that make sense?

Do you know what is lovely about economics? It's all theory. Every single bit of it. It's the softest science there is. Right now you have a lot of people on the Right who reflexively scream socialist and that fits you just fine and it fits the Democrats just fine too. They might have to answer for Obama, Arne Duncan, and Rahm Emanuel and a host of others. Keep the eye on the other team is the motto. They haven't been told how to respond yet. I have perfect faith that the public will see that what this amounts to is at best burglary and at worst robbery and they won't give a damn which team anyone is on.
Vouchers on the Move: Return to School Segregation?
Voucher program failure in Arizona.
Arizona’s Magic Private School Tax Credits Don’t Work

Nothing in DC or Wisconsin:

Not even Wolf’s evaluations have shown any test score advantage for students who get vouchers, whether in DC or Milwaukee. This is the DC final-year evaluation. The main finding of the final-year evaluation: “There is no conclusive evidence that the OSP [Opportunity Scholarship Program] affected student achievement.” Remember that boosters for vouchers seldom use the V word; they prefer the euphemism “opportunity scholarship.” The family gets an “opportunity” to take their child from a public school, where he or she has low test scores, to a private or religious school, where he or she will also have low test scores.

The Wolf evaluations claim an advantage for voucher students in graduation rates. But consider this. In Milwaukee, according to this analysis (see the summary here) of Wolf’s evaluation, 75% of the students who started in a voucher school left before graduation. So of the 25% who persisted, the graduation rate was higher than the Milwaukee public schools. But what about the 75% who dropped out and/or returned to MPS? No one knows.

The Milwaukee voucher schools have never outperformed the public schools on state tests: See here and here. The only dispute about test scores is whether voucher students are doing the same or worse than their peers in public schools.
Vouchers Don't Work: Evidence from Milwaukee

Louisiana:

In New Orleans, voucher students who struggle academically haven’t advanced to grade-level work any faster over the past two years than students in the public schools, many of which are rated D or F, state data show.

And across Louisiana, many of the most popular private schools for voucher students posted miserable scores in math, reading, science and social studies this spring, with fewer than half their voucher students achieving even basic proficiency and fewer than 2 percent demonstrating mastery. Seven schools did so badly, state Superintendent John White barred them from accepting new voucher students — though the state agreed to keep paying tuition for the more than 200 voucher students already enrolled, if they chose to stay.
Read more: Vouchers don't do much for students

And lovely Ohio:
Nine of the 17 schools that closed in 2013 lasted only a few months this past fall. When they closed, more than 250 students had to find new schools. The state spent more than $1.6 million in taxpayer money to keep the nine schools open only from August through October or November.

But while 2013 was unusual, closings are not rare. A Dispatch analysis of state data found that 29 percent of Ohio’s charter schools have shut, dating to 1997 when the publicly funded but often privately run schools became legal in Ohio. Nearly 400 currently are operating, about 75 of them in Columbus.

It took 15 years for Ohio’s list of closed charters to reach 134; then that number grew by almost 13 percent last year from charters closing in Columbus alone.
Columbus has 17 charter school failures in one year

The report, titled “The Tip of the Iceberg: Charter School Vulnerabilities To Waste, Fraud, And Abuse,” was released jointly by the nonprofit organizations Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools and the Center for Popular Democracy. It follows a similar report released a year ago by the same groups that detailed $136 million in fraud and waste and mismanagement in 15 of the 42 states that operate charter schools. The 2015 report cites $203 million, including the 2014 total plus $23 million in new cases, and $44 million in earlier cases not included in last year’s report.

It notes that these figures only represent fraud and waste in the charter sector uncovered so far, and that the total that federal, state and local governments “stand to lose” in 2015 is probably more than $1.4 billion. It says, “The vast majority of the fraud perpetrated by charter officials will go undetected because the federal government, the states, and local charter authorizers lack the oversight necessary to detect the fraud.”
Report: Millions of dollars in fraud, waste found in charter school sector

You can read that actual report here:
http://populardemocracy.org/sites/default/files/Charter-Schools-National-Report_rev2.pdf

You may find this report interesting as well:
CMD Publishes Full List of 2,500 Closed Charter Schools (with Interactive Map)

It's not just a failure in the US. It's a failure in Chile. The Chicago Boys should have been put down. It's been such a failure that Chile has been forced to make changes.
Neoliberal education and student movements in Chile: Inequalities and malaise | Cristian Cabalin - Academia.edu
Vallas' reforms in Chile lead to major protests - Substance News

 

[CowboyTed]

Bernie is a socialist and that's how socialists think.

Of course he neglects to let everyone know that nothing is free and every taxpayer in America will be footing the bill for his "free" Stuff.

Of course those that can't pay their own way will love it but the taxpayers will be getting the shaft yet again.

Oh and as for universal health care?? Who in their right mind wants the Government responsible for the healthcare of 300 million Americans?

The Govt. who has never done anything cheaply or well in its entire history.

The Govt. where everything turns into mountains of red tape, regulations and bullshit.

Yep. That's what we need. The Govt. in control of our health care. Good God. Talk about a moronic idea.

Governments all over the world deliver Healthcare and Education cheaper and better than the fiasco that exists in US.

What do you expect when you elect a party who sole objective is to defund and break all social programs...

It is not that GOP are just wrong they are very short sighted... They don't understand that strong societies are healthy and educated.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Bernie is a socialist and that's how socialists think.

Of course he neglects to let everyone know that nothing is free and every taxpayer in America will be footing the bill for his "free" Stuff.

Of course those that can't pay their own way will love it but the taxpayers will be getting the shaft yet again.

Oh and as for universal health care?? Who in their right mind wants the Government responsible for the healthcare of 300 million Americans?

The Govt. who has never done anything cheaply or well in its entire history.

The Govt. where everything turns into mountains of red tape, regulations and bullshit.

Yep. That's what we need. The Govt. in control of our health care. Good God. Talk about a moronic idea.

Governments all over the world deliver Healthcare and Education cheaper and better than the fiasco that exists in US.

What do you expect when you elect a party who sole objective is to defund and break all social programs...

It is not that GOP are just wrong they are very short sighted... They don't understand that strong societies are healthy and educated.

Or maybe we just learn from experience.

Medicaid delivers the worst possible healthcare out of any program private or public. In fact, many facilities and medical personnel are refusing to accept new government patients.

Medicare too only pays 2/3 of the bill in many cases and the program is still going broke. The VA? It depends on who you talk to and where they go. But we've all seen the problems with that institution as well. Most of the people that have good private insurance and the ability to get treated at the VA choose private healthcare every time.

 

[Silhouette]

As to the Sanders pitch of trying to win back middle votes estranged by the Pope's visit last week, I say it's better to appeal to a republican's business sense that Universal healthcare is a win for the American economy, jobs and spurring consumer confidence than to snuggle up to the rainbow agenda for the same results. It's time to leave the creep agenda until it scrapes off the barnacles.

Republicans like money, lots of it, for themselves. I think that is an indisputable point. So what makes better sense for their own personal profits that are shrinking because Americans simply can't purchase in the marketplace? Remove the equivalent of a second mortgage in private insurance outlay, cover them at work too, which would urge a boon of new startups of small business and all that free cash that went into the singular funnel of that one industry (health insurance) will instantly start flowing up to the Big Pockets.

I call it "Gush Up" economics.

 

[Andylusion]

That's what I am talking about. A lot of schools took that out and then tried to turn it into a for profit school.

There are a lot of kids that want to go into the trades but they don't know how. A lot of stuff that the for profit colleges offer, kids used to have access to in high school. Screw 'em. Put them back in the high schools if possible. The for profit schools can exist but the job could be better done and less expensive all the way around with the schools having their own vo-tech.

The solution is simple, and obvious to me. Just issue vouchers. Issue every child a school voucher. Then if vo-tech is the way to go, or trade-skill is the way to go, then they can take that voucher to the whatever school they want. Their parents can make up whatever difference.

You act like people don't know how to do this... what are you smoking?

When I worked at Columbus Cadillac in down town Columbus Ohio, we had a guy work the car wash, who used his money to get trained in welding. He's now a master welder for a big name company. He's doing just fine.

Come on people.... Work... earn money... pay for education. You don't need a Ph.D in self improvement to do this.

This couple came here from Laos, got training in CNC machining, while working crappy jobs in fast food joints. Now they make $100K together.

This isn't super hard. You just have to do it. It takes time, effort, and attitude. You have an entitlement belief system, and you'll never make it anywhere. People who think they should be given stuff because "I'm an American, and I deserve everything because Sanders said I was entitled to it......" and you are going to end up a train wreck.

The voucher program is a rip off. I'm over every little jack off coming along to rip off the public education system---which is, I remind you, for the public.

The mantra is that you can send your kids to a private school like the rich people.

Then they give you a voucher that wouldn't buy lunch in a real private school.

Here's the problem....

You are looking at a system that has eliminated the market for low-end private schools.

This is common in any market with government involvement.

For example, the cost of private health insurance in the UK, is extremely high. Why? Because there is no market for low-end insurance. The poor and middle class, sit in line at the public health clinics for free. Why buy insurance?

So only the rich buy health insurance, and of course the rich want the highest possible care, which is a high price. So only high priced insurance exists.

For example, in New York in the 70s, only high end luxury apartments were for rent. Same happened in Israel. Why? Because subsidized low-cost apartments killed the market. Why build low cost apartments, when the government would undercut your price for a better quality apartment? So instead, only luxury apartments were built and offered for rent.

When government offers the low end at a subsidized price, no one is going to pay for a low end.

James Tooley on Private Schools for the Poor and the Beautiful Tree | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty

So this guy James Tooley, professor of education at Harvard, was walking around in India, in the poorest slums of India, and discovered a private pay-for-service, Capitalist based school for the poor. Entirely private, no government money involved.

Then he found another, and another and entire networks of private, poor-service pay-for-service private schools.

When there is a market, then someone will serve that market. But there has to be a market. In India, there is a market.

Same with Chile. Chile has a private pay-for-service school system. And while there are of course high-end expensive elite schools, there are also low-end cheap schools that serve the lowest income people of Chile.

So here is my response to you...... I think this is a win for you and a win for everyone else.

Allow Vouchers. Every Student get's a voucher. Allow unregulated education. Anyone can open a school.

Allow the public to choose where, and who, gets their money.

If you are right, and there is no one able to pay for a private school with the voucher, then they end up at the public schools as they would anyway, without the voucher.

What have you lost? Nothing. You are back in the same schools you'd be stuck in, under the current system.

However, if there is a private school that you want to send your kids to, and you might be able to send your kids there by adding some of your own money to the voucher, why not? Called "choice". Right? No big deal.

And then possibly in the future when there is a market for low-cost education, there will be people to fill that need. But you can't have the government eliminate the market, and then be shocked no one serves that market. Does that make sense?

Do you know what is lovely about economics? It's all theory. Every single bit of it. It's the softest science there is. Right now you have a lot of people on the Right who reflexively scream socialist and that fits you just fine and it fits the Democrats just fine too. They might have to answer for Obama, Arne Duncan, and Rahm Emanuel and a host of others. Keep the eye on the other team is the motto. They haven't been told how to respond yet. I have perfect faith that the public will see that what this amounts to is at best burglary and at worst robbery and they won't give a damn which team anyone is on.
Vouchers on the Move: Return to School Segregation?
Voucher program failure in Arizona.
Arizona’s Magic Private School Tax Credits Don’t Work

Nothing in DC or Wisconsin:

Not even Wolf’s evaluations have shown any test score advantage for students who get vouchers, whether in DC or Milwaukee. This is the DC final-year evaluation. The main finding of the final-year evaluation: “There is no conclusive evidence that the OSP [Opportunity Scholarship Program] affected student achievement.” Remember that boosters for vouchers seldom use the V word; they prefer the euphemism “opportunity scholarship.” The family gets an “opportunity” to take their child from a public school, where he or she has low test scores, to a private or religious school, where he or she will also have low test scores.

The Wolf evaluations claim an advantage for voucher students in graduation rates. But consider this. In Milwaukee, according to this analysis (see the summary here) of Wolf’s evaluation, 75% of the students who started in a voucher school left before graduation. So of the 25% who persisted, the graduation rate was higher than the Milwaukee public schools. But what about the 75% who dropped out and/or returned to MPS? No one knows.

The Milwaukee voucher schools have never outperformed the public schools on state tests: See here and here. The only dispute about test scores is whether voucher students are doing the same or worse than their peers in public schools.
Vouchers Don't Work: Evidence from Milwaukee

Louisiana:

In New Orleans, voucher students who struggle academically haven’t advanced to grade-level work any faster over the past two years than students in the public schools, many of which are rated D or F, state data show.

And across Louisiana, many of the most popular private schools for voucher students posted miserable scores in math, reading, science and social studies this spring, with fewer than half their voucher students achieving even basic proficiency and fewer than 2 percent demonstrating mastery. Seven schools did so badly, state Superintendent John White barred them from accepting new voucher students — though the state agreed to keep paying tuition for the more than 200 voucher students already enrolled, if they chose to stay.
Read more: Vouchers don't do much for students

And lovely Ohio:
Nine of the 17 schools that closed in 2013 lasted only a few months this past fall. When they closed, more than 250 students had to find new schools. The state spent more than $1.6 million in taxpayer money to keep the nine schools open only from August through October or November.

But while 2013 was unusual, closings are not rare. A Dispatch analysis of state data found that 29 percent of Ohio’s charter schools have shut, dating to 1997 when the publicly funded but often privately run schools became legal in Ohio. Nearly 400 currently are operating, about 75 of them in Columbus.

It took 15 years for Ohio’s list of closed charters to reach 134; then that number grew by almost 13 percent last year from charters closing in Columbus alone.
Columbus has 17 charter school failures in one year

The report, titled “The Tip of the Iceberg: Charter School Vulnerabilities To Waste, Fraud, And Abuse,” was released jointly by the nonprofit organizations Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools and the Center for Popular Democracy. It follows a similar report released a year ago by the same groups that detailed $136 million in fraud and waste and mismanagement in 15 of the 42 states that operate charter schools. The 2015 report cites $203 million, including the 2014 total plus $23 million in new cases, and $44 million in earlier cases not included in last year’s report.

It notes that these figures only represent fraud and waste in the charter sector uncovered so far, and that the total that federal, state and local governments “stand to lose” in 2015 is probably more than $1.4 billion. It says, “The vast majority of the fraud perpetrated by charter officials will go undetected because the federal government, the states, and local charter authorizers lack the oversight necessary to detect the fraud.”
Report: Millions of dollars in fraud, waste found in charter school sector

You can read that actual report here:
http://populardemocracy.org/sites/default/files/Charter-Schools-National-Report_rev2.pdf

You may find this report interesting as well:
CMD Publishes Full List of 2,500 Closed Charter Schools (with Interactive Map)

It's not just a failure in the US. It's a failure in Chile. The Chicago Boys should have been put down. It's been such a failure that Chile has been forced to make changes.
Neoliberal education and student movements in Chile: Inequalities and malaise | Cristian Cabalin - Academia.edu
Vallas' reforms in Chile lead to major protests - Substance News

None of what you presented changed anything I said. All you are doing is pointing out the flaws. Well crap, have you seen our public schools? They massive flaws. I know, I went through them.

If you are going to say a system is bad because it has flaws, then there are no good systems anywhere.

Fact is, Chile has a better education system than any of the countries around it. Just a fact.

 

[P F Tinmore]

How about a Sanders - Carson ticket?

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Would have to disagree either are human rights.

"There were two forms of education in ancient Greece: formal and informal. Formal education was attained through attendance to a public school or was provided by a hired tutor. Informal education was provided by an unpaid teacher, and occurred in a non-public setting."
Education in ancient Greece - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Both represent commodities someone has available for others, but in emparting them looses something. Thus it's only fair to compensate the one parting with something.

Human rights include various/most freedoms, but getting medicines or treatments for maladies is 'extra' and 'optional' thus not a basic human right but something if you can afford it you can get. Same with education.

 

[Mac1958]

A full expansion of the current Medicare/Medicare Supplement/Medicare Advantage program would be the best blending of public and private resources because (a) it would allow competition and innovation from the private sector to continue and flourish and (b) would mercifully eliminate the current insane "system" of seven different payment programs (Medicare, Medicaid, VA, Individual/ACA, Group, Worker's Comp and indigent). Not to mention it would take a massive financial monkey off the back of American Business.

I'd like to see some ideas on a similar approach in higher education, because a single-payer approach to college has some pretty obvious hazards.

I wonder if we could keep the political partisans out of the way of this thought process and see what could be created with some open minds.
.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

A full expansion of the current Medicare/Medicare Supplement/Medicare Advantage program would be the best blending of public and private resources because (a) it would allow competition and innovation from the private sector to continue and flourish and (b) would mercifully eliminate the current insane "system" of seven different payment programs (Medicare, Medicaid, VA, Individual/ACA, Group, Worker's Comp and indigent). Not to mention it would take a massive financial monkey off the back of American Business.

I'd like to see some ideas on a similar approach in higher education, because a single-payer approach to college has some pretty obvious hazards.

I wonder if we could keep the political partisans out of the way of this thought process and see what could be created with some open minds.
.

That all sounds well and good, but who is going to pay for all this?

You want one big government program instead of a bunch of smaller ones, but all the smaller programs are in trouble or soon will be.

 

[Mac1958]

A full expansion of the current Medicare/Medicare Supplement/Medicare Advantage program would be the best blending of public and private resources because (a) it would allow competition and innovation from the private sector to continue and flourish and (b) would mercifully eliminate the current insane "system" of seven different payment programs (Medicare, Medicaid, VA, Individual/ACA, Group, Worker's Comp and indigent). Not to mention it would take a massive financial monkey off the back of American Business.

I'd like to see some ideas on a similar approach in higher education, because a single-payer approach to college has some pretty obvious hazards.

I wonder if we could keep the political partisans out of the way of this thought process and see what could be created with some open minds.
.

That all sounds well and good, but who is going to pay for all this?

You want one big government program instead of a bunch of smaller ones, but all the smaller programs are in trouble or soon will be.

I would look at your question - who is going to pay for this? - as a point in the discussion rather than the end of the discussion.

On the health care side, we spend a significant part of our health care costs for people over 65, obviously. Covering younger people would not be nearly as expensive, not even close, as covering the elderly, which we're already doing. Plus look at what would be saved by employers. And, our current Medicare/Medicare Advantage/Medicare Supplement program does include premium payments by the insured.

On the college side, I frankly thought of that one as I was typing, but what the hell, a little thought exercise might be fun.
.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

A full expansion of the current Medicare/Medicare Supplement/Medicare Advantage program would be the best blending of public and private resources because (a) it would allow competition and innovation from the private sector to continue and flourish and (b) would mercifully eliminate the current insane "system" of seven different payment programs (Medicare, Medicaid, VA, Individual/ACA, Group, Worker's Comp and indigent). Not to mention it would take a massive financial monkey off the back of American Business.

I'd like to see some ideas on a similar approach in higher education, because a single-payer approach to college has some pretty obvious hazards.

I wonder if we could keep the political partisans out of the way of this thought process and see what could be created with some open minds.
.

That all sounds well and good, but who is going to pay for all this?

You want one big government program instead of a bunch of smaller ones, but all the smaller programs are in trouble or soon will be.

I would look at your question - who is going to pay for this? - as a point in the discussion rather than the end of the discussion.

On the health care side, we spend a significant part of our health care costs for people over 65, obviously. Covering younger people would not be nearly as expensive, not even close, as covering the elderly, which we're already doing. Plus look at what would be saved by employers. And, our current Medicare/Medicare Advantage/Medicare Supplement program does include premium payments by the insured.

On the college side, I frankly thought of that one as I was typing, but what the hell, a little thought exercise might be fun.
.

Well of course I won't go along with "FREE" college. I'm not sending some kid to school to be a doctor, pay for his education, and when I need somebody to look at my bruised elbow, he's going to charge me $300.00 to boot.

Most all of our healthcare systems are in trouble. Medicaid for instance is rated the worst possible care one can get in our country. The new trend is for doctors and facilities to refuse new government patients because they only pay a fraction of the costs. The programs are broke and they're trying to stretch them out as long as possible.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results each time."