People don't hang on to jobs because they don't think about the long term.
Everyone wants their stuff and they want it right now.

It is as if, tomorrow will never come and we will never have to deal with what we can put off until then.

Why don't we start with dropping it to age 62?

Or dream big and drop it to 60?

Let's do that.

How big would that be in a country looking at raising ages for Medicare and Social Security?

Governing is the art of the possible.

Which means a 50% fed income tax rate for the middle class.

Sanders has been dishonest about the cost from day 1. I'll never forget that town hall when he told that man his taxes for single payer would only be $500 a month. What a crock. And the MSM never called him on it.

In fact, our taxes would be more than Denmark's because our healthcare system is for profit. Our hospitals expect to make money for their stockholders and our doctors expect to be millionaires, or at least wealthy--not middle class. Sanders does not address any of those painful to fix structural problems.

That is why Vermont couldn't get single payer. Sanders pushed for the VT single payer law and helped get it passed, touting it as the "model for the nation." But when it came time to pass a tax increase to pay for it, and the real numbers were added up, everyone realized it was not feasible. The thought of a 12% tax increase on the middle class to pay for it made everyone throw up in their mouth--including Sanders, who went AWOL when it came time to defend the tax. He was gearing up for a presidential run after all. Model for the nation indeed.

That is why Hillary's plan for simply expanding Obamacare makes so much more sense. It increases coverage without major disruptions to our healthcare industry. And as Obamacare has already started to do, it slowly addresses cost reductions on a gradual basis, so it is not a sudden steep cut that would upend our healthcare industry and send doctors and hospitals running to court to block it. Steady as she goes.

All good to know. Thanks!

How do I get this gain in pay to offset the tax jump?

That insurance work benefit would go away and your only choice (no choice at all really) would be the government "insurance" which would be mandatory. You would then have to pay the increased taxes to pay for it, and far more than Sanders has been letting on if we are not going to increase our national debt tremendously which would cause interest rates to spiral upward and ruin the economy.

Whether or not your employer would choose to pay you more to make up for you lost benefits and help you with your increased taxes would be be up to them. Good luck with that.

Welcome to socialism!

However, it's this disconnect that's bothered me all along. I can't afford $5400 more a year in taxes (and to pay for insurance to boot). I just can't, or at least not without moving an hour or more away from where I work. We already have two people in a one-bedroom apartment, in a city where rents are currently on the rise, so it's not like we're living the high life. Every time I hear this explained, I'm always told that my healthcare costs would go down! I pay some out of pocket to the dentist and eye doctor every year, but other than that, it's all part of my benefits package.

One model is Denmark and other countries with Socialist governments where everything is "free" from the government, health care, college, free this and free that. Now Sanders, ever the disingenuous politician with pie in the sky dreams, says he would make the 1% pay for almost all of his programs with crushing taxes (until those people who can live anywhere decide to move out of the country). However, as per the OP, the costs will be much more than his campaign is estimating (no surprise there) and the middle class would would pay substantially more in taxes, perhaps more than they would save in benefits.

The reason for that is clear. In the socialist countries doctors do make much more than you or I and many of the hospitals are run by the government so they don't have to make a profit. So if Sanders has his way, the insurance would be paid by the government, but the doctors and hospital would remain private and for profit, and expensive. So what would be next on the Sanders agenda - government take over of hospitals, doctors' practices and drug companies?

In addition, since the poor who are not covered by Obamacare today can not afford to pay higher taxes for government insurance, someone would have to pay more taxes to cover them.

I think that you can see where this is going. The bottom line is that even if Sanders were to be elected, and he is not going to be, his programs would go absolutely nowhere. Most Americans, including many Democrats, are fully committed free market system with government regulations to prevent the abuse of the general population.

That why Hillary Clinton is the only viable alternative on the Democratic side. She is committed to working within the system to bring about incremental change which will improve the health care system for all Americans, including programs which can actually be implemented rather than pushing pie in the sky proposals that will never go anywhere.

I think his ideas are taking hold because we have failed the middle class and to provide as much opportunity as we can, while allowing health care profits to fall into the hands of the greedy and to put a monetization model on absolutely everything (part of the housing crisis is caused, I think, by the idea developers have that if an apartment building in NYC, say, isn't being squeezed for every possible dollar you can get out of it, they're now "losing" money, even if they have comfortable income derived from it).

But we're not Denmark, we can't implement these policies immediately, our society is not homogenous, and a lot of people would actually be worse off in the short run, not better.

And frankly, for whatever reason, a Sanders' society strikes me as completely joyless. I don't know if it's incessant railing, the lack of nuance, the drumbeat of criticism of anyone who's not him, but I don't see him putting things like patronizing the arts or encouraging writers or musicians on the table. (Drifting off topic a little, I know, but these things are part of the whole angry package that you get with him).

We are as a diverse society as exists on this earth. This is simultaneously our strength and our weakness.

When human beings look around them and see people who look like them, who talk like them, who have the same roots, who are members the culture, they are more likely to see the less fortunate and think, "There but for the Grace of God goes me". So the more fortunate in such societies are more likely to be prepared to share what they have with others.

Unfortunately it appears to be a human tendency to not identify with someone who is not of our race, not of tribe, not of our culture, etc. This tendency can and is often overcome by other human tendencies to be fair, to be gracious, to care for those different and less fortunate then ourselves. However, the tendency to be at best uneasy about those who different from us seems to be innate; the latter kinder tendencies seem more learned than innate. Inevitably some never learn them and they are more guided by another human tendency, the tendency to be selfish.

I believe that is why countries with more uniform populations are much more prone to adopt socialist programs than we will ever be.

corporatists, third-way, corrupt Democratric Party, oligarchy, low-information voters, or wall street?

The whole family!

and unless he hopes to find some hidden goldmine, under Sanders, the government will have to start taxing everyone long before any benefits are realized. This is exactly why his plan is not feasible. Even if the repubs were to go along with this (I know...when hell freezes over), the general public would not support a sizeable tax increase across the board for the promise of services in the future. Particularly because those paying the highest tax burdens are the ones who are least likely to benefit.

Our natural tendency is to want it now.