Would you support a 5% National Sales tax for the purpose of national Health Care

If it excluded unprepared food and medicine?

Then I could finally afford health care.

government. Make everybody pay their fair share and a progressive tax system is fair.

Wealthy people would pay even less (as a % of income) in sales tax than they do now.

It would cause the taxes of the poor and middle class to rise significantly.

No, I won't take more from the poor and middle-class so that the high-income people can get even more money.

The reason why I say yes is to prove a point-even those of us with very little money to spend would gladly give up more of our income if we were to receive health care.

Besides, 5% would be cheaper than what I am spending on insurance for myself and my child right now.

from being raised everytime some drug co., hospital, or Dr. group started crying!

Sounds like a winner to me.

There would still be too much regressiveness in a sales tax to make this equitable. It needs to be attached to pre-tax business revenue and income taxes and assigned at graduated rates.

Better yet, copy the REAP program that Dukakis did in Massachusetts, and let's get tax money from the people who won't pay up.

Am not all that familiar with out tax code, but I do believe that there is no carte blanc exemption from income taxes for those folks that make 500,000 a year or more. Do you have a section of the Tax code that says these people do not pay income tax.

The money is already there. It just needs to be used properly.

Health care expenditures in the United States run well over $2 trillion dollars annually. Even if you get rid of administrative overhead and insurance profit, and take into account that the government already pays for a percentage of this $2 trillion, you're still looking at roughly $1 trillion in additional spending needed.

Wikipedia has a nice little summary of the 2007 budget: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget%2C_2007

Even if you completely eliminated the defence budget it lists at about $700 billion, you'd still be $300 billion short. And that's not taking into account a budget deficit of several hundred billion.

National health care is something we should have, but we can't fund it at current tax levels. Please don't take this to mean we can't afford it. It just means that folks will pay less in premiums to private insurers and more in taxes.

Economies of scale.

We spend nearly $7,000 pp now and get crap for coverage.

We can spend less and cover everyone with a single payer system.

$7,000 per person translates to over $2 trillion.

Even if we can cut the cost in half, it is still over $1 trillion. And, I doubt we'd be able to cut costs in half in year 1. It would likely take several years to work out the kinks and smooth things out. And, it will also take years to get more doctors into the "general practioner" field, which is a major weakness of our system.

of the government's known expenditures?

Whatever.

I tell people all the time - I know where we can get 100-thousand bucks A MINUTE. STOP THE DAMNED WAR and bring everybody HOME. NOW. The money we've been shitting down the tubes over this damned war could fund health insurance for everybody.

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

our country is $9 trillion in debt, and we pay $218 billion each year in interest on that. IMO the best way to keep Medicare solvent over the long run is to show the children of babyboomers they have a stake in paying for it. younger voters will not pay higher and higher taxes..especially if they're uninsured! but if all workers were covered by Medicare, the younger voters would be willing to pay the higher taxes needed to keep it solvent. IMO it will probably take two or three decades of surpluses to pay off most of the national debt, but paying down this debt will reduce the amount of interest the Federal government wastes on interest every year..thus reducing the amount needed in taxes in the long run!

there is no easy solution..it will take a repeal of the Bush taxcuts, something like a national sales tax, and an end of this war in Iraq if we want to do this without increasing deficit spending.

Pfizer alone made more net income in 2006 than the top 10 health insurance companies combined.

Pfizer, total net profit of $19.337 billion.

United Health - $4.159 billion
Wellpoint - $3.095 billion
Aetna - $1.702 billion
Humana - $487 million
Cigna - $1.155 billion
Healthnet - $329.million
Coventry - $560 million
Wellcare Health - $139 million
Amerigroup - $107 million
Centene - $(44) million (lost money)
Total for the top 10 health insurance companies: $11.689 billion

(Johnson & Johnson had net profit of $11.053 billion, or almost equal to the top 10)

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2007/full_list/index.html

about what we pay for medicare and medicaid, but it covers everyone.

Yours is a false premise. We need to evaluate what a public system would cost, not what our current system, but publicly funded would cost.

if our government had as little in debt as Canada did, then I would agree..we could have universal healthcare while paying the same amount we currently do in payroll taxes. however my premise isn't that "we need to evaluate what a public system would cost, not what our current system, but publicly funded would cost."

why did you think that was my premise?

... we need to pay for health care via a sales tax.

From any angle, this is a false premise. Income taxes are not maxed out, stepping up to universal health care need not be "paid for" (except in the sense that what society already pays can finance the health care for everyone generously) and sales taxes are not advisable in any situation.

a) The sales tax goes after the same pool of money that the income tax does (gdp), but in a regressive way. The main principle of a fair tax is knowing what your share is. I live in Washington. Because we rely heavily on sales taxes and don't have an income tax, Bill Gates pays a much smaller share of his income toward our states' wellbeing than I do. I, in turn, pay much less than a truly poor person. It's regressive and it hit hurts our economy.
b) The Canadian experience indicates that you can provide health care for everyone, for what taxpayers currently pay to provide health care for the elderly, military families and the indigent. National debt has nothing whatsoever to do with this issue. We have to pay for our debt regardless. Sales taxes are not money growing from a different tree. The absence of Canadian national debt indicates that paying for national health care via income taxes is fiscally wise. It does not suggest that we need to persecute the poor to pay for it via sales taxes.
c) Anyone who understands the issue should reject false premise that we have to accept some misfortune (oppressive, regressive sales taxes) to adopt a more humane healthcare system. Better, cheaper, more humane and more equitably distributed are all attributes of a income tax funded system. Paying for it with a regressive tax is only a small improvement over paying for it with regressive insurance premiums.

I would support removing the limit on Social Security taxes and imposing a 60% minimum income tax on all income over $200,000. I would then use these changes to turn Social Security into a full pension system, impose single payor health care and make the first $20,000 of income tax free.

there are much better funding options than that.

Get people insurance regardless of how we have to pay for it.

Then work to fix the funing mechanism.

See the greater good.

I would.

They adversely target the poor to the benefit the wealthy.

Get people covered and then work to change the tax system.

People dying are more important than $$$.

EVERY TIME.

A regressive tax that also helps fat cats? No!

Your priorites are out of whack.

If you don't see that, check your own damned priorities!

Dying babies and sick aids patients who can't afford Rx.

Money is crap. People matter.

I fully understand that sales taxes are inherently regressive and terrible.

But you must seek the greater good. And sick people trump money.

The cost is not my worry. WHO pays more of their income for it IS.

There are other ways to fund. What is so difficult to understand about: It isn't sales tax or no health care. There are OTHER means.

Trying to paint anyone who doesn't like a regressive tax as the funding means is not how to win support. Insisting that only a regressive tax will save all those sick people is just plain ludicrous and counter-productive.

Money does not trump sick people for me and you are really off base with your assumptions. I have seen, up close and WAY too personal, the bad side of lack of health care for too many Americans.

If I don't like your funding idea, it doesn't mean I am against universal care. It means I don't think that funding it by laying a disproportionate financial burden on working class is the way to solve the problem. Using a regressive tax to pay for health care just further widens the horrible financial gap in America.

But, I suppose dogged support of a regressive tax is what someone who is more concerned with the $$ would likely espouse, while making disingenuous attacks on people who support a different funding method.

You keep saying "sick people trump money", but it's not money that's the issue, per se. The issue is that a lot of poor people already can't afford to buy food, much less health care; so we're going to essentially cut another 5% of their income out of their lives? Health care doesn't help much if you can't afford rent or transportation or food. A regressive tax is NOT the answer. There are better ways to go about this, among which would be properly taxing the wealthy, corporations, and luxuries, and not spending so goddamn much on the military.

(edit typo)

Money is the least or our worries.

Or, it shoudl be.

A mind is like a parachute. Only works when open.

If you want to do it right, simply pass an income tax hike on the top 10 percent of income earners in this country.

To be in the top 10% nowadays, you only have to earn $100,000. These are hardly millionaires. And they are already paying plenty in taxes.

Why not go after the big corporations & make them pay their fair share - & no overseas hiding of their profits, etc.

The proposal wouldn't affect the vast majority of people in this country. There were times when the people at the top paid far more than what they're paying now, especially after Bush's tax cuts. A 5 percent hike would essentially cancel Bush's income tax cuts. I would go a step further and raise taxes on capital gains and dividends and generate even more revenue and drop tax rates on income below 100,000.

... If it we the only choice to fund healthcare then it would be appropriate to compare the good against the cost. How good the result would be is irrelevant when the question is between different methods of funding.

paychecks over to the insatiable revenue monger known as the government.

Just cut **some** spending for defense, roll back the tax cuts on the very wealthy, and make corporations pay their full taxes.

But mainly, a sales tax is regressive and that's my biggest issue with your posit.

Now, if you ask more generally if **I** would be willing to pay more taxes for universal single payer health care, you would not get a 'yes' ....... you'd get a 'HELL YES'.

If we could get universal care, regardless of the funding mechanism, that's a start.

Then we work to change the funding to something less regressive.

But I'll take the first step as much more positive than what we've got now.

Damn straight.

We have to make a start.... The rich are not going to give up their money so easily. We have to tap a little from all to make it a go at all. It can become more progressive as time goes by.. This is a life and death situation, people are dying for lack of care especially preventative maintenance type care. It is a place to begin the bargaining. I would be for it but with the hope that some time in the future we can distribute the pain more fairly...

I think it would be FAR easier to sell a tax increase on the rich and on big corporations than on **every** single person in the country.

But at the end .... I don't think we need a new tax.

I will take nearly any proposal if it covers everyone 100%, no deductibles, no co-pays, cheap drugs (generic or brand name)no PPO or HMO lists.

Then hell yeah, 5% sales tax will do it for me.

Then I'd work like hell to change the funding to a tax on the wealthy.

.....better yet, reduce military spending by 90% and give free health care and college for all.

But in order to get the benefit, I'm willing to have a sales tax.

It's a start.

... why don't we offer what we want first and then negotiate into something everyone could accept.

When you go to by a house do you offer the most you're willing to pay first and hope to negotiate the price down after they accept?

...pay their fair share for the privilege of calling themselves American and using our military to protect their overseas interests.

There is money enough to fund education, health, the environment, and every other human need -- if we stop spending over half the budget on war, and if everyone pays their fair share.

Of COURSE we are all willing to tax ourselves to see that everyone in the country has adequate access to good health care. But the average person already pays proportionally much more in taxes than the truly wealthy. We are already paying much more for the health-insurance racket than any other people on the planet, and getting less for it.

Hekate

We need to fund our healthcare system through the existing tax structure and not add any new regressive taxes into the mix. I suggest that a 90% reduction in overseas military bases and operations over a 10 year period would free up more than enough money to fund medicare for everyone.

Get the 47 million coverage, then fix the tax to something less regressive.

But the priority should be the people, not the money.

It would have to be a constitutional amendment though, because I wouldn't trust them to dedicate it to health care otherwise.

The devil, as they say, is in the details. It would depend on who administers the program, and how the program would be structured.

However, I can see how this would be unfair to lower income brackets and would require revision.

n/t

Step 2, make the funding more equitable and less regressive.

replace more of the FIT and get to the GOP wet dream of a consumption tax based government that never taxes the 90% of the income of the rich that is investment income.

I'm tired of supporting this RW war machine.

N/T

5% of the pentagon's budget should more than suffice.

Peiople dying from no healthcare makes any argument about any tax scheme weak.

Vote to get people insured NOW, then work to change the funding.

Your priorites are out of whack.

Money should not be your first concern,

Ever.

WITHOUT a sales tax? You keep telling everyone who doesn't agree with your choice for funding that they are wrong, but you offer nothing to back up your judgment.

If we are wrong for thinking it can be done without a sales tax, show us the error of our thinking. Or stop just attacking and telling people they are wrong for not agreeing with your opinion.

Just proclaiming someone wrong without offering some reasoned debate is just sad.

Get people covered and then work to fix the funding.

The most imporatnce issue is the sick and dying. Not the money.

And the richest of the rich and the greedy corps aren't ever going too be made to pay for ANYTHING. So might as well forget that idea. Their taxes are being reduced over the years, not raised.

Wrong priorities will doom the issue.

Seek the greater good for the most people.

Bad tax? yes (but that can be fixed.

Sick people need coverage? Do whatever it takes to help the needy. Period.

If we got true universal coverage, I wouldn't care how it was funded at first.

The greater good outweighs the negative.

Sick and dying people trump money.

Every time.

Then after the sick and dying have care, we work like mad to fix the funding mechanism.

It's a hypothtical exercise to see if your priorities are in the right place.

People over dollars.

If you think of money first, your priorities are wrong in my opinion.

This people vs. dollars dichotomy is bullshit.

Tax schemes affect people. A lot of people have problems making ends meet. If you have no qualms about increasing their burden when there are plausible solutions out there which won't increase their burden, then your priorities are wrong.

Come up with a better plan where the poor aren't paying out their butts. I support single payer health care, but this is a poor plan. Increasing the tax on the poor who can't afford to pay for food and gas already is not the answer. They can't afford to reduce their buying power for anything else.

It's easier to pass an income tax hike on the top 10 percent of income earners in this country than you would if you passed a national sales tax on the working poor and middle class in America.

The biggest (financial) beneficiaries of universal health care are private companies like GM. I do not agree to pay a sales tax to benefit them. I'd sooner join the underground economy.

Our public healthcare system (medicare and medicaid) are paid for through income taxes. Why reinvent the wheel? Expanding those systems to cover everyone would be more equitable, cheaper, more predictable and more likely to pass.

a National Sales Tax shouldn't be the replacement of the income tax, but another option for raising revenue. if this money was used to pay for universal healthcare I would support it 100%! :woohoo:

This is taking into account the entire GDP as of 2006. Our Health Care costs are closer to 2 TRILLION dollars. So not only would the tax be regressive, it would be ineffective as well. And this is an optimistic figure as well, in reality, it would be MUCH less.

Add to that the cost savings of ditching the insurance system we have.. I'm not a numbers guy, but... :shrug:

Bottom line is, we should have a SPHC system. I don't think a nat'l sales tax is the best way to get there, but it's where we should go.

And our manufacturing sector is hurting as it is. I'm more in favor of some sort of income or wealth-based tax.

If it was the only way, then yes. I would try a luxury tax first (Tvs over 30 inches, cars priced over $25,000, etc.). Make it so the rich have the choice to buy...instead of making the poor making choices.

Why not raise the upper tax brackets for income and start taxing other forms of wealth growth.

I already pay for my own health insurance, and that costs me more than 5% of my total income.

...so that ALL domestic programs could be expanded, and funded properly.

How much do we spend in one month on the occupation of Iraq (plus all the lives lost/ruined) We spend more on silly gadgets for the DOD than many other nations (like Russia) spend for their whole defense budget.

We don't need more taxes on the poor and working people of this nation just to give them health care. We can do fine if we just fine tuned federal spending so that PEOPLE got at least as much as defense contractors.

Putting more burden on people who can't afford insurance now is NOT a solution to the problem It burdens workers and lets fat cat business owners off the hook.

I am sick and tired of seeing the top tier of our population getting richer and richer while the majority of people are losing ground. Fund health care without taking more from those who can afford it least!

I am not sure that a national sales tax is a good way to do that however. I would work for a more equitable way to pay for it, rather than on the backs of the poor and middle class that have born the brunt of the economic and class warfare the past 30 years. If a national sales tax is how it HAS to be, then I am ok with that.

a single-payer universal system would be cheaper than what we have now.

besides that- a sales tax is about as regressive a tax as there is.

Islam and other religions have the same general philosophy

But it doesn't work for all humans.

Trim the fat, cut the crap, reverse the Bush tax cuts and there's plenty of money without new taxes.

The idea that nationalized health care will cost us MORE is the great right-wing lie.

We already spend twice as much on health care as other industrialized nations.

Switching to nationalized health by cutting out the parasites will SAVE us money.

Yachts, caviar, diamonds, what else?

You know I really like youre plan much better. :)

We pay twice as much as any other developed country, which is more than enough to give everyone platinum plated care if you cut private insurance out of the picture. We are already paying for universal health care--we just aren't getting it.

Instead why not look at a restructured payroll tax - one that is wholly employer paid, is paid into a general pool for all and does not cap at a certain income level.

This would help Wal-Mart to pay their fair share and probably lower health care costs for the big guys!
:bounce:

I'd need to be convinced that a sales tax was the best way to go, but yes. And speaking selfishly, that's certainly a deal compared to what I'm paying to insure myself and my family right now, with a very high-deductable plan.

I think we ought not link health-care to only one source of revenue. Since most people's health-care is paid for by their employers we could find a way to raise revenue from businesses with a combination of value added tax, income tax and sales taxes. A gas tax wouldn't hurt and we could just redirect some of the revenue we already collect.

Poor people spend more of their money on stuff (relatively speaking) and so would be taxed MORE than more wealthy people. Pay for it by raising income taxes on the highest brackets and on capital gains.

that should do the trick.

The sales tax is regressive

Booze, smokes, junk food, etc.

By adding a new regressive tax you place a high burden on the people who already can't afford coverage and those that can barely afford coverage. All those people (and I'd assume it's in the millions) who are already dancing on the blade of having to chose what to give up to afford coverage would lose their coverage. This creates a nasty catch 22.

By increasing the tax burdern of lower income people, you create a larger base of people who can't afford health care insurance. So what do you do then? Raise taxes again to pay for the new group of people who now need coverage. Which creates a new group of people who can't afford coverage...and so on.

This is a bad, bad idea.

I am taxed enough. Plus, as a retired vet I earned healthcare for life.

I'm for legalizing marijuana and taxing it at a 5% level to help pay for health care, among other things. Let's create revenue and save money in the legal system at the same time, and no one has to foot the bill.

and it would mean that everyone was insured....

Now if I have to pay $500 a month and this tax...I would be pissed...

General revenue.

Absolutely.

The burden of this will be borne by the poor.

Progressive taxes on income should cover our national priorities.

the US treasury HAS the money for a Universal Healthcare program. We are spending 12 billion $$$ PER MONTH in Iraq.

sales taxes punish the poor and lower middle class, who are only buying things we absolutely need as it is

how would you like to spend the rest of your life only wearing hand-me-downs from freecycle? while watching the people around you pay several hundred dollars for just one dress? i'm getting damn tired of it

we need to put back the taxes on the rich

we can also pull out of policing the world and put this money toward the national health care

in a just world there is no excuse for anyone to be a billionaire and show their face in society, their assets above a certain amount should be seized and these too used to pay for care, but it will never happen, in this country all is for the rich and nothing is for the rest of us, we are to be stripped of what little we have

Something needs to be done and it is obvious that all the other means being suggested haven't gotten anywhere.

reinstate the income taxes in place when America was at its most "middle-class friendly"..

Stop buying multi-million dollar vehicles that can be blown to smithereens by cellphone-activated IEDs

Eliminate the "upper limit" on FICA deductions (the rich SHOULD pay more than they could recoup after retirement..most never retire anyway)

Eliminate the VA and Medicaid ..fold them all into the new-and-all inclusive Medicare for EVERYONE.

Make the drug companies quit gouging Americans.

Slap import tariffs on goods made by "american" companies, that are NOT made here..(if they insist on incorporating off shore to avoid taxes, make their products too pricey to SELL here)

no need for "new" taxes.

N/T

Thought he real answer is to quit spending money on wars and put it into a health care fund.

:-(

I spend most of the year in Europe where the value-added tax is in place in most countries. It is like a drug for governments, ever increasing, and ever more wasted. It hits the poorest hardest, as they are the ones who can least afford it, plus it zaps everyone at each stage of production.

Increase the income taxes of the wealthiest, especially in a country like the USA, where there are a LOT of wealthy individuals. They can afford it. People with lower incomes cannot afford the cost of living increase that a VAT would bring. I've seen the VAT in action in many countries. The money does NOT go toward health care. Don't even consider it.

But if we rolled back Buishs tac cuts for billionaires, took off the cap on FICA taxes so those making more than $90,000/year also pay in to the general fund, and revised up minimum wages, it would be a piece of cake to pay for single payer health insurance ala "Medicare for all."