re: Why can't the US have univeral healtcare with the current budget?

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We also have the VA. Who ever says great things about that?

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VA is a good example. It's a very specialized environment and if anything in the government would or could work well, it would be the military or the VA. The military works in some ways, in other ways it's jacked up. Same for the VA.

But, overall, the VA is a very homogeneous group in that nearly everyone inside a VA facility has a connection to the military. And when the VA gets it wrong there is strong public outcry. These factors would not be present if the government simply took over healthcare.

The government would have absolute control and would not be beholden to the voter - they would just tell the voter, 'how else are you going to get any healthcare?' and that would be the end of it, until they went full tyranny and said get this shot or you get no healthcare at all etc.

I put all of my slides on this topic into one pdf, google drive and anyone should be able to download them to look at, as you wish. There are 511 slides. Yes, it's a lot. Pretty big topic.

Here is a synopsis:
- Current healthcare system is unsustainable, high inflation in cost. Government spending since the 1965 Medicare Act, for healthcare, has gone up in relative amount, not just absolute amount. That Act was a disaster.

- We must change or the system will collapse and the government will take over, which is tyranny.

- My plan is the National Healthcare Debit Card plan.

- Plan brings in birth cohorts (3.5M to 4M births each year, typically), and there's a buy-in, $2500. In return you get a debit card with enough cash, programmed to be sufficient so that in 70 years or so, when the child needs the money (when healthcare gets utilized a lot), it's enough. $2M. But the card can be used immediately, obviously.

- To start though, we also bring in everyone on Medicare and Medicaid, with a subsidy.

- A small percentage is taken off the top of the debit card and this funds healthcare education so that providers don't hit the market with a mortgage in student loans. Also goes into a pot to defray the cost of game changing innovations like new medications. Companies get a big return, ROI, immediately, an agree to sell close to cost. Most drugs only cost about $30 or so for a 30 day supply, but R&D costs mean they have to charge a lot. This helps keep costs down. Also funds a national medical school, that is 6yrs long. It's time for med school to change. Four yrs is not sufficient. Merit admissions. Get pre-reqs done and get admitted, don't have to stick around to finish the bachelors. Tell the AMA to pound sand. Combo of national med school and AMA told to get lost means other med schools can expand. We are in dire need of more doctors in this country and that need will keep increasing. This is a developing crisis and it must be prevented. This makes all of us part of the system with buy-in, doctors benefit from patients, vice versa and so forth. As a society we are all together but the government is not running healthcare.

- The debit card amount would generate a lot of debt, but we issue the debt on new device from the Treasury: Treasury Bond Internal. No other nation buys our debt. We loan ourselves money, no interest, no servicing, we just pay it back. We slowly invest the buy-in amounts into markets and get a return. We get some actual patriots to start a bank that administers the program. They issue the debit cards that also have data storage so you can put your medical records on there, and that bank manages the investments, which can only go to index funds.

- Estimates are that paying in cash, which this program makes happen, would mean 50% reduction in healthcare costs. That destroys healthcare inflation. Same for paying for healthcare education. Getting government out helps reduce cost as well. Some residual from the debit card goes to beneficiaries tax free, so people have incentive to get the best value in medical care.

- Math says that it will only take investing about 1/4 of the current population's buy-in to put us on trajectory to pay our entire debt, and that is assuming we forecast out to about 200 years with our current debt ballooning to $1000T. All of this, and the program debt would be paid as well. The key is long range investing and bringing down inflation, and healthcare cost inflation is a major portion of overall inflation. Deductibles have gone up 70% in recent years.

- Inducting Medicare and Medicaid people immediately would produce about $8T in "off the top" money that could be applied to the debt. The residual on the debit card, after someone passes, would likely generate another $8T within about 20yrs. That's a very, very conservative estimate. It is likely to be WAY higher. That's half of our current debt or more, if we wanted to pay it, that could be wiped away in a very short time. This shortens our horizon to being free from debt considerably. We would very likely see another $20T in money flow in in the next 20 years. Conceivably we would be out of debt (our current debt) in less than 40 years, and the program debt would be an easy trajectory.

- Current CMS budget (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) is $1.5T. I can bring it down to $500B. That cohort would have debit cards, and the $500B accounts for residential care for that cohort, so the most vulnerable have redundancy. I also plan to leverage the VA's formulary to get a national pharmacy benefit program. VA pays 50% for medication, typically. Let's just expand it. Pay $25 per year, and you are part of the plan. This $25 should fund costs for the plan and collecting data on what providers charge (get prices for all coded transactions) so insurance companies can go into concierge services.

- My plan can eliminate at least $1T from the budget. Go with the "Trump" approach with the economy and you'll get record tax revenue. Add just a small amount of fiscal discipline and we'll stop deficit spending.

- This makes it a no doubt that as a nation we are solvent. No one would dare sell off our debt. In fact, nations would probably try to buy our debt, making the dollar stronger because they'd know we are going to easily service the debt and pay it off quickly so there's a quick return for them. The projections, looking at the math, provide so much profit, our economy could become superdriven, and I believe this will give us leverage to keep the dollar as the reserve. If we just end the war in Ukraine and establish friendly relations with Russia, we can pull them away from China.

- I believe insurance companies go into concierge care and start selling catastrophic plans, mostly, but that will be at least a 25yr transition, so we don't wreck them and those jobs.

- Lastly, I would allow people to buy catastrophic coverage for their child of at least $100k, which should insanely cheap, and in return they can transfer $100k from their child's debit account to pay off student loans. Average student loan is well below that amount. We might get $50B or so every year of student loan debt paid off. Maybe more.

Combine this with my plan to deploy the military to the border and deport everyone in the nation that did not follow the rigorous procedures already in place, and cutting off that money ($150B/yr) that we lose, and we are in great shape as a nation.

ETA - debit card can only be used for medical. Everything in medicine is coded, or comes with script from a doc. That insures people use the money for healthcare and not tires.

Don’t disagree with math, but healthcare is a privilege, not a right.government shouldn’t be involved at all

Because healthcare is not a proper function of government.

More than 40% of the current healthcare budget was already paid for by the taxpayer. Look at the teeth of the Brits, public coverage of dental care is bound for private care, with expected results.

But mostly, the United States Constitution does not authorize the federal government to be in charge of, or fund, whatever soccer moms define as health care. I know you don't give a shite about restricting government, which is the entire reason the USA exists, but, it's still the law.

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You can have a welfare state. You can have open borders. You cannot have both.

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"Challenge Accepted" - the Deep State

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Ah, the classic "if you can dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshitee" tactic.

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Not sure what this means but my plan will work, and it's the only plan out there that will work. There's not a candidate or bureaucrat out there that has offered a solution - except me.

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Start carving off constituencies like illegals, and watch it fall apart in seconds with carve outs, exceptions, etc.

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I don't understand - what will fall apart? And if you read what I wrote, I specifically mention eliminating the dollars spent on illegals. We lose $150B annually due to illegals and the costs incurred.

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If we're in dire need of doctors, should we give more of them visas, how Canada prioritizes skilled immigrants? More Indians skilled in medical, or randos from China, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela?

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Nothing in my plan prevents more visas for doctors in other countries, but my plan also produces more doctors in our own system.

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When the cost of something starts approaching zero, what happens to demand? It's not as complicated as you make it out to be.

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I'm not making it complicated at all. The current system is complicated. My plan is not.

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LOL, that explains why I can buy contacts in Paris, but not here, without an RX. So much better.

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Ok, continue to buy contacts in Paris as you do now. Freedom is wonderful. Will they also sell you physical therapy, cardiac rehab, kidney medicine, psychiatric care, blood labs too? Or maybe those are things you would get here, coded?

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Again, decrease cost (to the consumer), you increase demand. It's not hard. It's the same for peanut butter and milk.

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I understand these relationships. My plan puts healthcare back into the free market so that an equilibrium is established. Right now there is no equilibrium. There's no sustainability. The system will crash. While you make snarky comments on a message board the government will come in with a badge and a gun and take over. When the government does that, do you think you'll still be able to buy contacts in Paris? Or do you think the government will restrict entry of those contacts and make you buy from one of their "preferred" vendors? My plan prevents that and preserves your freedom of choice. If you have a better fix, tell me. I'll amend my entire 511 slides to reflect it.

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Or maybe we could REALLY save the Economy by limiting welfare recipients to one child before they are denied benefits.

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do you expect they’d let their other children starve to death? Or would they steal to feed their kids? If I was in that situation, I certainly wouldn’t let my kid die so we could spend more on guns a congressman’s brother in law manufactured for our military.

Why don’t you get a frickin job and get insurance like every other responsible adult?