Monday, April 13, 2009
Who is Picking up the Tab?
Healthcare is a complicated issue to tackle. One timeless post by Mankiw explores what happens if one Obama plan is passed. The plan sounds innocent enough. Tax the employer to pay for healthcare. But knowing that who pays for a tax and who pays the burden of a tax is an important distinction to make.
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Eventhough both the seller and buyer feel the burden of tax. The seller will just eventaully pass the majority of the taxes on to the buyer. This plan does seem inncoent enough. I feel that we may be onversimplifying this case. Also think about the negative unfore seen praticalities that will arise from this? Health care for all is a great idea, but is this policy going to hurt the poeple it trying to help.
ReplyDeleteIf the United States were to spend the same per capita health cost as other developed countries with universal health care (either through a single-payer system, national health system, or a mixed public-private system), it would cost, in total (given the current US population) approx. 1.1 Trillion dollars per year. The US currently spends about 1.8 trillion dollars on the health care system, and yet 50% of Americans are underinsured...some of which are underinsured to the point of being uninsured. So frustrating. A blanket taxation is not the way to go about it though. We need a better system. We would save $286 billion alone by getting rid of private health care (in administrative costs). That may not be 1.1 trillion, but it is well on its way. I don't like the idea of taxation though for every little thing as Obama seems to be doing...there are better ways to go about this.
ReplyDeletePS- Figure I used for per capita spending under universal health care was $3,700.