We can't afford Medicare For All

The Democratic candidates for the presidency want to expand current Medicare to everyone. Let's take a look at the numbers in terms of real dollar cost of these proposals.

Today there are about 44 million people on Medicare (about 13% of our total population) and the total annual cost to the government is about $582 billion (about $13,000 for each beneficiary) and, don't forget, current beneficiaries pay an annual premium of about $1,300 and Medicare only covers 80% of their medical costs.

The cost to extend current Medicare to all 330 million people in the USA would be about $4.3 trillion. So, what would this cost the average taxpayer?

Last year, there were 138 million tax returns filed with the IRS. The total taxes paid was $1.2 trillion or an average of about $9,000 per return. To provide Medicare to everyone would add $4 trillion to the federal budget or additional taxes of $31,000 per taxpayer. If we want only the top 1% of the taxpayers to pay for these programs ... then each of the top 1.3 million taxpayers would have to pay additional taxes of about $3.1 million.

Oh, but to be in the top 1% of taxpayers, you may be earning as little as $500,000 per year. So, these people would have to pay additional taxes amounting to six times their annual earnings.

Now you know the real numbers on how much this proposal would cost. Is this really fair and equitable? Is it even feasible? Think about it.

John Noll

Naperville