First US Single Payer State Health System Would Require Doubling Taxes

No, no it can't

No, no it can’t

Vermont Health Connect is a disaster. It’s a disaster even by the standards of other troubled state health care websites. And Green Mountain Care, its attempt at single payer, is an even bigger disaster. (via Ace)

Al Gobeille, the chair of the Green Mountain Care Board, says additional tax revenue will be needed in order to make a publicly-financed health care system affordable for all Vermonters.

And Gobeille says he won’t shy away from the challenge.

“That’s the question that everybody runs from, but I’ve never run from it,” said Gobeille. “It’s going to come from a tax, and the question is, ‘What is the best tax?’”

In about a month, the Shumlin Administration says it will release a menu of tax options that could be used to finance their single payer plan.

A menu of options. It’s like a restaurant except you pay for someone else’ lunch. How much menu tax options will it take?

As Vermont Watchdog reported, an independent report by the Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Avalere Health concluded that the costs of Green Mountain Care would require Vermont to raise tax revenue roughly equal to the state’s tax collections from all sources today.

Double taxes? Sure. People will love a 14 percent tax rate. Or raise the sales tax to 12 percent. No chance of that backfiring.

In a recent poll of Vermonters’ views on Shumlin’s single-payer plan, half of the respondents said they are not confident state government could effectively manage a universal health care system.

Or an outhouse.

Lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee, who are responsible for raising revenue, aren’t enamored with Shumlin’s proposal to double the claims assessment. They say it is a tax on insurers who will pass the cost on to customers through premiums.

Or a broken outhouse.

Rep. Cynthia Browning, D-Arlington, isn’t satisfied with Gov. Peter Shumlin’s decision to delay the presentation of financing options for single-payer to lawmakers before the end of the legislative session.

A fundamental premise of Green Mountain Care is to decouple health insurance from employment by paying for it with taxes instead of premiums.

It’s not just Republicans that are frustrated with Shumlin for not producing a financing plan, she said. There are Democrats who support single-payer, but want to know how the administration plans to pay for it.

Or a broken outhouse on fire.

“What health care needs is better organization and this provides the opportunity to do that,” Gobeille said.

“I feel beaten and battered,” said Susan Rixon, a frustrated consumer. “I feel like I have done everything I was supposed to do in this entire process and I’m still running into road blocks.”

I’m sure these folks will get single payer right. How could they not?

  • A Z

    It can be argued that a 14 percent tax rate is not a high tax rate.

    However, a 14 percent tax rate on top of federal taxes and other miscellaneous tax rate is a real killer.

    Liberals do not have the big picture. they always have one more do good thing for which they need a little more tax. They never consider at which point putting on a another tax on a person or another straw on a camel’s back will break the person or camel.

    • Habbgun

      Yes but remember this isn’t insurance. In insurance you pay according to the claims risk you present and the level of care you wish to pay. Here the government decides how strong a mule you are and puts someone else on the plan. If you are a healthy person who could have paid for an affordable plan under any circumstance you will now be a mule paying for someone else and when the claims come in no matter how good a risk you are you will pay top dollar. Luckily the finest minds in the country and Vermont are sure this is not a disincentive to work.

      • A Z

        Let’s put it this way. Man has a spiritual part and an animal part.

        Let’s look at the animal part. Like any other animal man has his limits. It is instructive to look at what happens to animals when they are overloaded. A mule will balk. In general it is too smart and ornery to be overloaded. A horse can be worked until it is swaybacked or a broken nag.

        I also like to say when a person breaks under the strain it will not always express itself physically. It could be mentally. I would say that the government causes a significant percentage of mental illness every year.

      • A Z

        “It also occurs due to overuse or injury to the muscles and ligaments from excess work or loads”

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swayback

  • AG

    As far to the left as VT is, I’m finding it hard to whip up any compassion for this.

  • A Z

    Someone at FPM or PJMedia wrote that if everything is a right how do you prioritize rights. What does it mean. I read it in the last 24 t 48 hours and I wish I had a link for you all. So what is governor Shumlin going to do except wreck VT?

    ‘April 26: Shumlin appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show via telephone where he discussed health care reform in his state, his belief in health care for all and that “HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT, NOT A PRIVILEGE”.’

    [EMPHASIS ADDED]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Shumlin

    • objectivefactsmatter

      Deadly demagogues are killing us.

  • Gary Dickson

    The problem with all governments – I care not at what level and in what country – is that they have no means of governing their own actions.

    In other words, government has no idea when enough is enough. So, it will keep on growing more and more. To simply survive, it will demand more and more resources of a society as it grows.

    On top of that, the infrastructure supporting any government grows far faster in relationship to the growth of the government itself, eventually taking over the entire government.

    As an example, consider the growth of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government over the past 120 years – in relation to Congress and the Supreme Court – and the revenues required to support it. Consider how many people are dependent, directly or indirectly, on the Executive Branch as a source of money.

    In the early 20th century, citizens tasked government with dealing with the abuse of alcohol and the so-called unfairness of concentrated wealth. The amount of infrastructure to deal with those two items became enormous. Today, it is health care insurance. Tomorrow, it could very well be health care itself, but who knows. All are simply just stepping stones to governments’ taking over all of society.

    On top of that, monopolies – of which government is a prime example – are inherently inefficient – sometimes grossly so – and therefore require far more resources than organizations with competition.

    On top of that, governments, by making its own laws, forcibly demand that its citizens give them money to fund their activities.

    This is not a conspiracy. It is the character of all governments. It has no means of knowing when, or how, to stop. It has no means of objectively regulating itself nor is there any means of regulating it since it itself is the regulator.

    The solution is to remove the control of funding government from the hands of the government itself and put into the hands of the citizens by doing the following:
    1. All governments – city, county, state, and federal – are to be funded by donation only.
    2. Everyone working for a government is to work for it voluntarily, i.e., unpaid, with no exceptions.

    I fear it might be too late. I hope it isn’t.

    • Wolfthatknowsall

      I fear that it is already too late. I hope, but I fear, also.

      “It is time now to observe another human trait which is universal and
      infallible: the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the expanding needs of
      the bureaucracy”.

      - Daniel Joseph Cesar

      “When despotism has established itself for ages in a country, as in
      France, it is not in the person of the king only that it resides. It has the appearance of being so in show, and in nominal authority; but it is not so in practice and in fact. It has its standard everywhere. Every office and department has its despotism, founded upon custom
      and usage. Every place has its Bastille, and every Bastille its despot.
      The original hereditary despotism resident in the person of the king,
      divides and sub-divides itself into a thousand shapes and forms, till at
      last the whole of it is acted by deputation. This was the case in
      France; and against this species of despotism, proceeding on through an
      endless labyrinth of office till the source of it is scarcely perceptible, there is no mode of redress. It strengthens itself by assuming the appearance of duty, and tyrannises under the pretence of obeying.

      - Thomas Paine The Rights of Man

      “Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity.”
      - Richard Nixon

  • oneteedoffpatriot

    Yeah, but if they would just give “real communism” a chance, I’m sure it would work. I think it’s citizens should stop driving cars and ride bicycles, stand in line for hours for a loaf of bread that costs $89.00 and wear the same clothes for 30 years.

  • wileyvet

    Have the people of Vermont been consulted, or given their support, through referendum or is this just another liberal fantasy plan, where Vermont’s leaders know better than the public without any consideration of unintended consequences?

    • Gary Dickson

      Vermont’s leaders are simply following the lead of Dear Leader, i.e., they know better than the people from whom they are taking the money.

      “Don’t worry your pretty little heads. We have it all under control. Including you. Just give us more of your money or – don’t forget, we’re so good at control! – we’ll control you by throwing you in jail.”

  • objectivefactsmatter

    Why do these people constantly interfere with the magic of Marxist economics? It’s all of these skeptics that make costs go up. If we just follow the master plan…and jail those who conspire against it…yes we can build Utopia.

  • Boots

    The clowns (my apologies to all the hard working honorable decent clowns out there who don’t deserve being compared to liberal New Yorkers) moving from New York to Vermont to avoid the high taxes and then voting for social justice Democrats deserve the higher taxes. The decent folk who were already in the state don’t deserve what the liberal immigrants are inflicting on them. If New York and California liberals would just screw up their own states and stay there life would be good. Instead they mess up where ever they go because they don’t want to pay high taxes yet vote for social justice liberals who end up raising their taxes.

    • billsbowl

      Our biggest export here in California is stupidity.

      • Boots

        “When the Okies moved to California it raised the IQ of both states” per Will Rogers. Sadly California is also exporting businesses and conservatives… the people producing something to tax.

  • Wolfthatknowsall

    Let them do it. Then watch as company after company, resident after resident, leaves the state.

    It’s time for a national “I Will Not Comply” movement. Way past time. But the piglets on the public teat will not join such a movement, and their (probably illegal) vote outnumbers us.

  • johnholliday

    I can tell you right now what will happen. Property taxes will double.

  • vietnamvet1971

    Go for it, I am sure the IDIOT Liberals in vermont will Beg to have HIGHER Taxes and FORCE it on every one else after all that is the Liberal “Elitist’ way.

  • vietnamvet1971

    Go for it, I am sure the IDIOT Liberals in vermont will Beg to have HIGHER Taxes and FORCE it on every one else after all that is the Liberal “Elitist’ way.

  • lee_r

    Are you so determined to mock Green Mountain Care that you can’t be bothered to understand the facts? The amount of tax revenue raised to pay for the plan replaces the amount of money currently being spent on premiums for health care insurance in Vermont. That’s right, it replaces the premiums. Meaning that Vermonters will pay some $2 billion less in premiums.
    And the piece of your story about “doubling the claim assessment?” It has absolutely nothing to do with Green Mountain Care. Whole different issue, plan, and concern. You know how you can tell? Because Green Mountain Care would remove insurers from the health care arena, so there couldn’t be “claims assessments” against insurers.

  • Ting

    Good luck to Vermont, it is exciting at least to see a state trying something a bit different. If it fails then fine, if it works then great! Might as well support them, I mean who knows what new lessons about society we may learn from this experiment.