White House website publishes a page on "socialism". They think it will scare people to hear that if we tax 1000 billionaires, $355,000 worth of benefits will be distributed to 150,000,000 households.
4 days ago by sanitation to c/workreform
Because the United States is an open-air labor camp, and medical care is a stick to make us work.
Also keeps competition down. I know more than one family where one parent is working a shit job just so their business-owning partner can have medical benefits.
And I'll hazard a guess that those 1000 billionaires will still be billionaires. This is a no fucking brainer.
Not that billionaires should exist, but there will actually be essentially zero impact if we tax them appropriately, so why not
but... but... line go up not down!
The sick part is that what is being asked is actually so inconsequential to the billionaires that not only will their line still go up, if we change nothing else but this, even wealth inequality itself will still keep going up, it will just go up at a slightly less supersonic speed. They don't even care about the amount of money we're asking for, they care about the precedent that if we can take this from them, what's stopping us from taking everything from them.
That's what they're actually scared of. That's why they resist this so hard. That's why they don't bend. They think that once the people slip out of their stranglehold they will get a taste of billionaire blood and they will like it.
And they might be right.
That and the fact that they can't extract profits from services which have been made public. If we get free healthcare there are a bunch of leeches insurance execs that will be out of a job.
And another billion dollar boat!
I still honestly think that billionaires should not exist, also we should execute the Epstein class
It covers more than that, once you recover enough to actually fight a legal battle against the 1% they can pursue tax cheats and tax fraud where recovery bumps up to making five dollars for every dollar spent pursuing the debt. It's take huge chunks out of the national debt every decade kinda money.
They're also claiming that 90% of the proposal is Medicare for All. So everything else in the list would be $3550 per household per year if their claim of $35500 per year is to be believed.
I don't know that they're making the argument they think they're making
That's the thing about wealth inequality numbers: they are so incomprehensibly large that you need Carl Sagan to explain them to you.
For instance:
Imagine a Cosmic Financial Calendar, where all the money in the planet is distributed along the calendar the same way it is distributed among the population. By June 1st, you would have seen 50% of the wealth, but to start seeing the top 32.5% of the wealth, you'd have to wait until December 28th at 8:22 am.
I just wish bellbottoms and turtlenecks would come back into style.
[Edit: I'll stand by the 12/28 claim, but I think the June 1st doesn't make a lot of sense.]
Yeah; I guess you’re right. It feels crazy that a wealth tax on a small number of families could net each family $35k per year in value. But I guess that’s a testament to the degree of wealth inequality we have
$355,000 per family over a ten-year period.
Manageable conceptual dollars if you want some basic fun math, look up the cost of the US Army (only army mind you) apache program, and then pull the numbers for the cost of Snap benefits for the entire country.
It is a priorities issue, not a money issue. I can't be more clear in this; the government "for the people, by the people" no longer gives a single solitary fuck about any person. It is an oligarchy, kleptocracy, corporate-ocracy pick a name. That is not my opinion, it's an observable, demonstrable, objectively true statement.
Military and government sponsored billionaire class.
Take it one step further: money is nothing but information about the priorities a society places on distribution of material and labor. Framed this way the perennial question of “where will the money come from” is absurd-the money comes from the consensus that we should do a thing.
profit issue imho. if the owning classes could profit and gain as much hegemony from healthcare and benefits as they do with a relatively easy “blow up brown children” weapons system… we’d have healthcare.
the problem is capitalism
Isn't the website saying it will COST $355,000 per family? I mean, this site is stupid but.... Can we all not read?
Edit: yo @sanitation@lemmy.today , can you clarify? Cos right now idk how your post got titled this way and I think its misinforming like 90% of the commenters
They include some interesting budgets in there to inflate it to be fair, but they also leave out the stuff that I have to pay for currently like health care costs. Tbh it would prob be a net equivalent. Even still I'm all for it as a higher earner in this country if it means it will help others, me, and those that come after. Not to mention they used the corporate costs not the costs when we aren't obsessed with profits
It does say that. But the reverse is also true. The government is spending that money; someone is receiving the benefits of that spending. Since we're talking about "medicaid for all", the beneficiaries are "anyone who needs medical care". Which means, we will receive, on average, $355000 worth of care, per household, over a 10-year period.
Of course, nothing of this analysis is in any way reliable. The per-household cost of health care with commercial insurance is far higher than the cost of health care with Medicare. Higher still is the cost of forgoing medical treatment due to financial concerns.
$355k? That's not even the amount they (billionaires; boo) spend to rent a twelve year old by the half-hour.
FYI, this post has been reported for a misleading headline.
I'm not particularly too invested in parsing correspondences from the American administration, so if you think this post should be removed, downvote this comment, if you think it should stay, ignore it completely. :)
The headline and the post are saying the same thing from opposite perspectives. The headline is saying the government will be spending $X providing Medicare for all. The post is saying "all" will receive $X worth of care.
It's a little clunky phrasing, but it's not actually misleading.
I can't be THIS erect at work. So I'll need to read the rest at home
When I spend $20 on a pizza, I receive $20 worth of pizza.
When the government spends $355,000 on medical care for the public, the public receives $355,000 worth of medical care.
OP's claim is just the flip side of the White House claim. By not having the government spend that money, we are taking on that $355,000 burden individually, rather than collectively through a risk pool.
I was thinking that's how OP meant it, but that still doesn't match the sites claim. And yes, I know the site is stupid and wrong, but its not self-owning. The site is saying that the 355k is paid by individual families, and that cost is clearly greater than buying private insurance would cost anyways, and just generally untenable for most people regardless of the other benefits. So the site is saying "you'll be forced to pay 35k each year". It denies the idea that taxes on billionaires would cover the cost. So it is exactly claiming that we take the burden on individually.
The website is internally consistent, it's just wrong with respect to reality. But it doesn't contradict itself.
If the government is going to be paying $355k for everyone to get healthcare, then everyone is going to receive $355k worth of care.
If the White House numbers are right, and we aren't currently paying and receiving $355k for care, then either the government is incredibly wasteful, or private insurance is incredibly under-treating us.
Ludicrous is the idea that care costs will rise when the government replaces commercial, for-profit health insurance.
Probably because it's all made up numbers and they assume that anyone looking at it and taking it seriously has no numeric literacy. And sadly, looking at the comments in this post, it seems that even people criticizing the site have somehow misunderstood it entirely. So I guess they were right about that
@lemmy.world
A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
go to feed...
@lemmy.world
A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
go to feed...
Damn, that's a lot less than I thought it would cost for everyone to have equal access to healthcare.
If it's that cheap, why are we denying healthcare to anyone?
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