Medicare, private healthcare insurance, or something better?

We’ll begin by reminding you that the U.S. federal government’s finances are unlike those of state and local governments, businesses, and individuals.

The federal government is uniquely Monetarily Sovereign (See Monetary Sovereignty, the Key to Understanding Economics.)

It has the infinite ability to create dollars and cannot run short of them. Even if the federal government collected zero taxes, it could continue spending at double or triple the current levels forever.

THE FEDERAL  GOVERNMENT HAS AN INFINITE SUPPLY OF SPENDING MONEY

Because the U.S. government cannot run short of dollars, all concerns about the large size of the U.S. “debt” and deficit are based on ignorance and/or deceit.

The federal “debt” is not a burden on the government or on taxpayers.

The oft-quoted debt/GDP ratio has no meaning for a Monetarily Sovereign government. (See: Enough already with the Debt/GDP ratio) It does not indicate the government’s ability to pay its bills (infinite) nor the likelihood of insolvency (zero).

Concerning healthcare for Americans, the concern should not be about cost but about coverage. Even without collecting a penny in taxes, the U.S. government has the financial ability to provide Americans with the best healthcare available. No compromises are necessary.

Today, Americans must select among Medicare, Medicaid, Medicare Advantage, employer-funded insurance, and individually purchased policies.

They each have disadvantages:

1. They require premiums
2. Some restrict which doctors and hospitals you can use
3. They do not cover all medical situations.

Medicare’s Advantage Over Medicare Advantage Plans

• Wider Provider Network: Original Medicare allows you to see any doctor or hospital in the U.S. that accepts Medicare.
• No Network Restrictions: You don’t need referrals to see specialists.
• Simplicity: Original Medicare is straightforward with fewer plan options to choose from.
• Flexibility: You can add Medigap (Medicare Supplement Insurance) to cover additional costs like copays and deductibles.
• No Prior Health Denials: Original Medicare generally does not deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions or prior health issues.

Medicare Advantage Plans’ Advantage Over Medicare

• Additional Benefits: Many Medicare Advantage plans offer extra benefits like vision, dental, and hearing coverage, which Original Medicare does not cover.
• Lower Out-of-Pocket Costs: Some plans have lower copays and deductibles compared to Original Medicare.
• Prescription Drug Coverage: Most Medicare Advantage plans include Part D prescription drug coverage.
• Potential Cost Savings: Some plans have $0 premiums and may offer lower overall costs for certain services.
• Managed Care and Wellness Programs: Many plans include coordinated care and wellness programs, which can be beneficial for managing chronic conditions.
• Potential Coverage Denials: Medicare Advantage plans can have more restrictive networks and may deny coverage for services not deemed medically necessary by the plan. They also may require prior authorizations for certain treatments and medications.
• No need to purchase Medigap policies for more complete coverage

Employer-funded Plans

• These use commercial healthcare insurance providers, all charging premiums paid or partially paid by employers. In reality, all premiums are paid by employees because employers consider healthcare costs when calculating employee compensation.
• Private healthcare insurance is ruled by the profit motive, which notoriously causes massive claim denials.

The federal government has the financial ability to fund every benefit provided by all of the above plans without charging premiums, denying legitimate claims, or collecting tax dollars.

So why doesn’t the government do it? Why do you pay outrageous premiums and/or taxes for insurance that doesn’t cover all your needs or, on many occasions, may even reject your claims?

Ignorance + Politics

Very few Americans understand Monetary Sovereignty. The general population wrongly believes:

1. Wrong belief: Federal taxes and federal borrowing fund federal spending.

• Unlike state and local taxes, which fund state and local government (monetarily non-sovereign) spending, federal tax dollars are destroyed upon receipt. (See: Does the U.S. Treasury really destroy your tax dollars?) Federal taxpayers do not pay for any federal spending.
• Federal taxes have only two purposes, and neither is to provide spending funds to the government. The purposes are:
• To control the economy by taxing what the government wishes to discourage and by giving tax breaks to what the government wishes to reward
• And to assure demand for the U.S. dollar by requiring taxes to be paid in dollars.
• Tax dollars begin as part of the M2 money supply measure, but when they reach the Treasury, they cease to be part of any money supply measure. They are effectively destroyed as they disappear and cannot be measured. (See: If federal deficits are bad, why do we run deficits to cure recessions?)
• The federal government’s infinite ability to create dollars makes it impossible to measure the number of dollars the government has.
• The federal government pays all its creditors with newly created dollars. It sends instructions (not dollars) to the creditors’ banks to increase the balances in the creditors’ checking accounts. When the banks do as instructed, new dollars are created and added to the M2 money supply measure. That (not “printing”) is how the federal government creates dollars.
• The federal government never borrows dollars. Those Treasury bills, notes, and bonds do not represent borrowing. They represent deposits into T-security accounts. The government never takes dollars from the accounts, nor does the government owe the dollars. The dollars remain the property of the depositors. To pay off the misnamed “debt,” the government merely sends the dollars back to the owners, i.e., the depositors. This is not a burden on the government or on taxpayers.

2. Wrong belief: Federal deficit spending causes inflation.

• All data indicate that inflation is caused by shortages of critical goods and services, most often oil and food. (See: The cause of inflation down to the last decimal point WAG.)
• No data indicate that federal deficit spending causes inflation.
• On the contrary, all data show that federal deficit spending cures inflation by addressing the shortages that caused it.

The above graph shows no relationship between federal deficit spending (red) and inflation (blue), which demonstrates this important fact: The federal government has the financial ability to fund comprehensive, free medical insurance for every man, woman, and child, without levying taxes and without causing inflation.

Why then, do we see articles like this:

Here’s how Trump and the GOP may try to weaken Obamacare
November 21, 2024, From KFF Health News, By Stephanie Armour, Sam Whitehead, and Julie Rovner

President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House could embolden Republicans who want to weaken or repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Trump, long an ACA opponent, expressed interest during the campaign in retooling the health law. In addition, some high-ranking Republican lawmakers — who now have control over both the House and the Senate — have said revamping the landmark 2010 legislation known as Obamacare would be a priority.

They say the law is too expensive and represents government overreach.

The governing trifecta sets the stage for potentially seismic changes that could curtail the law’s Medicaid expansion, raise the uninsured rate, weaken patient protections, and increase premium costs for millions of people. 

The GOP supports wealthy businesses over poorer people. Insurance companies are massive contributors to candidates of both parties, though they favor Republicans.

“Richer” and “poorer” are comparatives determined by the income/wealth/power Gap. (See: “Here we go again. The rich can hardly wait to widen the Gap.”) The wider the Gap, the richer are the rich and the poorer are the poor.

Therefore, the rich continually try to widen the Gap, and one way to do that is to deny free health care to the masses.

Obamacare (ACA) is a favorite target of the rich because it primarily aids the poor. You seldom will hear a wealthy person complain about the the “unaffordability” of tax loopholes enjoyed by the rich, though those loopholes are expensive and represent government overreach.

You never will hear a Republican say, “We’ll cut back on ACA, and to show we’re balanced, we also will eliminate:

Private foundations that offer immediate income tax deductions of up to 30% of adjusted gross income (AGI) for contributions. (These foundations only need to distribute about 5% of their assets annually for charitable purposes, allowing the rest to grow tax-free.)

Annual gift tax exclusions and lifetime gift tax exemptions to transfer wealth to heirs without incurring significant taxes.

Instead of selling assets and incurring capital gains taxes, the wealthy can borrow against their assets, which is not taxable while the interest is.

The carried interest loophole allows hedge fund and private equity managers to classify their earnings as capital gains rather than ordinary income, resulting in lower tax rates

Real estate investors can defer capital gains taxes indefinitely by reinvesting the proceeds from the sale of property into similar properties, aka “1031 exchanges.” (When was the last time you ever heard Donald Trump complain that 1031 exchanges were “too expensive” for the government?

Wealthy individuals can use offshore trusts and accounts to shield assets from taxes and protect wealth from legal claims

These, and many other loopholes, allow the rich to save money while they complain about benefits to middle- and lower-income people. You never will hear that 1031 exchanges are “unsustainable” and “unaffordable” or that they cause inflation.

Musk and Ramaswamy will not identify private foundations as inefficient or suggest revamping the carried interest exclusion, but they are shocked — shocked I tell you — about provisions like the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows schools in low-income areas to offer free meals to all students.

They claim raising qualification ages is necessary to “save Medicare and Social Security.” However, they do not mention “saving” tax loopholes by cutting them.

In 2011, Republicans passed a bill titled “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act” (H.R. 2). This marked the beginning of numerous efforts to repeal or defund the ACA, with over 40 attempts made in the following years.

The efforts continued through various legislative sessions, including a notable attempt in 2017 with the introduction of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), which aimed to repeal and replace the ACA.

Note that ACA hasn’t killed any jobs, nor have the Republicans come up with a “better” program to replace ACA.

In summary, it’s all a giant lie. Cutting the federal deficit is neither prudent nor practical. It is the opposite. It is a thinly veiled attempt to widen the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

The federal government could and absolutely should provide free, comprehensive healthcare insurance to every man, woman, and child in America without raising taxes.

But it will happen only if the public becomes more educated about Monetary Sovereignty, votes accordingly, and complains loudly.

Do you care enough to complain to your Congressional representatives?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell

Search #monetarysovereignty

Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;

MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell;

https://www.academia.edu/

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Source: https://mythfighter.com/2024/12/11/medicare-private-healthcare-insurance-or-something-better/