Universal income

[Phoebe]

I think I have changed my mind about this after being worked on by the arguer-in-chief over in this household.

Anyway, the mind-changing is also highly local to the current state of affairs. If we are going to hold people responsible for their relative poverty in such a way that we're comfortable screwing them out of access to health care, then by God we had better do something else about it, in a nation of such wealth as ours. Mind that I would not necessarily agree with this in other circumstances, but only in these present fucked up circumstances.

[El Jefe]

If the amount is what was referenced earlier ($20K a year), I don't know that there are a lot of folks seeing more than that through various social programs. Perhaps if you're adding in medical coverage programs. But straight income similar programs (EBT, cash assistance, etc.)? I'd be surprised if it is that high.

At least in here in the States, our dogmatic religion in free-market capitalism will always spell the end of any program like this. It won't matter what the science or data backing such a program. That religion has to be broken first.

[Phoebe]

I do find it amusing to watch the Republicans try to come up with something that isn't another version of Obamacare. I have another version of it for them: it's called wiping out the middleman insurance companies completely! Maybe some of the people who are currently employed in the insurance industry can go to nursing or pharmacy or physical therapy school.

[Mike]

As long as we're completely cloud-talking over universal income, I'm wondering how simple we could make such a system.

How about we start with universal, single-payer healthcare and just put all that garbage behind us so that we look like a modern nation that cares about its people.

Now let's take the federal poverty guidelines*. For now let's call it $12,000 annual for a single person, plus $4,000 per additional person in the household**.

Now to start, everyone receives that money as a base income.

However, the amount you receive is reduced by $1 for every $4 you earn. Therefore, for a typical family of four ($24K poverty level), you still get some level of supplement until you are making $96K per year. Call that your Assistance Cap. Once you reach your Assistance Cap, you now pay the same $1 out of every $4 that you earn as income tax. Essentially a 25% flat rate on all income above the Cap. Essentially, everyone receives the base universal income, but then ALL income is taxed at 25% (or whatever rate we agree on).

This basic system replaces most of our welfare programs as well as Social Security. So already, we've got like $1.3+ trillion to start funding it, because $1.3 trillion is what we paid out in various forms of welfare and Social Security back in 2013 (and that's actual benefits received, not including overhead costs).

The maths are way too complicated for me, but I'm wondering how much such a system would cost the taxpayers overall, and how much it would affect our total tax receipts. Assuming all of the above is coupled with sweeping tax reform to eliminate all the fiscal legerdemain and skullduggery hidden in our tax codes, where would we have to set the poverty rate and that flat tax rate to make this balance?

Anyway... just cloud talking. I don't know the ramifications of any of this. But, except for the single-payer healthcare, we already do a lot of this as a nation. We have a very complicated network of benefits to provide for people with little or no income. We have things like the child tax credit, where people with enough kids can essentially be paid by the government come tax time, in spite of making a respectable income. There are benefits here to cutting out as many complications as possible and relying on simplicity and transparency, but again, I haven't thought far enough to know the ramifications.



*Yeah, I know... taking out health care expenses changes the income levels for "poverty". We'll need to figure it out. These are just examples.

**I know, I know... defining "household" is a pain in the ass, and we're encouraging people to not be married if there's more money in being single, etc... but we'll work that out. Maybe call it $10,000 per adult and $4,000 per dependent child... whatever. We can get some fair numbers, and then in all my examples above, sub in whatever numbers we agree make it more fair.

[Tahlvin]

On behalf of all of the people who work in the health insurance industry, including the IT vendors who support them, I'd like to thank you for vilifying us. Yes, like any industry, there are greedy fuckers just out to make money above all else. But the majority of the people I work with in the industry are wonderful, caring people, who are doing their best to provide good service to their members, to keep administrative costs as low as possible, and trying to navigate the incredibly complex world of government regulation that's being dumped on them from all levels, federal, state and local. We'll just go to our corner and fuck off like you want.

[Mike]

I'm going to assume that was directed at Phoebe, but just in case it includes me, know that I have no animus towards the overwhelming majority of people in the insurance industry. However I do feel that the people at the top end of that industry (as well as large chunks of the healthcare industry in general as well as many other industries) have worked hard to tilt the playing field grossly in their favor at the expense of the consumer and often disproportionately at the expense of the working poor. The fact that I think the insurance industry is a big part of the problem doesn't mean I think most of the people in that field are evil.

[El Jefe]

[Tahlvin]

[Bonefish]

[Phoebe]

[El Jefe]

[Bonefish]

So there's really nothing that can be done. Or rather, nothing that WILL get done.

It's curious. We've been facing a labor surplus for years. Now, some of it may be due to immigrants(rather they are here legally, overstayed their visa, hopped a fence. I don't think to the "took our jobs" crowd it matters.), but a far more significant part is due to automation. Automation is here, and it's only going to spread. And it's gonna hit different sectors in different ways, for example, while we commonly think of it replacing manual labor, several job positions that we would otherwise not be worried about become at risk, such as engineering and computer programing. Oh, and tech support.

This isn't going to happen tomorrow. It's not like we wake up tomorrow and we're all in robot land. But realistically, we're also no going to see a universal income until that point, either. But the labor surplus will grow, because automation is going to take over more and more. Though, it also offers some interesting ideas.

Instead of a drive through, drone deliver food. Bam. Of course it'd have to go through the same shit that Amazon tried. But, hey, maybe we'll figure out of to integrate drones yet.

[Tahlvin]

[Cazmonster]

I really would prefer single payer health care instead of what we have now. People should be able to make a living caring for the health of others. People should not be able to profit from providing health care insurance. I looked and articles are talking about $10m to $15m dollar salaries for the CEO's.

The only reason they're getting paid that much is because those tens of millions of dollars that policy holders are paying for health care are getting siphoned off, legally.

[Tahlvin]

That's not the only place in the healthcare system where money is being siphoned off for profit. There are hospital CEOs that make outrageous amounts of money as well. There are pharmaceutical companies raising the prices of drugs that have been out for years because the market will "support" the higher prices. You've got doctors (or medical associations) that are imposing artificial limits on the number of people who can attend medical school in order to keep the supply of doctors low and salaries high.

My point is, single payer might help, but it's not going to do a whole lot on its own. Unless you're willing to address the inefficiencies throughout the entire healthcare system, and drastically shake up whole industries, you'll be sorely disappointed to find out its still a gigantic cluster fuck.

[Stan]

To add to what Tahlvin said Non profit hospitals are a big scam who often make a ton even after paying board members millions. They also encourage expensive tests they can bill insurance for. Block payments might solve over testing but it might be too soon to tell.

The big problem is that congress gets no money from government insurances but gets millions from pharma, hospitals and other lobbyists. I am pro single payer but congress is likely to screw that up too.

[Tahlvin]

's some of what I'm talking about.

[Phoebe]

Who knew that healthcare was so complicated, as they say? I was debating this point with a libertarian economist who was trying to convince me that there is no way to cover pre-existing conditions and still have a health insurance system. I just do not buy this - consider, for instance, how large employers have to deal with that when they guarantee such coverage in their group plans. Sometimes it makes costs go way up, but then, everyone has to pay more for that, and it's just the tough breaks of living in a society with other people. We could decide not to do that, but then look at what happens to people. I don't think it's supportable, if we're going to be the kind of society I would rather we were.

If we were somehow broke and everyone was paying what they owe to the common good, and still we couldn't support covering people with pre-existing conditions, then it might make sense. As it is, three news stories in same page of paper: lists of all the top corporations who manage to pay absolutely zero in taxes despite being so profitable and paying their people and investors so well, article on huge $$$ cut from NOAA (a govt. operation we ALL NEED BADLY and should be on the keep-lists of even the most grim libertarians), and feature on guy in 30s whose preexisting condition probably won't fell him until decades from now but prevents any affordable insurance without that rule (which is ridiculous since other people will die before him, sometimes due to decisions of their own, and they just don't know it yet so insurance is no problem).

The other thing is, it's tax season, and the more money we earn, the more obvious it becomes that this system is well and truly fucked. I used to struggle to get to the point of eking out some refund, some small refund. And now we have to pay more than we get refunded, but the fraction we are having to pay is SO LOW compared to the real effect of what we owed before. The things we can deduct are mind-boggling and imo unfair. There have to be lots of people in the middle getting pinched hard because they don't qualify for Medicaid. Sidebar: WTF, states that for some weird political reasons decided to refuse federal support for Medicaid expansion? They end up spending more one way or another, that's all, in their hope of sticking it to Obama and saving some money down the road. It was short-sighted.

[Bonefish]

We are not going to have the time. Autonomous vehicles are a reality, and they're going to take over the market. There is the particular problem with pedestrians, though we may need to see redesigned urban spaces.

But automation in general is going to kill the labor market. There' not going to be enough demand for minimal skill labor. But we will be able to produce even more than we do now! Fears of overpopulation are largely unfounded: as living standards rise(especially infant mortality), the rate of birth tends to drop off. So as more countries develop into third wave society, we're going to see the population stabilize.

But we're going to have a bunch of people with nothing to do to produce a living wage,

[FlameBlade]

A number of places are effectively single-payer because it was not implemented properly in certain places...there is a great map that demonstrated lack of competition in health care market, which probably led to a number of people being unhappy with health care industry in general.