Month: December 2024

Matt Bruenig in Jacobin: Blame Health Insurers for Exorbitant Health Care Costs

“All health care systems require administration, which costs money, but a private multipayer system requires massively more than other approaches, especially the single-payer system favored by the American left.

To get your head around why this is, think for a second about what happens to every $100 you give to a private insurance company. According to the most exhaustive study on this question in the United States — the Congressional Budget Office single-payer study from 2020 — the first thing that happens is that $16 of those dollars are taken by the insurance company. From there, the insurer gives the remaining $84 to a hospital to reimburse them for services. That hospital then takes another $15.96 (19 percent of its revenue) for administration, meaning that only $68.04 of the original $100 actually goes to providing care.

In a single-payer system, the path of that $100 looks a lot different. Rather than take $16 for insurance administration, the public insurer would only take $1.60. And rather than take $15.96 of the remaining money for hospital administration, the hospital would only take $11.80 (12 percent of its revenue), meaning that $86.60 of the original $100 actually goes to providing care.” Read more here.

Tell Metro Councilors: NO TO CUTTING $ 17.5 Million for affordable housing and ending houselessness!

Please click here to send a message to all the Metro Councilors urging them Say No to Cutting $17.5 million for building affordable housing and ending homelessness and housing insecurity!

Metro Council is poised to vote on a ballot measure to adjust the Supportive Services Measure passed in 2020 to assist households experiencing homelessness or severe rent burdens.

We support changes improving cross-county alignment of strategies for alleviating our affordable housing crisis; investing a portion of funds to expand permanently affordable housing; and extending revenue collection beyond 10 years.

However, these changes will not succeed in alleviating our crisis if Metro follows through on a 10% tax cut on earnings above 125 K for single households and above 200K for joint filing households in 2026, followed by a 25% cut in 2031.It is predicted that such a deep tax cut will lead to a $17.5 million annual loss in revenue!

Learn more about this issue on Welcome Home’s website.