[rpmisms]

Promises that sound nice, but have huge economic consequences and therefore wouldn't be passed by a sane government. An example: Medicare for All combined with amnesty for illegal immigrants. It sounds nice, until you think about the obvious result.

[darkarmani]

> amnesty for illegal immigrants. It sounds nice, until you think about the obvious result.

You mean because of the sizable labor black market would shrivel up and suddenly all of these laborers would be able to collect on benefits on the taxes they've paid on the system? there is a good question there.

What is the approximate size of benefits that are getting funded but lie unclaimed by black market labor?

[rpmisms]

Don't take me out of context and then demand I defend a strawman. I clearly referred to the combination of amnesty and public healthcare as expensive, not one or the other. The bottom 50% of the country by income, which by-and-large black market labor falls under, pay less than 3% of federal taxes. That's not going to fund very much.

[rootusrootus]

It seems like the natural conclusion is that the US health system is inadequate to the task of providing health care for every citizen. Some portion of the population has to do without.

That sounds uncharitable, yes. But the same contingent that claims we cannot feasibly support universal healthcare due to the bottom 50% being essentially leeches on society happens to be the same people who insist that we cannot improve income for the bottom 50% because the free market is speaking.

[rpmisms]

There are solutions to Healthcare that do not involve a single-payer solution. Namely, targeted deregulation to allow meaningful competition. Shorten the IP window for pharma companies. Allow startups to move fast and break the system.

[e40]

Or "forgive all student loans" ... (I believe we should immediately reset the interest rates to 0 or some slightly larger nominal value, and immediately close all loans that have paid more than the original principle) ... but I don't know how this works to just forgive all of them.

[rootusrootus]

The problem with forgiving the loans is not economic. It would be trivial to do, and the economic consequences probably positive.

It is a moral hazard. First, it amounts to a giveaway to people aren't necessarily all that sympathetic -- people who can afford to go to college at all, even if they borrowed money to do it. Remember how much of the population couldn't even get that far. Second, any kind of student debt jubilee without first reforming the system just invites every future student to take as many loans as possible with the expectation that they too will have their debt forgiven.

[Thrymr]

Sure we could. We "forgive" lots of debts in bankruptcy proceedings already, but student loans have a high bar discharge in bankruptcy. Historically debt forgiveness has a long history, as David Graeber and others have shown:

https://novaramedia.com/2021/08/30/david-graeber-was-right-a...

[e40]

Yes, I know we could. This sums up my thoughts better than I could:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30533995

[rpmisms]

Yeah, it's an economic absurdity. I agree with you, your proposal is very fair.

[TomSwirly]

> Yeah, it's an economic absurdity.

Again, can you show us the numbers? "A guy claimed it was so on the Internet" isn't really useful later as a source.

[rpmisms]

Sure. According to https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/, there's $1.75t in outstanding student loan debt in the US. You can just print the money and contribute to the huge inflation the Fed is already wrangling, but that's a very short-sighted move.

[mgkimsal]

I'm not sure what the 'obvious result' is.

[rpmisms]

Massive spending as people flock in to get healthcare. It's (sadly) not financially feasible.

[aklemm]

That assumes the immigrants don't become part of the tax-paying economy, which they have a great record of doing.

[rpmisms]

Will they become high earners? The vast majority of taxes are paid by high earners and the wealthy, with those making under ~$43,600 a year—50% of Americans—paying just 3% of income taxes. (Source: https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/1-chart-how-much-t...)

[brimble]

Existing Medicare funding comes (mostly) from payroll taxes, not income tax, and the two work very differently.

It'd be more informative to look at who's funding healthcare now, including the private portions. I doubt very much that the bottom 50% are only covering 3% of that.

[toqy]

Maybe? Certainly it must be easier to attain higher income if you're legally allowed to be and work in the country.

[TomSwirly]

By my calculations, you are way off.

Giving free healthcare to all the illegal immigrants would cost $100 billion; switching the single payer would save Americans a trillion.

> It sounds nice, until you think about the obvious result.

Making up a nice story isn't really "thinking". Let's see your actual numbers.

[rpmisms]

> Giving free healthcare to all the illegal immigrants would cost $100 billion; switching the single payer would save Americans a trillion.

> Making up a nice story isn't really "thinking". Let's see your actual numbers.

Let's see yours. Trusting a politician's estimate for a bureaucrat's dream money pit is naivete at its peak.

According to this article: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/01/416416/single-payer-system..., savings of 3.5% are likely in the first year of a single payer plan.

Edit: according to Bernie Sanders' plan, the total cost would be $32 trillion over 10 years. Here's a nice article debunking that claim: https://www.factcheck.org/2018/08/the-cost-of-medicare-for-a...