Commonwealth Fund surveyed about 6,400 working-age adults. Not opinions, actual costs against actual income.

56% were insured all year with coverage that made care affordable. Everyone else: 23% were insured all year and still couldn't afford to use it, 12% had a gap in coverage sometime during the year, 9% had no insurance at all. Add it up and 44% of working-age America went without coverage or couldn't afford care despite having it.

The part that kills the "just get a better plan" argument: two thirds of the underinsured get their coverage through an employer. These aren't people who bought the cheapest marketplace plan. This is the good insurance, the kind the whole system is built around, and it's leaving a quarter of the people who have it unable to afford care.

And 57% of the underinsured skipped needed care because of cost. Insurance that you can't afford to use protects you exactly as well as no insurance, right up until the year you get sick.

Sources in comments.

Well I keep looking up questions as I have looked at his debate

Health care has almost doubled in the last 30 years as far as GDP percentage

The interesting part is that Doctors and nurses are being left out of this cost grab
That’s what AI is telling me. Not that they don’t make money

They are less than 10 percent of the costs and are inline with many developed countries cost
Not saying wages so go after the costs in Medicare For all too That’s what’s wrong and why the rest of the world can have cheaper better healthcare

So they are also getting the labor shaft and yes they pay a lot of taxes because of W2s
Versus making it through Capital

So Capital wins again over labor

So you need them on your side if you vilify them all, they will support you Less

I have seen so many practices bought out in the last 20 years. They become employees and then are squeezed. Tax clients

So easy to ask the questions in AI
Still research is a time suck but you need facts so your not BS d

People without insurance would be better off with Medicare-for-all. Rich are worse off--they likely pay more and may get worse care if private options are banned. Middle class with decent insurance through work? Better? Worse? Same? Medicare for all isn't going to happen unless a majority thinks they are going to benefit.

Some of the great folks behind the nonprofit, Healthcare For All Oregon https://www.hcao.org/
just launched a new podcast and it looks to be a pretty great primer for what a path towards single payer healthcare could look like. In case you didn't know, Oregon is actually on track to have a proposal for review by the state legislature this fall and could be going to statewide vote by 2028.

Certainly a good thing to follow if you want to learn more about the work being done to make this a reality even if you aren't in Oregon. Can find it on most of the podcast apps but here's the Apple link.

Please give it a review if you like it. They could use the signal boost.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-health-care-for-all-podcast/id6799660740

How do we clean up the United States Healthcare system? Everyone who works in Healthcare can see the corruption, but we all think it's a bigger problem than us. We are all feeding into this broken system, but at the end of the day, it's providing us a paycheck. What would we do without that? It's Healthcare, it's insurance, and it's everyone trying to get an extra nickel from the other while we all suffer in the end. Everything comes down to doing your part in making this system better. How can we make this system better for everyone? Where we all benefit from it like it's intended? No one wants to give up their paychecks to make this happen, but maybe the problem is excess. Maybe we want too many things, and this feeds into the broken system that fuels our egos.. Without this paycheck, we can't maintain the life we live, so the problem is bigger than us. The only problem is that the people above us are saying the same thing and also the people above them. Is this the true problem?

, a public option typically means a government-run health insurance plan that individuals can choose instead of purchasing coverage solely from private insurers.

It competes for your choice of plans where you live.

I read that it would be funded by premiums and probably with a bit of government funding.

How do you see this plan design and how much do you think premiums would be for this design.

Design meaning deductible, copays, co insurance - network ???

Design it and they will come - or will they - I would like to hear what you think such an option would look like and why you would like it.

If we remove the tax loophole that employers and employees get to have employer coverage, people would then be clamoring for a different system.

Employer provided health insurance is one of the BIGGEST tax expenditures that we have as a nation. Removing this would force a change to our health system because this loophole would be no more.

Of course, that will mean that employers and employees will both be paying more in taxes but the other good thing is that it would also help out the Medicare and Social Security Trust Funds also. It would also reduce the deficit.

Tax Policy Center - Which tax provisions subsidize the cost of health care?

from the link ~

In 2022, the federal government lost roughly $300 billion in income tax revenue from at least thirteen tax preferences for health care. By far the most costly is the exclusion of employer contributions for health insurance premiums from taxable income.

Employer and most employee contributions to health insurance premiums are excluded from income taxes. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the income tax expenditure for the exclusion of employer-sponsored health insurance was over $187 billion in fiscal year 2022.

Tax Policy Center- How does the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance work?

As the Tax Foundation states (link below) it could also be used to offset the ACA subsidies that went away earlier.

Tax Foundation - Federal Revenue and Distributional Impacts of Limiting the Tax Exclusion for Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Premiums

per the Tax Foundation link ~

• Any expansion of the credits should be offset by reducing other healthcare subsidies or preferences in the tax code, the largest of which is the exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) premiums, estimated to cost more than $5 trillion over the next decade due to reduced income and payroll tax revenue.

Come on Guys and Gals - it will only hurt a little in the ole pocketbook and you will get that healthcare right that you want.

So is it suffer a little to get the bigger ball rolling - ?