You realize that’s every insurance program, right?
The rub is they’re costing a lot of money while they’re dying, so…
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Whether they have or haven’t, the social system will implode before I die. It won’t impact me, but it will impact all those the “system” promised it would help.
A compulsory insurance plan that charges me thirty times the rate for the same coverage others are getting for free is a a different kind of “insurance plan.”
A bit of a goal post move there, but I’ll play… Medicare charges you 30x higher than the same coverage others are getting for free (and 30x free is… what? ;D)? What exactly are you comparing?
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That’s how public health systems work. I benefitted from this in Canada and it’s one of the reasons I came to Taiwan.
EDIT: @Poundsand beat me to it!
Guy
Second, let’s ask the wealthiest to pay just a little bit more of their fair share, to strengthen Medicare for everyone over the long term. My budget proposes to increase the Medicare tax rate on earned and unearned income above $400,000 to 5 percent from 3.8 percent.
– Joe Biden
What other insurance program charges a percentage of earned and unearned income for coverage rather than a fixed rate for the same coverage regardless of income?
That would make for an interesting auto insurance plan, for example. You’re making $400,000 a year so your annual premium for auto insurance is $20,000 while someone making $50,000 pays $1,900 for the same coverage.
It’s not auto insurance, which is connected to an individual purchase which many of us would not make.
It’s connected to the health of people, many of whom in the US and elsewhere are vulnerable.
Anyways, it’s up to you guys to sort out this mess, which looks pretty awful to those of us non-Americans (and which should be extremely clear to you as a cosmopolitan American who has lived in several other countries).
Guy
It’s not auto insurance nor similar to “every insurance program” either. It’s an insolvent national health insurance program which Democrats plan to rescue using money extracted from people making over $400,000 per year. I’m just wondering if there are enough people making over $400,000 a year in the U.S. to rescue the government’s massively out of control spending and insolvent social welfare programs. Hopefully somebody’s actually done the math and we’re not banking on a pipe dream.
That’s also how private insurance (of every kind!) works.
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That’s not what I responded to with that quote, eh? You were talking about using other people’s fair share to pay your medical bills. That’s literally the scheme of insurance. What you’re really taking issue with, it now seems, is what you think is fair or not.
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I was talking about Medicare and whether there’s enough wealthy people’s money to save it from insolvency.
Said nothing about whether it’s fair or not. Those are Joe’s words. What I took issue with is whether or not there’s enough other people’s money to make it a real plan.
“. . . let’s ask the wealthiest to pay just a little bit more of their fair share.”
– Joe Biden
Apparently even other people’s money isn’t enough to stem the hemorrhaging.
“The budget sees the gross national debt increasing by about $18 trillion through 2033, rising to just above $50 trillion. But the administration suggests that growth will not threaten the economy.” - New York Times
That’s not how I see it. Our debt is scooped up by a long line of countries. If we go down, they go down harder. Didn’t 2008 make that abundantly clear? 
This really is a story, isn’t it? Very little coverage.
Chinese officials have not acknowledged the unplanned reentry as of this posting.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson has been critical of the lack of care China has put into ensuring the safe landing of its space debris and its unwillingness to share trajectory data.
Hey! Just like they didn’t acknowledge covid in September 2019!
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Two-thirds of US debt is held by US entities: banks, insurance companies, municipalities, pension funds, individual retirement accounts, the US government itself. Foreign ownership of US debt is less than a quarter and China, the former largest holder, is gradually reducing its holdings of US Treasuries.
Ten years ago the US debt was about $17 trillion. According to Biden Administration projections it will be $50 trillion ten years from now. If interest rates necessary to sell that amount of debt rise from their recent historic lows, which they almost certainly will, the US could be required to pay trillions of dollars in interest payments alone on that debt annually. That’s out of a yearly national budget which currently stands at $6 trillion. How is that math not alarming?
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Our spirit animal is a cat. We’ll land on our feet? 
Our former spirit animal was the bald eagle. This is our new spirit animal:
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If you guys care so much about running up a huge debt, stop voting for Republicans who seem to be especially reckless in doing so. The Trump administration was terrible in this way.
Now ducks for cover.
Guy
Ah, salvation can be found if everyone votes for Democrats a little harder, recourse from the tyranny of the Republicans, such a pleasant day dream. For what it’s worth the Republican politicians promise all sorts of things on the campaign trail and never deliver on any of their promises, so their supporters are living in a day dream too.
Turns out, the Republican and Democrat supporters have a lot more in common with each other than they do with politician of either party. Be a shame if the people figured that out and stopped arguing over the trivial things.
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