Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Sanders Says Medicare for All Would Provide "Quality Care" During Pandemic [View all]The Magistrate
(96,043 posts)Partisans press all kinds of tricks.
One is treating multi-year projections as if they were start-up costs, or single year expenditures. Health care, as an example, runs close to a sixth of gross domestic product, if recollection serves. Which means total expenditures would run to something on the order of thirty trillions over a decade, assuming no further rise in proportion, which on past performance does not seem likely. Thus statements some new program might cost thirty trillions, if couched in a manner which does not make clear this is a decade's worth of projected spending, or that this is about the costs to be expected under the present system over the same time, conveys an exaggerated perception of the cost. An allied fudge is whether figures for a decade's expected expenditures are given in constant dollars or face value dollars including a projection of future inflation. All this is good enough for agitprop work against a program or person one opposes, but is not quite square shooting, either, and not appropriate en familia with one's fellows. On crude calculation at present the 'average family of four' could be said to be paying four thousand at least in premiums as matters stand now, without getting into the weeds of deductibles and such, which doubtless raise the costs borne by such a statistical fiction even further.
I agree running such things by a neutral civil service could be of benefit, though of course, as reality has a distinct liberal bias, results of this that to us were clearly honest and reasonable, doubtless would strike many as wildly out of whack. Enough people by now do not accept that neutral, objective analysis exists anywhere at all....
"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden