Name:   MartiniMan - Subject:   Bingo! Date:   7/31/2018 5:02:05 PM

We are already running huge deficits despite record revenues, even after the most recent tax bill was passed (and most likely because of it as always happens).  And 75% of those expenditures are for entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  If you had Medicare for all, deficits would increase tremendously and $6.2T of the total $7.2T Federal budget would now be entitlement programs (or 83% of our annual budget).  And these are costs that cannot be touched because of political considerations.  So now our Federal budget is about 21% of annual GDP.  Since GDP will not go up (and would likely go down if we raised taxes to pay for this crazy idea), if we implemented Medicare for all it our Federal budget would repesent almost 38% of GDP.  This is very European, the difference being that they do not pay for their defense against threats like Russia, we do.

As we have seen with states that flirted with the idea of Medicare for all, the costs are simply too high.  The difference is that states only have two sources of funding, taxes and debt.  They realized the absolute folly of this and always step back from the brink.  But not so with the Federal govt.  It can simply print money which of course has all sorts of negative consequences, not the least of which is what it would do to our children and grandchildren.  Just look at countries like Greece and Italy if you want to see the disaster that is.  So its either print money and risk hyperinflation or increase the deficit which at some point the piper must be paid.  The alternative is to abandon this deeply flawed and incredibly stupid idea that only appeals to the economically illiterate and implement sensible reforms, which includes the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.  Whether that can get done in the current political environment is anyone's guess.