The Truth About Universal Health Care

Last year, the US spent $3.2 trillion on health care. The US has roughly 323.1 million residents. That means we spent about $9904.05 per person last year. In 2016, the median household income was $59,039. There are an estimated 2.58 people per household in the US. So, that means that each household spent roughly $25,552.45 on medical expenses last year. So, that means that 43.28% of the median household income was spent on health care. That is an extreme amount. Any one who denies that isn’t paying attention. But we need to take something into account: that $9904.05 per person was not spent entirely out of pocket. Not even close. That is mostly covered by insurance companies and state and federal governments paying for the coverage. In actuality, households only account for 27.7% of spending when it came to health care in 2015. So, if that percentage stayed the same for 2016, we are looking at roughly $7,078.03 per household, or $2,743.42 per person. That means that each household only spent about 11.99% of their total income on health care.

Now, lets look at the overall federal spending on health care currently. In 2015, the federal government was responsible for 28.7% of spending for health care. If that same percentage carried over to 2016, the fed spent $918.4 billion on all forms of health care. With Sanders’ plan, that means the fed would add on an additional $2.282 trillion of health care spending every year. In 2015, the federal budget was $3.8 trillion. So, if the annual budget and annual cost of health care stay the exact some from here on out, that means the fed will be spending $6.082 trillion each year. In 2015, the fed brought in roughly $3.18 trillion in tax revenue. That means that the fed spent $620 billion more than what they brought in.

So, in order to pay for Universal Health Care, we would need to double the tax rate. The current tax rate is about 31.5%. As of 2016, the median personal income was $31,099. At a tax rate of 31.5%, that means the average person only pocketed $21,302.82 annually. So, if we double the tax rate to 63%, that means the average person only pockets $11,506.63 annually.

Now, many will claim that he’ll tax the rich and not the middle class and lower. Well, hate to tell ya, but only 0.49% of the US population makes over $500,000 a year. And any one who makes more than $418,400 is taxed at a 39.6% tax rate which means they would then be taxed at a 79.2% rate. And, by the way, the 1% paid for 45.7% of the tax revenue in 2014. Seriously. Yeah, 1% of the population paid about $1.453 trillion in taxes. Anyone who says the 1% hasn’t been paying their fair share clearly hasn’t looked at the numbers.

So, there it is: a break down of how much we would have to spend to make Universal Health Care a thing. Sanders' plan would double the tax rate of all people or add $22.82 trillion in debt over the next ten years all on its own. Pretty staggering.