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Quote: kenarman

That wouldn't work. You have the same size pot spread over many more people. All of the people that are on some kind of government support now would get less money. The people that really need the support wouldn't have enough money to live on. So we have to put the bureaucracy back in place to service them and increase their payments. So you mention only adults get cheques, how are families going to support themselves? Too simple a solution Mission.

The first thing is that not everyone would qualify for UBI with what I am suggesting; it would only be for those who income-qualify in terms of earnings to get UBI in the first place. What would the income qualification be? It would probably be along the lines of you would qualify as an individual if you made less than $20,000 annually and the UBI would be something like $12,000/annually. In effect, if you were receiving UBI, then you would have total annual income (including UBI) of $32,000, or less, and the other social safety nets would no longer exist.

The nature of this would encourage people to go out and get jobs, even if those jobs are part-time, because any earned income below $20,000 annually would only be helpful to those people.

I agree that the people who get Government support now would still get less money from the Government with what I am proposing. For the time being, if what we were talking about even had a feasible chance of happening, that would be the goal. It could be adjusted upward later.

Looking at this:

https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/NHE-Fact-Sheet

Quote:

NHE grew 4.6% to $3.8 trillion in 2019, or $11,582 per person, and accounted for 17.7% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Medicare spending grew 6.7% to $799.4 billion in 2019, or 21 percent of total NHE.
Medicaid spending grew 2.9% to $613.5 billion in 2019, or 16 percent of total NHE.
The largest shares of total health spending were sponsored by the federal government (29.0 percent) and the households (28.4 percent). The private business share of health spending accounted for 19.1 percent of total health care spending, state and local governments accounted for 16.1 percent, and other private revenues accounted for 7.5 percent.

Okay, so simply by eliminating Medicare and Medicaid at the Federal level, the Federal Government goes from 29% of NHE to probably something like 4%, because they would still have to take care of Armed Forces, Veterans, Retirees, Employees...etc.

So, that would be $2,895.5 for every person, but many people would not income-qualify to receive UBI. UBI would also apply only to adults.

So, about 74.3% of the population are adults. 2895.5/.743 = $3897.04, per adult, that could go to UBI just by 86'ing Medicare and Medicaid at the Federal level. Others would see a benefit to this, as well, in the form of reduced income tax obligations as this is one of the tax line items.

If we say that only those adults making $20,000, or less, would income qualify for the UBI...then simply cutting Federal Medicare/Medicaid gets us to UBI for such situated people of $12,000/annually easily.

I guess we would have to look at the number of adults in a household, as well. If you had a six-figure income earner and a stay-at-home parent, then the household would not qualify.

Quote: Mission146

The first thing is that not everyone would qualify for UBI with what I am suggesting; it would only be for those who income-qualify in terms of earnings to get UBI in the first place. What would the income qualification be? It would probably be along the lines of you would qualify as an individual if you made less than $20,000 annually and the UBI would be something like $12,000/annually. In effect, if you were receiving UBI, then you would have total annual income (including UBI) of $32,000, or less, and the other social safety nets would no longer exist.

The nature of this would encourage people to go out and get jobs, even if those jobs are part-time, because any earned income below $20,000 annually would only be helpful to those people.

I agree that the people who get Government support now would still get less money from the Government with what I am proposing. For the time being, if what we were talking about even had a feasible chance of happening, that would be the goal. It could be adjusted upward later.

Looking at this:

https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/NHE-Fact-Sheet



Okay, so simply by eliminating Medicare and Medicaid at the Federal level, the Federal Government goes from 29% of NHE to probably something like 4%, because they would still have to take care of Armed Forces, Veterans, Retirees, Employees...etc.

So, that would be $2,895.5 for every person, but many people would not income-qualify to receive UBI. UBI would also apply only to adults.

So, about 74.3% of the population are adults. 2895.5/.743 = $3897.04, per adult, that could go to UBI just by 86'ing Medicare and Medicaid at the Federal level. Others would see a benefit to this, as well, in the form of reduced income tax obligations as this is one of the tax line items.

If we say that only those adults making $20,000, or less, would income qualify for the UBI...then simply cutting Federal Medicare/Medicaid gets us to UBI for such situated people of $12,000/annually easily.

Those stipulations just blew right through your statement on the small overhead. You will still have major medical expenses as $12K doesn't leave any money for any kind of serious medical treatment. It is the end of life serious medical issues that eat through most of the medical expenses. If your plan includes letting people die on the street from lack of medical care then you can cut a lot of those expenses.

Quote: kenarman

Those stipulations just blew right through your statement on the small overhead. You will still have major medical expenses as $12K doesn't leave any money for any kind of serious medical treatment. It is the end of life serious medical issues that eat through most of the medical expenses. If your plan includes letting people die on the street from lack of medical care then you can cut a lot of those expenses.

My plan doesn't specifically include that, but it does include the Federal Government having nothing to say about whether they die or not.

I'm really not sure what logic there is in your highest-level medical expenditures being used on people who are past the point of any productivity.

Quote: Mission146

I'm really not sure what logic there is in your highest-level medical expenditures being used on people who are past the point of any productivity.

I don't necessarily disagree with the nut of that statement but if your parents are still alive let me know if your thoughts have changed on the subject after they are gone.

Quote: Mission146

So, once again, what I am saying is you could theoretically 86 all of these social safety net programs and instead just have UBI. I'm not saying that it's actually doable, especially not in any immediate sense, just that it's theoretically possible.

The difference is you are saying you want to give everyone say $1000 per month. So you must take at least $1000 from everyone. Thus nobody can get anything in net.

Many things are theoretically possible. Fusion energy. Freezing people and bringing them back in 100 years. The Browns winning a Superbowl.....

But then practicality rears its ugly head.

You could means test welfare recipients with a monthly test for malnutrition. If you show signs of malnutrition each month you qualify for more aid. If not, stays the same or goes down.

That's probably something Republicans would actually embrace, and if the testing were cheap enough, they'd probably do it.

Actually a random surprise test would be more effective, and then you could reduce it to quarterly, or even biannually.

Isn't the simple answer is just to remove a percentage of the people collecting benefits and then there would be more benefits for others,

I know it sounds too simple, but I think it is that easy.

Quote: rxwine

You could means test welfare recipients with a monthly test for malnutrition. If you show signs of malnutrition each month you qualify for more aid. If not, stays the same or goes down.

That's probably something Republicans would actually embrace, and if the testing were cheap enough, they'd probably do it.

Actually a random surprise test would be more effective, and then you could reduce it to quarterly, or even biannually.

Why, exactly, do you think Republicans would be in favor of this?

Quote: rxwine

You could means test welfare recipients with a monthly test for malnutrition. If you show signs of malnutrition each month you qualify for more aid. If not, stays the same or goes down.

That's probably something Republicans would actually embrace, and if the testing were cheap enough, they'd probably do it.

Actually a random surprise test would be more effective, and then you could reduce it to quarterly, or even biannually.

Anybody getting it is probably not suffering malnutrition. Once they lose UBI the malnutrition shows up. So people would need to spend all their money on drugs and not on food to get UBI - just like they do now.