How much does your healthcare really cost? How many days must you work each year just to pay for your healthcare? How does this compare to earlier history? How does this compare to the cost of food?

These questions are of great interest as we continue to debate the effectiveness of the Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare. The whole premise for this legislation, that was passed in 2010 by the Democratic Party without a single Republican vote, was to lower the cost of healthcare and provide insurance to those who could not afford it.

Therefore, answering the above questions tells us much about the effectiveness of ObamaCare in achieving its goals.

Chris Conover, Duke University economist, has analyzed the data to answer these questions and provides his insights in a recent Forbes column. He says the latest official statistics show that Americans in 2016 spent $10,348 per person on healthcare.

How many days must you work each year just to pay for your healthcare?

The answer to this first question is the average worker worked 63 days in 2016 just to pay for his/her healthcare.\

How does this compare to earlier history?

This is nine times longer than the average worker worked to pay for healthcare in 1940.

How does working to cover healthcare compare to working to cover food costs?

The average worker must work more than twice as long to cover healthcare as to cover food costs.

Conover explains the average hourly wages used to calculate the above graph is for production and non-supervisory employees in manufacturing. The average hourly wage for these workers is $20.46/hour. Obviously, those who do not earn that much per hour must work even longer to pay for their healthcare. Also, those who must support non-working dependents must work enough hours to pay for the healthcare of those dependents in addition to their own.

Conover also points out that the true expense for most families is hidden. If you only kept track of out-of-pocket spending and the amount deducted from your paycheck to pay for health insurance, you would miss a lot. Out-of-pocket expenses only account for 11 percent of healthcare spending. The employee share of health insurance spending accounts for less than 20 percent.

Only 28 percent of all healthcare spending is paid directly by households. All the rest appears to be paid by others. But Economics 101 tells us that any amount paid by your employer ultimately comes out of your compensation and all taxes are ultimately paid by households.

Historical Trends

There are several reasons for the increased hours needed to pay for healthcare compared to historical norms. They include:

• Medical technology changes – these are more valuable and expensive
• Decline in cost of other necessities – food, clothing, shelter
• Decline in out-of-pocket spending (83% 1940, 11% today) led to increased wasteful spending

ObamaCare has failed to influence this trend, even though that was one of its primary goals. At the present trend, the time costs of paying for healthcare are approximately five times that of paying for food. With the inflation of healthcare costs, workers are spending one extra day per year working to pay for their healthcare. This trend cannot continue forever. When it will stop depends on how long the American people are willing to put up with ObamaCare.

Republicans have put more money in the pockets of all taxpayers just in time for Christmas – but hardly anyone realizes it.

Republicans have just passed the largest tax cut in the last 31 years, since the Reagan Tax Cuts of 1986, but Democrats and the media have conspired to confuse the public about what just happened. I can’t think of anyone who would object to having more money in their paycheck if they really understood.

But the Democratic Party of obstruction and misinformation, with much help from their co-conspirators in the mainstream media, have successfully distorted the truth. They are the Grinch that stole Christmas.

According to a CNN poll, 55% of Americans oppose the GOP tax reform plan and only 33% favor it. Other polls show only 17% of Americans think they will get a tax cut in the new bill when the actual number is 80%. The truth will come in the form of more take-home money in their February paychecks.

My hometown newspaper, The Orlando Sentinel, led with a headline that said TRUMP TRIUMPHS ON TAXES – CORPORATIONS, WEALTHY BENEFIT MOST. Yes, corporations got the largest tax cut of anyone, from a world-leading 35% down to a below average 21%. But anyone who has studied Economics 101 will understand that when U.S. corporations have to pay more taxes than anyone else in their competitive world, the real losers are the Americans who work for these companies. A large tax cut for corporations that makes them more competitive in the world will result in more American jobs at better wages – and that’s good for all Americans.

The Democrats are trying to spin this GOP victory by claiming corporations would pocket their tax cuts rather than invest in their workers. The media happily is promoting this myth. Here’s the actual response from the corporate world within hours of passage of the bill:

• AT&T will increase its U.S. investments next year by $1 Billion plus pay $1000 bonuses to 200,000 employees
• Comcast pledged $1000 bonuses to 100,000 employees and will invest $50 Billion over the next five years
• Wells Fargo and Fifth Third Bancorp pledged to increase theier minimum wage to $15 per hour; Fifth Third will pay $1000 bonuses to 3000 workers
• Nexus Services is giving a 5% pay raise to its employees and hiring 200 more

Who pays the current taxes?

The top income tax rate of 39.5% was lowered to 37%. The top 1 percent of taxpayers are currently paying 40% of all income taxes. The top half of taxpayers pay 97.3% of all taxes. The bottom half pays 2.7% of all taxes. The below graphic shows these numbers in a dramatic fashion.

Therefore, it’s pretty difficult to give a tax cut to those who aren’t paying taxes. Yet, even though the bottom half pays almost no taxes at all, 80% of Americans will see more money in their paychecks this February. Even the liberal Tax Policy Center had to acknowledge that 90% of the middle class will get a tax cut in 2018 that averages $1600. In fact, many families that don’t pay taxes at all will be receiving money from the government for the refundable tax credits that have been increased from $1000 to $2000 per child.

Perhaps the most alarming “fake news” being promoted by the media is the impact this legislation will have on healthcare insurance. The Associated Press report in The Orlando Sentinel says the tax bill “triggers the loss of health care coverage for millions.” This blatant distortion of the truth is referring to the repeal of the Individual Mandate of ObamaCare, which was attached to the tax bill.

The Individual Mandate of ObamaCare forced all Americans to purchase healthcare insurance, whether they wanted it or not, or pay a tax to the federal government. In other words, the government coerced millions of Americans into purchasing a product they may or may not want or be punished by the assessment of a tax.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that about 13 million Americans will choose not to purchase this healthcare insurance once the tax penalty is eliminated. (That should tell you how much people value this healthcare insurance.) This voluntary elimination of their healthcare coverage is what the AP is referring to when it claims the tax bill will “trigger” the loss of health care coverage. All of those people will still be able to purchase healthcare insurance with the same subsidies that were available before – they just won’t be taxed if they choose not to purchase the insurance instead. Those who choose not to purchase the health insurance will save the cost of the insurance plus avoid the previous tax that could be up to as much as $2000 per year.

This scandalous misrepresentation of the truth by our mainstream media threatens our democracy today. In order for democracy to survive, we must have a free and independent media – which we have. But that media also must be unbiased and report the truth without a political agenda. Otherwise the people remain uninformed or misinformed – either way of which is unacceptable.

(For more on this subject see earlier posts in Archives: Demagoguery in the Tax Reform Debate, The Individual Mandate – Worst Tax Ever?, Killing ObamaCare Mandate Would Lower Taxes)

How long do you want to wait to see the doctor? That’s the real question to ask when you consider single-payer healthcare like Canada.

Single Payer Healthcare

It’s no secret that Democrats want to bring you single-payer healthcare to replace the current ObamaCare disaster. Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders made it the focus of his campaign. He likes to call it “Medicare For All” and has introduced a bill in the Senate by the same name.

I’ve been opposed to this idea for quite some time since I researched my book, The ObamaCare Reality, which was published in 2015. There is plenty of historical evidence that every country where this system has been tried has resulted in long waiting times for healthcare. This includes Great Britain, Sweden, and our neighbor to the north, Canada.

Fraser Institute Report

The Fraser Institute is a leading public policy think tank in Canada. Their most recent report entitled, Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada, documents the 2017 status of Canadian waiting times.

According to The Wall Street Journal editorial board, the Fraser Institute surveyed physicians in 12 specialties across 10 provinces and found, “a median waiting time of 21.2 weeks between referral from a general practitioner and receipt of treatment.” This is actually worse than 2016 when wait times were 20 weeks. So the problem is getting worse. The Fraser Institute has been doing this survey since 1993 and the wait times now are 128% longer than their first survey.

The wait to see a specialist for a consultation is now 177% longer than in 1993, while the wait from consultation to treatment is 95% longer than in 1993. The shortest waits are in radiology and oncology. The longest waits are for orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, and ophthalmology.

Stop and think about that. You go to your primary care physician – a general practitioner (not an internist) and you’re referred to a specialist. You must wait over five months before you get to see that specialist!

Of course there are negative consequences of such long waits. Author Bacchus Barua says the negative consequences can include “increased pain, suffering, and mental anguish” and sometimes “poorer outcomes – transforming potentially reversible illnesses or injuries into chronic, irreversible conditions, or even permanent disabilities. In many instances, patients may also have to forgo wages while they await treatment.”

Waiting times for diagnostic testing are also long. The report says, “This year, Canadians could expect to wait 4.1 weeks for a computed tomography (CT) scan, 10.8 weeks for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and 3.9 weeks for an ultrasound.”

Apparently it does matter where you live. The shortest wait times are in the province of Ontario and the longest are in Manitoba. While wait times decreased slightly in Ontario, Newfoundland, and Labrador, they increased nationwide on average due to appalling delays in provinces like New Brunswick where the median wait from general practitioner to treatment is 41.7 weeks!

The Canadian government is aware of these long waiting times and has even given in to paying private physicians to provide healthcare outside the system to alleviate the extreme delays. The same has happened in Great Britain and Sweden due to the unacceptably long waits. Yet this Fraser report shows the situation is getting worse.

The WSJ says the basic law of economics that scarce resources must be rationed by price or by time applies here. The impact on Canadians is clear from the report: “Ottawa’s decision to mandate a single-payer system in 1984 has consigned ailing Canadians to queues. Some 1,041,000 patients are in line waiting for treatment, a 6.9% increase in 2017.”

Canadians have responded by increasingly traveling to get their care in other countries. Nearly 63,500 Canadians went abroad last year for their care. We must make sure that never is necessary for Americans. We must stop single-payer healthcare in the U.S. before it ever happens.

(For more on single-payer systems, see my Archives.)