Judy Atkins, chair, FCCPR Single Payer Healthcare Task Force, presented the following remarks at the Tax Day Rally, Greenfield, on April 14, 2018
What has health care to do with taxes?
Just think of what a great health care system we could have if the budget was not constrained by the billions spent on the military budget and all the interventionist wars and bombings that are going on.
Currently we do pay for a lot of our health care with our taxes.
And this is overwhelmingly a good thing.
Think of medicare payroll tax, and the medicaid program that provides good medical coverage for those that qualify by income.
Also military personnel get very good medical care for no out of pocket expenses to them.
That leaves the rest of the working population and the self employed with not very good and very expensive health insurance coverage with large out of pocket expenses, And these expenses have been increasing since the employers got the idea they could shift the cost of health insurance bit by bit to their workers.
Well, Why not change the system so that all of us get the same medical care coverage? And why are working people singled out as those who don’t get quality affordable health care?
This is a really good question to ask ourselves.
Yes we would pay for it with taxes. Under the Medicare for All bill instead of paying insurance premiums and co-pays and deductibles you would pay a 2.5% payroll tax or income tax if self-employed.
Health Care is a tax question – how do you want your tax money spent? This is a democracy and we need to spend our federal dollars where they will do the most good
Single Payer Health Care. Everyone In, No one out!