Politics Done Right to skeptical caller: This is how we pay for Medicare for All

I am doing a lot of my radio/media programs on Medicare for All. Why? Because the entities that profit the most from our dysfunctional healthcare system have infiltrated media and everywhere else to scare and mislead us. I feel a duty to use whatever platform on which I have access to speak truth to our citizens to ensure once and for all, we get the healthcare to which we have a right.

Recently, a listener to Politics Done Right (PDR) called the show. She said she agreed that we must have Medicare for All. She had a realistic concern based on the narrative that is out there about cost. How will we pay for it?

Listener skeptical about paying for Medicare for All called PDR

I explained to the caller that the money is there. First of all, every American who can have skin in the game, will however little. Most importantly we can pay for healthcare with more equitable taxation.

Currently, every American indirectly through rent or directly from owning a home and/or a car pays wealth taxes. Our wealth takes various forms, real estate property, stocks, bonds, etc. A small percentage of Americans own most of the wealth in this country.

The rich get a huge implicit welfare check when their assets held in forms they’ve paid politicians to remain un-taxed or under-taxed. That is yet another reason why the wealth disparity is ever expanding. They get preferential treatment as they extract more from all.

For those who believe it is about wealth envy, one would have to first have a modicum of respect for the manner in which the super wealthy amassed their fortune. Anyone who wishes understand real economics and not what they teach in business schools would immediately understand that the wealth of most of the super rich is made on the backs of others.

Their wealth is the money they decided not to pay their employees or those really working for them to accumulate said riches. It is for that reason it should be taxed at a higher rate than the common person’s earned wages. Unearned capital gains and income does not warrant preferential tax treatment.

So again, is the money there? Yes and a lot more to do all of the things we need to do to fix infrastructure, education, and more. In a subsequent blog, I will discuss how extraction by the rich and the hoarding of unearned capital is robbing most of what the Constitution demands; “promote the general Welfare.”