[Winona Online Democracy]
Well I did a little searching for some figures regarding government
healthcare spending:
for FY 03-04 (in billions)
Medicare: 274.9
Medicaid: 248.5
Spending on the Iraq War was 5 billion per month or 60 billion in 2004 and
5.9 and 70.8 in 2005 respectively.
The total "National Defense" budget request for 06 was 442 billion.
So these figures tell us that the federal government spends around 500
billion on medical care for the poor, disabled and elderly and wants to
spend around 450 billion on national defense. It actually surprizes me that
the costs of the IRAQ War are so small in comparison.
Another chart I found indicated percentages of US spending were:
National Defense: 20%
Medicare: 12%
Medicaid: 10%
Social Security: 20%
The total expenditures in 2005 were 2472 billion.
The percentages of revenues by category in 2005 were:
Social Insurance and Retirement : 37%
Individual Income Taxes: 44%
Corporate Income Taxes: 12%
Excise Taxes: 3%
Other: 4% (estate and gift taxes, customs duties, and misc)
So if we look at the cost of social security and medicare taking 32% of the
budget and social insurance and retirement (basically FICA) receipts
providing 37% of the budget, I see that social security is paying for
itself.
So if we compare the healthcare "welfare" of medicaid (10% of the spending)
to the national defense "warfare" of (20% of the spending) the ratio is $2
on defense to every $1 in health care for the poor, elderly and disabled
(medicaid is the back up for whatever medicare doesn't cover for those
eligible for medicare and too poor to purchase supplemental
insurance--that's a lot of people's grandmas or grandpas or severely
brain-injured or developmentally disabled loved ones!). I also don't know
how much of the medicaid dollars are for nursing home care for poor elderly,
but given our aging demographics, I'm thinking it would be a fairly large
chunk!)
I'm not much of an economist, so looking at things like GDP don't have a lot
of meaning to me. Looking at percentages as I've discovered does tell me
that government spending on health care is a substantial amount.
Interestingly, over half of the medical spending is in Medicare which is
paid for by the social insurance (FICA) revenues. The 10% not covered by
those designated revenues (the medicaid portion) must come out of the funds
generated by our individual and corporate income taxes (for the most part).
Just one more piece of data and then I'll stop. Compared to 1955 the
percentage of US revenues coming from individuals (44%) was the same in
2005. In 1955 corporate income taxes made up 27% of the total revenues
compared to 11% in 2005. The ratio of individual to corporate dollars to
fund our Fed Budget was 4 to 2.5 in 1955. In 2005 it was $4 from individuals
to every $1 from corporations. Hmm.
Kathy Seifert
Sources:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/
http://nationalpriorities.org/
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathy Seifert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 2:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Winona] re: Mandatory Health Care
I wonder what the amount spent on health care for the poor compares to the
amount spent on the war last year?
Those figures would be quite telling--I'll see what I can do to find some
for us!
Kathy Seifert
_______________________________________________
This message was posted to Winona Online Democracy
All messages must be signed by the senders actual name.
No commercial solicitations are allowed on this list.
To manage your subscription or view the message archives, please visit
http://mapnp.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/winona
Any problems or suggestions can be directed to
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
If you want help on how to contact elected officials, go to the Contact page at
http://www.winonaonlinedemocracy.org
