[Winona Online Democracy] Now that was some good digging right there! Thanks for the numbers and the time it must have taken. :)
Tania M. Schmidt -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kathy Seifert Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2006 1:50 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Winona] re: Mandatory Health Care [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 _______________________________________________ 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
