Medicare for all sounds good but how will we pay for it?

To The Daily Sun,

Medicare for all; what a great idea! And it really is a great idea. The concerns begin when you start considering how this will be accomplished and the many possible ramifications. As with all legislation, the name will sound like the utopia of every reasonable person’s dream. In far too many instances, the legislation will be supported and voted on based entirely on its name, without any investigation of what is actually in the legislation, how much it will cost, and the potential negative effects of it; it “sounds” good, therefore it must be good. This doesn’t happen? It just did to a state representative in Kentucky who co-signed proposed legislation that would have allowed an abortion to occur in the ninth month. She didn’t read it because the sponsoring representative was her friend.

Some are proposing to enroll millions more into a system that is already going bankrupt, even though they know that today, the estimated cost is $32.6 trillion over 10 years. That number is based on the estimated number of legal citizens of the U.S. These estimated costs do not account for the millions of people in our country who are here illegally who will also be getting this benefit from your tax dollars. They say that won’t happen but they’ve proven that what they say is not true. In Portland, Maine, alone, “more than 90 percent of shelter occupancy is being taken up by asylum-seekers … and according to WSJ, as many as 70 percent of those receiving state general assistance funds are non-citizens — and mostly asylum-seeking non-citizens.” Their own poor Maine citizens are put on a hold list for these places in the shelters and assistance. I thought our first duty was to take care of our own citizens.

The only way to fund this already about-to-go-bankrupt program is to tax the people more. The government has no other way to generate money. Do you believe they are good stewards of our tax dollars now? Many people take Social Security at 62. You can work, but you are limited in the amount you can earn until you reach your actual retirement age. If you exceed that amount, you have to pay the government a penalty. What does that do? You are very careful not to earn over your limit; you are dis-incentivized to work. Taxing the “tippy-top” will eventually dis-incentivize those to stay in the country, to keep their business and money in this country, to earn less so they can stay in a lower tax bracket. As our government continues to take more of our money and spend it even less wisely, we will all be dis-incentivized to achieve all we can lest they swoop in for even a greater share.

Althea Dunscombe

Center Harbor