Peak Stupid

Every time I think that I have seen the ultimate example of the stupidity of which the American people are capable, I find that there are new heights yet to be scaled. The latest is a poll showing that people like the Sanders plan of “Medicare for all,”  but not if it is accompanied by a tax of 2% on gross income.

Just stop a moment and think about the Sanders plan. We presently pay a tax for Medicare; 1.45% which we pay for our entire working careers and which covers us, statistically, only for the last twenty years of our lives. Sanders is offering to extend that to our entire lifetimes, that is by more sixty years, four times the coverage, for only 2% more, an amount which is barely more than double. That is a howling bargain.

Not to mention that the Sanders plan replaces private health insurance. Would you rather pay 6% or more of your income to a private insurance company than pay 2% to the government, merely because the latter is called a “tax”  for God’s sake?

Besides the “peak stupid” of that, I must comment on the endless appetite of the public for government benefits while being totally unwilling to pay for any of them. That is in part stupidity, an ignorant hatred of the word “tax,”  but it is in part due to elements of selfishness and greed in our national culture which are profoundly disturbing to me.