We don’t really know yet how much taxpayers will have to cough up for Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to fulfill their promise to get every American covered with health insurance. But it’s possible to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations.
And it appears, well, let’s just say it won’t be cheap.
Both candidates say they would let the uninsured (anyone, actually) join the program that covers some 8 million federal employees and retirees and their dependents—or something similar— known as the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP).
While lots of private sector health insurers offer coverage under the FEHBP, one of the most popular is the Blue Cross Blue Shield “Standard Family” plan, which costs $1,028 a month, or $12,336 for this year.
A family in that Blue Cross policy will pay $314 a month out of pocket for its premiums, while taxpayers subsidize the remaining $714 a month, about 70 percent.
Since this FEHBP policy is exactly the kind of coverage that Clinton and Obama have been talking about, it’s fair to assume their plans will cost about $1,000 a month per uninsured family, with taxpayers picking up about 70 percent of that amount.
For individuals the premium is about $450 a month, or $5,400 a year.
So of the 47 million uninsured, let’s estimate that 17 million of them are singles and the other 30 million are in 3-person families, or 10 million families.
That’s about $84 billion for the families (10 million x $8,400 per family) and $64.3 billion for the individuals (17 million x $3,780), or about $148 billion A YEAR.
But wait, that’s not all. These calculations assume the taxpayers are picking up about 70 percent of the premium. Both candidates have said low-income people—and most of the uninsured are lower-income—would get a bigger subsidy.
Oh, and don’t forget the “crowd-out effect.” That’s the people who say, “Why the heck am I being responsible and paying these premiums myself when the government (i.e., taxpayers) will pay it?”
Recent estimates of the number of people who drop their own coverage to jump into a government plan? Between 50 and 60 percent.
You do the math.