The combination of UBI and universal health care would mean that combating a pandemic would be much easier than it currently is. Everyone stays at home and self isolates for 2 weeks. Curve flattened. Bills payed.
Ah well, it's a pity the side effects apparently include some McCarthyist caricature of communism /s
Health care is a good litmus test for UBI in the US. There's reasonably broad support for access/universal coverage but no will to pay for it (people in office are probably more opposed to it than voters).
That’s the “idea”, but there’s no way this would be the end result.
You’ll find the odd case of someone who instead of paying their health insurance decided to gamble their income or spent it on drugs. If UBI truly replaces public health, these people won’t have health services. There’s a snowballs chance in hell that you’ll be able to sell this politically in the EU.
The idea of UBI originated specifically to cut social programs and their associated administrative overhead. The idea being that it's more efficient to just write everyone a check that will cover necessities than it is to have various departments providing different parts of what people need on a means-tested basis. The problem with that is if the UBI doesn't actually pay out enough for someone to be able to afford everything they need. Healthcare seems like the biggest variable here though, and if we had a sufficient UBI + universal health coverage, I don't think there would be many, if any, remaining social programs that couldn't be eliminated.
I think UBI is a step too far. What we really need (in my opinion, obviously) is dramatic restructuring of the healthcare system. There is absolutely no reason that the single largest expense in my life should be insuring against the possibility that my family catches some terrible illness.
Healthcare costs are a problem because they can often be unpredictable and catastrophic. A UBI wouldn't fix that; you still need either an insurance or a single-payer system of some sort. The short version is that you're going to end up with risk pooling of some description either way.
Where the appeal comes for the right is that a UBI would let you eliminate our patchwork of other social assistance programs and all the headache, cost, and inefficiency of their associated bureaucracy.
The basic pitch isn't actually all that different from the flat tax ideas that are popular in conservative circles with the distinction that a UBI would disproportionately affect the wealthy rather than the poor.
We do not live in some Vulcan dystopia. The idea of essentially telling people, who are currently alive, "Yes, we can keep you alive, but by letting you die, there is some probability (which we don't really know and are just guessing at) that we can use the saved money to prevent 1.2 deaths" strikes me as the plot of a horror science fiction movie.
I am all for UBI, but like another poster said I don't think it works without universal health care if you get rid of all the other current transfer payments. It seems the author of the article agrees, but I don't see how the 3K for insurance makes the numbers add up.
Absolute poverty would be eliminated, and we would no longer motivate people through the fear of not being able to eat.
This is just UBI with a new branding platform, basically. There are tried and true solutions that have an established track record of working, such as universal basic health coverage. It would make more sense for the US to implement those things first, rather than try something experimental.
U.S. health care spending grew 5.8 percent in 2015, reaching $3.2 trillion or $9,990 per person. As a share of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, health spending accounted for 17.8 percent. *
There you go. The $10k per person that is so often bandied about for UBI, and it would do more for the neediest automatically. People with serious health problems would get more out of the system without having incentives to try to game the system or milk it.
UBI would be less successful, or, I can see it run into problems, if it were to replace medical care, for example. There would be those who would forgo the checkups in order that they might have more money for something less critical. I would lean heavily toward separating those to avoid that hazard.
My take would be Medical, basic education [k-12], would be provided by the state and the rest, immediate things people can't skimp on [housing, food, clothing, etc.] could be covered by UBI
Universal healthcare is a prerequisite for UBI. How could you ever rely on it if you have the threat of a six figure hospital bill whenever you get sick or have an accident? Affordable housing is also a prerequisite or the UBI money will go straight into the pockets of landlords (I often suspect this is the secret plan of billionaires who propose UBI).
When I look at the US and see how difficult it is to get universal health care I don't think that UBI has a chance. The people in power would rather see people starve on the streets.
Whilst the detractors of UBI like to paint it as automatically impossible, like breaking some fundamental law of nature, I bet the same people would have said the same things about the Covid benefit schemes. In my country people could be furloughed by their employer on 80% of their salary... and somehow we paid for it ok.
UBI essentially occurs for everyone in the United States at age 67. It is called Social Security. "Works" has not been defined in this article, and I'm not sure by reading it I understand what that means. If it were implemented for the population at large, this would drive commodities, and housing prices up. Also, with no limits on its use, drug use would most likely increase, as would crime. This would also incentivize further immigration problems. As other programs with good intentions, this would quickly spiral out of control. Approximately $1.7 trillion dollars of our deficit is spent on Medicare/Medicaid.
That is more than a third of the total revenue of the United States. I do not see how UBI or GBI would benefit anyone other than those unwilling to work.
There are two books I would recommend people read. The first is Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change by Martin Wolf, and the second The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism by Bowles. Both go into detail the problems we are facing. The first book was a text book one of my kids had for their economics course. I decided to read it out of curiosity. It changed my view on several key issues.
Futhermore, the UBI experiment in Finland failed. Every notable economist agreed, Finland's own report showed it was a failure. They noted not only the economic failure, but also the social failure, with their populous overwhelmingly feeling there was an unfairness in the system.
Let me tell you how Medicaid/Medicare is being abused. You might find I'm cruel, or I don't love my mother. But here are the facts. My mother went on Medicare in 2007. She had two different cancers. Medicare picked up the tab up for both. Treatment for each one was well over $1 million dollars. She then had both knees replaced, both hips replaced for a total of almost $450,000.
Then COVID came. She refused to get vaccinated. She was placed in ICU for 60 days on a ventilator. Furthermore, she had a heart attack, and her stomach ruptured while on the ventilator. How she survived is beyond me. The total bill picked up by medicare was well over a million. She viewed it as her right. She is a Woodstock hippie, everything had to be natural, and kept those beliefs until she was old enough to get on Medicare.
I don't think we understand what we're doing when we allow this kind of gross spending and how it works in our political system. For me, if I require millions of dollars to keep me alive, let me die. I don't want those costs passed onto my children and the next generation. If I'm so poor I need UBI, I would hope, I would do something not to cause others to be inconvenienced and work.
Be careful of the government programs you want. The people you think won't abuse them, will absolutely abuse them. I feel UBI would be disastrous, but would be abused and further corruption in our country.
Ah well, it's a pity the side effects apparently include some McCarthyist caricature of communism /s
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