Fri 6th Mar 2015
Medicare levy bad way to pay for health
Published in Age on Friday, March 6, 2015
Whilst the suggestion that the Medicare levy should be increased to fund more spending on Medicare is better than charging co-payments it still hits low income workers more than the rich (Increase the levy but don’t mess with Medicare”, Editorial 5/3). Whilst is progressive in the sense that the more one earns, the more one pays, it remains a flat percentage of income. That is regressive. Two percent of $300,000 means much less than 2% of $30,000 because of the enormous discretionary income for someone on $300,000. That’s why we have tax brackets, to make income tax more progressive.
Medicare is expensive. But it is sustainable if the money currently spent was spent more efficiently. There are many suggestions as to how to make it more efficient which the Federal Government has so far largely ignored. We could for example pay world market prices for prescription drugs rather than paying ten times the market price as we do for cholesterol lowering, the statins. That could save $1 billion per year.
If more money is needed why not just get it from general taxes or all the tax evaders?
Tim Woodruff
vice president