Works for Canada and everyone else. Would you rather they went without?
Strawman. I'm saying that universal health care that is provided to all citizens (without regard to what they paid, employment status, etc) is more similar to what we know as Medicaid than Medicare. That is all. We're not talking about Canada. But, since you did: Canada's health insurance system is paid for from their general fund (like US Medicaid, US Medicare is not). The Canadian system is administered by the provinces, not the Canadian government. (In the US, Medicaid is administered by the states, Medicare is administered by the federal government). And, most importantly, getting covered in Canada is totally disconnected from whether or not you've ever worked (like US Medicaid, not like US Medicare). So, if you want something like Canada's system here in the US, just call it "Medicaid for all" rather than "Medicare for all." I can't see why anyone would object to that.
Removing services from people in years when they don't have sufficient income, and may be in greatest need of those services strikes me as being less than optimal.
Sure, but I'n not sure it is responsive to the point I made ("Medicare for all" vs "Medicaid for all").
Medicare is funded with payroll taxes, not federal income tax.
True, and that's part of my point. (Well, kinda true. It's supposed to be funded by payroll taxes, but it has been running in the red since 2009. It's being funded by repayment of the built-up IOUs from the surplus years). But, yes, Medicare eligibility is linked to employment, which is why ShokWaveRider's plan for insurance not linked to employment is more like Medicaid.
And a heck of lot more than 45% of the people pay the payroll taxes.
Maybe more, but if so it isn't
many more. The BLS says the "
employment to population ratio" is
59%. The definition of "
employed person" for this purpose is pretty liberal, and clearly all the people included don't pay payroll taxes: It includes:
Persons 16 years and over in the civilian noninstitutional population who, during the reference week, (a) did any work at all (at least 1 hour) as paid employees; worked in their own business, profession, or on their own farm, or worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers in an enterprise operated by a member of the family; and (b) all those who were not working but who had jobs or businesses from which they were temporarily absent . . .
Now, those 15 and under account for about 21% of the US population. If we know (from above) that 59% of the remaining 79% are "employed", that means (.59 x .79 = .466) 47% of Americans are employed (and presumably paying payroll taxes--though the number is certainly lower due to the definition of "employment" we are using).
If we think of all the old folks who don't pay payroll taxes anymore but still pay income taxes, it's not very clear that more people, overall, are paying payroll taxes than paying FIT. For general discussion, the numbers are probably very close: in each case (FIT and payroll taxes), about 1/2 of the population at any particular time is paying the tax.