We have lost our ability to think?

We have lost our ability to think?

The Seattle Times publishes an opinion column advocating Medicare for All.
The column gives quotes of insurance prices with and without Medicare (the author of the column is now on Medicare) and says, see, Medicare costs so much less why can’t we do this for everyone?
Incredibly she left out that she has spent her entire working life subsidizing Medicare by paying Medicare payroll taxes.  She fails to recognize the accumulated Medicare fund is subsidizing those lower prices (a fund that runs out of money in about 2024). The Medicare tax is 1.45% (employer) + 1.45% (employee) or 2.9%, plus 0.9% for certain high wage earners, yielding a maximum 3.8% Medicare tax on wages.
From the hundreds of comments to the column, no one noticed this error. Of course Medicare costs less when you leave out decades of payroll taxes. Duh. Have we lost our ability to think?
Further, as well documented, Medicare is the big kid on the block who pays providers less than anyone else, who in turn, make it up by charging everyone else more.
There may or may not be good reasons for “Medicare for All” (I can think of both advantages and disadvantages) but this column takes a prize for cherry picking idiocy in propaganda messaging. Sadly, the Seattle Times lacks sufficient adult supervision to catch this error: where were the “layers and layers” of editors and fact checkers?
With such a whopper of an error, this column appears to be propaganda messaging by the Seattle Times. By cherry picking, they have created a false argument to favor Medicare for All. The error seems obvious, but then, they are getting away with this as no one seems to see the problem! See how easy it is for propaganda – even blatantly false messaging – to sway public opinion?
Source: Medicare for All: Health care is a right, not a privilege | The Seattle Times

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