Why does the wonk class have such an attachment to means-testing and sliding scales? What if I told you, we already have a proven technology for getting people to pay for public services in proportion to their income. It's called the progressive income tax. Why not just use that?
And if we just pay for stuff with the income tax, then get this: Peope only have to document their income once a year. Instead of every time they go to the dentist, enroll in a college class, or drop off their kid at daycare.
It's like the people who design these programs have never consdiered what establishing eligibility means in practice - the wasted time, the uncertainty, the inevitable errors.
They haven't even considered how each time you add a phase out range to a benefit, or a cap of x% of income to the cost of your public option, you've effectively added another incremental tax on lower and middle incomes.
They also haven't considered that income isn't just a number in a spreadsheet, it's a complex social relationship that is hard to even define when people are transitioning between households - at the beginning of adulthood, in divorce, etc.
Even if you stipulate that raising progressive taxes or borrowing more is impossible - which I don't for a second believe - a single VAT or payroll tax would still be better than this nickel-and-diming people at every point of contact with the public sector.
