Thread by @jdcmedlock

This would be very worth doing, but we'd be better off replacing the Gross Receipts Taxes with a VAT

https://twitter.com/JeremyBWhite/status/1479144297878278144

GRTs are just not ideal. The exemption would encourage firms contort themselves to stay below $2 million, while the tax itself would encourage excessive vertical integration, creating a weird bias against medium sized firms for no real reason

https://twitter.com/jdcmedlock/status/1318400983349690374

In an ideal world, it'd be nice if we had a federally administered VAT that states and municipalities could piggy back on the infrastructure of, so if you want to do state single payer, just have the feds bump up the VAT in that area and transfer the extra revenue to them

Given political constraints though, it'd be worth trying to do more employer side payroll taxes that mimic the cost of private health insurance. Or even just an Employer Medicaid Buy In - you could kill a ton of private insurance pretty quick that way

Also - the key to getting state single payer done is juicing the federal government for as much subsidy money as possible. First step should be a plan like this to maximize ACA subsidies. We could double the amount of federal money coming in without taxes peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/04/13/a-s…

Then the second step is getting a waiver to redirect this larger pile of money into single payer. And make sure that employer tax/premium contributions to single payer qualify for equivalent treatment as the federal tax exclusion for private employer sponsored insurance

Private insurance has a ton of built in systematic advantages despite being worse on the merits, so finding ways of leveling the playing field and minimizing new taxes needed will be the most important thing. Probably not something you achieve in one fell swoop