> UBI is a fine idea, but proponents are awfully short on specifics. It would be very nice if people would cite a particular scheme or gameplan they consider to be credible when they mention the topic.

Social Security and Medicare expanded to everyone, regardless of age.

No handwaving, that's the general idea. The devil is in the details, and there are many details to work out.

Of course I know what the idea is. I'm saying that UBI proponents need to say 'it'll cost X, we'll save Y by slashing all this bureaucracy, the rest will come from Z,' as well as some sort of strategy to shepherd it through the political process, figure how it will mesh with immigration policy, and so on.

What I'm complaining about is that hardly anyone seems to be making a serious effort to fill out those details, and if proponents of the idea can't even point to a detailed proposal for how to implement it over a reasonable timeframe, how do you expect to convince people to sign on to it? 'Let's elect politicians who support it and then work out the details once they're in office' has not IMHO worked out very well historically.

I'm not saying you have to come up with the whole plan or type it out every time the subject comes up, f course! But I wish you could point me to who you think has something resembling an actionable plan.

I've run some numbers in the past, though I don't have them in front of me anymore. While of course they should be taken with a rather large grain of salt, providing $6-9k/yr to every American doesn't seem to produce crazy numbers. It's also an amount that's low enough that we're not likely to see crazy numbers of people opting out of the workforce, while high enough to increase the bargaining power of workers a bit. If I had to pick an optimal level of UBI to institute nationwide (which in some senses must exist), I would guess it to be around there.

That said, recently I've been thinking of a different approach. Concerns about scale (and migration) are smaller if we start with a smaller amount. I've been thinking an approach might be creation of a private institution tasked with designing and coordinating a basic income program for regions (probably at the city or county level, in the US) that opt in and who meet whatever necessary standards. The program would then apply to anyone who lives or works in a participating locality. The program could then be gradually rolled out and scaled up as (/if) it's found to work. National benefits can be phased out by treating BI income as income. One thing that makes this plan seem more workable is that the organization could raise money from supportive individuals to build a buffer for the program, to serve as something of a carrot for prospective localities.

> Social Security and Medicare expanded to everyone, regardless of age.

That's an idea, but its not the idea of UBI. Medicare is a complex health insurance system consisting both of government provided and government-subsidized-private health insurance, it isn't anything like UBI.

Social Security is, aside from age or disability test to withdraw from it, a system with benefits governed by your (or your spouse's) past contributions, as such its also (even ignoring the age/disability part) very much not like UBI.

> That's an idea, but its not the idea of UBI. Medicare is a complex health insurance system consisting both of government provided and government-subsidized-private health insurance, it isn't anything like UBI.

Single-payer healthcare removes a HUGE problem with providing basic income. I don't see how providing universal healthcare interferes with UBI.

> Social Security is, aside from age or disability test to withdraw from it, a system with benefits governed by your (or your spouss) past contributions, its also (even ignoring the age/disability part) very much not like UBI.

And.....? The SSA is already extremely efficient at distributing funds. Allow them to issue no-fee debit cards they issue, remove age/disability testing, ignore contributions, and then get funding from the general fund.

I'm not saying its easy. I'm saying its how you eat an elephant: one bite at a time.

> Single-payer healthcare removes a HUGE problem with providing basic income.

Whether or not that's the case, single-payer healthcare is a different idea from UBI, not a component of UBI (and, indeed, something that conservative supporters of UBI -- of which there are quite a few -- are more likely to see UBI as an alternative to rather than to see as part of UBI.)

> > Social Security is, aside from age or disability test to withdraw from it, a system with benefits governed by your (or your spouse's) past contributions, its also (even ignoring the age/disability part) very much not like UBI.

> And.....?

And so your claim that the idea of UBI is Social Security and Medicare for everyone regardless of age is simply grossly inaccurate.

You seem to be objecting to an attempt at defining UBI. I'd interpreted the context as "give me a proposal for how to do UBI", in which case "Social Security and Medicare for everyone" does seem an attempt at such a proposal. The proposal is substantially incomplete, as the question certainly arises of how to calculate social security benefits for those who haven't worked long enough to qualify under existing rules... but with certain answers to that question, it would be implementing a UBI system (along with other stuff as well).

Fair enough. It's certainly, at least, a place to start a discussion of the mechanics.