Sanders promises a
significant expansion of Federal spending:
Mr. Sanders hasn’t released a detailed plan, but a similar proposal in Congress, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.), would require $15 trillion in federal spending over 10 years, on top of existing federal health spending, according to an analysis of the plan by Gerald Friedman, an economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Mr. Conyers’s office referred questions about the plan to Mr. Friedman.
Mr. Gunnels, the Sanders aide, said the campaign hasn’t worked out all details on his plan—for instance, his version might allow each state to run its own single-payer system. But he said the $15 trillion figure was a fair estimate.
That is IF the Sanders plan looks in any way like the Conyers plan. We don't know yet because Sanders hasn't released a single payer plan so it hasn't been priced. So far, Sanders has proposed tax increases, exclusively on the wealthy and big businesses, according to his staff of $6.5 trillion over 10 years.
To pay for it, Mr. Sanders, a Vermont independent running for the Democratic nomination, has so far detailed tax increases that could bring in as much as $6.5 trillion over 10 years, according to his staff.
Left unanswered by Sanders campaign staff is how to pass these spending proposals through what is likely to be a Republican Congress. Or what 'plan B' looks like should these proposals fail to get enacted.
As I have written before, there is only one state in the union that has actually enacted a single payer system into law: Bernie Sandes' Vermont. In his home state, completely run by liberal Democrats from end to end, the state government tabled the entire project because of one big problem: the sticker shock of tax and spending increases it would take to make it happen. That's the only example we have so far of the political stakes of the Single Payer proposal.
I'll leave it up to Sanders Campaign and his supporters to make the case that this is politically doable nationally if not in Vermont. Basically $18 trillion worth of new spending, $6.5 trillion in new taxes, and $11.5 trillion in additional deficits. Especially within the context of President Obama's reforms which in contrast are lowering deficits. Who knows, the public may love it. We will soon see.
Mon Sep 14, 2015 at 7:26 PM PT: For those of you wondering about the man behind the study, here he is: Prof. Gerald Friedman. Single Payer is apparently his area of specialty as he is working on plans for Massachusetts and Maryland. He is also a labor economist and a liberal.