Published on Medium.com Elizabeth Warren has outlined the financing for her Medicare For All proposal:
Ending the Stranglehold of Health Care Costs on American Families
The financing proposal promises to not raise taxes for the middle class “one penny”.
Elizabeth Warren says she would not raise middle class taxes for $52 trillion health care plan
KEY POINTS
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren pledges not to raise middle class taxes to fund her “Medicare for All” plan.
- Her campaign says her plan would cost “just under” the $52 trillion it estimates the current health care system will cost over a decade.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren pledged Friday not to raise middle class taxes to fund her “Medicare for All” plan, responding to pressure she faced as she emerged as one of the frontrunners for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
In a new outline, Warren’s campaign said her single-payer health care plan would cost the country “just under” $52 trillion over a decade, which includes $20.5 trillion in new federal spending. It estimates the proposal would cost just less than the estimated $52 trillion in spending for the current system over 10 years.
The Massachusetts Democrat’s campaign said her plan would give every American “full health coverage, and coverage for long-term care.” It added that it would do so with “not one penny in middle-class tax increases” — a response to criticism from rivals such as South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
Warren’s campaign says it will shift the burden of most health care costs from consumers, in the form of premiums, deductibles and co-pays, to federal and state governments and employers. Here are the methods Warren’s campaign outlines to cover the plan’s costs, in terms of both reducing spending and raising money:
- A new employer Medicare contribution
- Cutting administrative costs by scrapping private insurers
- Negotiations to reduce drug spending
- Better enforcement of existing tax laws to increase revenue
- Taxes on “the financial sector, large corporations and the top 1% of individuals.” Warren appeared to take her proposed wealth tax further under the health care plan, saying billionaires would “pitch in six cents on each dollar of net worth above $1 billion” — or 6%, up from the currently proposed 3%
- Increased tax revenue through immigration reform
- Cutting defense spending
In her article on Medium.com Elizabeth Warren lines out the two choices the American people have:
Option 1: Maintain our current system, which will cost the country $52 trillion over ten years. And under that current system –
- 24 Million people won’t have coverage, and millions can’t get long-term care.
- 63 Million have coverage gaps or substandard coverage that could break down if they actually get sick. And millions who have health insurance will end up going broke at least in part from medical costs anyway.
- Together, the American people will pay $11 trillion of that bill themselves in the form of premiums, deductibles, copays, out-of-network, and other expensive medical equipment and care they pay for out-of-pocket — all while America’s wealthiest individuals and biggest pay far less in taxes than in other major countries.
Option 2: Switch to my approach to Medicare for All, which would cost the country just under $52 trillion over ten years. Under this new system –
- Every person in America — all 331 million people — will have full health coverage, and coverage for long-term care.
- Everybody gets the doctors and the treatments they need, when they need them. No more restrictive provider networks, no more insurance companies denying coverage for prescribed treatments, and no more going broke over medical bills.
- The $11 trillion in household insurance and out-of-pocket expenses projected under our current system goes right back into the pockets of America’s working people. And we make up the difference with targeted spending cuts, new taxes on giant corporations and the richest 1% of Americans, and by cracking down on tax evasion and fraud. Not one penny in middle-class tax increases.