Elizabeth Warren Doesn't Really Have a Plan to Pay for Medicare for All

Reason ^ | November 12, 2019 | Peter Suderman

[karpov]

Late last month, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) was under increasing pressure to explain how she would pay for Medicare for All, the single-payer health care system she supports, The Washington Post reported that the presidential hopeful was working with liberal economists to put together a financing plan.

This was a challenge, the piece noted, partly because the plan would require so much additional government spending, and partly because Warren herself had committed to not financing the program via middle-class taxes, as most countries with national health care systems have done.

More broadly, Warren wanted a plan that was simple and straightforward. As one anonymous outside advisor told the Post, "They want to figure out—with one go—how to stop the 'How are you going to pay for it?' question…She wants something airtight but easy to understand."

In the end, her plan turned out to be neither. Her proposal is, on the one hand, unwieldy and complex, a lengthy list of provisions that are difficult to capture in a few sentences. And, in part because of its complexity, it is also far from airtight. The plan is full of dubious assumptions about the cost-savings that could be achieved under a single-payer system and the revenue that could be raised by the taxes and fees she would impose. It is not really a plan at all.

That is the essential point that Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, drives home in a new analysis of the fiscal effects of Warren's financing plan. Roy's analysis assumes that all of the policies Warren calls for—even those that are quite politically unlikely, such as the passage of comprehensive immigration reform—actually go into effect.

[karpov]

One of the cited reports is A Fiscal Analysis of Elizabeth Warren’s Health Care Plan: Without rosy scenarios, ‘Medicare for All’ could increase the federal deficit by $15 trillion through 2029.

[Buckeye McFrog]

It will be paid for with printed fiat money from the Fed, like everything else.

They’ll get away with that because the rest of the world really has no good alternatives.

[GOPJ]

Socialists and Communists lie to secure power from the gullible and hopeful...

Warren’s style of lies is part of a long (and horrible) totalitarian tradition...

[Vaquero]

I paid into Medicare since it’s inception. So what they will do is steal from all my hard work to pay for bums(in a large case) to get what I worked for.

If they robbed me on the street or came into my home I could defend myself and probably get a medal (from most honest people).

COMMUNISTS! They must be stopped.

[Libloather]

No plan? Fauxcahontas has a plan for that...

[cnsmom]

She/he/it/they only have a wishlist on a hook.

[DanielRedfoot]

Bingo-
Except for the first time in her life, she is actually being asked questions, this is never supposed to happen