A bipartisan budget watchdog released a report Monday detailing options for how the federal government could pay for “Medicare-for-all,” the health care plan popular with 2020 Democratic presidential contenders — and its findings show there would be no way to fund the expanded health program by simply raising taxes on the rich.
The report, published by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, examines a variety of potential ways to raise the estimated $30 trillion over 10 years necessary to fund “Medicare-for-all,” including a 32 percent payroll tax, a 25 percent income surtax and a 42 percent value-added tax. These methods could all raise $30 trillion, the report says, but there is no way for the federal government to bring in that much money simply by taxing rich people.
“There is not enough annual income available among higher earners to finance the full cost of ‘Medicare-for-All,'” it says. “On a static basis, even increasing the top two income tax rates (applying to individuals making over $204,000 per year and couples making over $408,000 per year) to 100 percent would not raise $30 trillion over a decade.”
An accompanying chart lists the tax-the-rich funding option as “IMPOSSIBLE.”
“It is appropriate to acknowledge that taxes will go up,” Bernie Sanders said, “for virtually everybody, the tax increase they pay will be substantially less than what they were paying for premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.”
” …. including a 32 percent payroll tax, a 25 percent income surtax and a 42 percent value-added tax. These methods could all raise $30 trillion …. ”
But no mention that those taxes would also decimate the economy and all the sources of revenue it relies on, thus falling far short of collecting those amounts in the real world economy. Destroyed economy -> destroyed tax revenue.
How to “pay for it” is not the biggest problem, in my mind. How to get doctors and hospitals to work for half-price is what will lead to catastrophe:
“Of course, extending Medicare’s payment schedule across the entire health care system would reduce payments to doctors and hospitals by 40 percent, relative to private insurance. And it would raise demand for care by 11 percent.
In other words, “Medicare-for-all” posits that doctors and hospitals will have no qualms about treating more patients for less money.
It’s more likely that doctors and hospitals will respond to lower payment rates by reducing the supply of care they’re willing to deliver. Americans would find themselves in the same position as patients in the United Kingdom’s government-run National Health Service, where more than 4 million are currently waiting for care.”
Read the whole thing: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/sally-pipes-warren-misleads-harm-medicare-for-all
@MerryMouse October 29, 2019 at 11:08 am
> posits that doctors and hospitals will have no qualms about treating more patients for less money
Instead of? Surely you don’t expect them to mow other people’s lawns!? That’s what we’ve got A Nation Immigrants™ for!
HAH! There you go! Brilliant. We can just let in doctors from somewhere else to do the jobs American doctors won’t do. Problem solved! Someone get this to Elizabeth Warren. STAT!