Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told us for months that her Medicare for All plan would in the long run benefit Americans. But the initial price tag for her lofty plan is pretty unsettling. According to the senator, her measure will cost $52 trillion over the next ten years. She goes into detail into how she plans to pay for it in on her website in the document, "Ending the Stranglehold of Health Care Costs on American Families."
She offered more succinct explanations on her Twitter account. The first batch of funds will come from employers.
To cover the cost, we start by taking the money that employers are currently paying in the form of premiums to private insurance companies and have them pay it to Medicare instead.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) November 1, 2019
The remaining $11 trillion will be met by taxing big corporations, Wall Street, and the top 1 percent, she adds. Oh, and a major Defense Department cut.
Other presidential candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have proposed Medicare for All plans, but as Warren notes she is the only one with a "detailed plan to pay for it."
As an aside, if you hadn't realized before, Medicare for All will kick millions of Americans off their private health insurance plans.
Elaine Parker, president of the Job Creators Network Foundation, tried to wrap her head around what Warren is proposing.
"'Medicare for All' is unraveling," Parker said in a statement. "Elizabeth Warren’s admission that it will cost two million jobs - on top of the fact it will destroy the patient/doctor relationship - proves throwing more government control at the problem is not the answer. Obamacare has proven more government decreases choice and increases cost. The 'Healthcare for You' framework repairs, restores and improves the patient/doctor relationship that has been disrupted by Obamacare, gives patients more choice and control over their healthcare dollars and decisions, and doesn’t cost millions of jobs."
A few of the other Democratic presidential candidates, like former Vice President Joe Biden, have also noted the downsides of Warren's idea. In a few of the past DNC debates, he's directly confronted Warren and Sanders, demanding to know why they couldn't build on Obamacare instead. He's suggested adding a public option to ACA.
"The idea that you're going to come along and take the most significant thing that happened in any president has tried to do and got done and dismantle it makes no sense to me," Biden said in July.
Warren and other Medicare for All proponents counteracted his argument by accusing him of spewing Republican talking points.
Defending Obamacare is now a Republican talking point? Yes, I believe the Democrats' lurch to the left is now complete.
Parting note: Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) may have just delivered the best response.
LOL Ben Sasse pic.twitter.com/ctou47EQJh
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) November 1, 2019