Medicare for All: Profligate Sanders

This article at The Hill reports on an interview of Bernie Sanders by CNBC’s John Harwood. Harwood asks Sanders about how to pay for his Medicare for All plan. Sanders responds: "You're asking me to come up with an exact detailed plan of how every American — how much you're going to pay more in taxes, how much I'm going to pay. I don't think I have to do that right now."

No, evader Sanders. The article makes it very clear that Harwood asked about aggregate additional government spending and taxes for Medicare for All. This Sanders web-page calls for additional revenues that total about $16 trillion over 10 years. However, $4.2 trillion of that is from assuming employers will pay more taxes because they won’t be deducting the cost of health insurance for their employees. Does Sanders intend that the $3.9 trillion premium/tax Sanders wants to impose on them be, unlike wages or health insurance premiums now or FICA taxes (paid to Social Security and Medicare), will not be a tax-deductible expense? It also totally ignores that employers could easily spend the “savings” on other things like hiring more employees, buying supplies, buying new equipment, etc. Thus at least $4.2 trillion of Sanders’ alleged $16 trillion is highly spurious. So Sanders’ plan is for the government to spend $34-36 trillion more on healthcare, as estimated by the left-leaning Urban Institute, and only collect $12 trillion in taxes.

The $34-36 trillion does not even include all other government spending BS wants – for climate change, infrastructure, student debt relief, more subsidies, bigger Social Security benefits, etc.

Of course, this is no problem for BS. Despite the lip service he gives to government deficits and debt – when it is convenient to criticize his political opponents – he doesn’t care an iota about government deficits or debt. He regards any government spending he approves of as a heavenly gift, and in Sanders’ newspeak justice includes extortion.