Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren was sharply criticized by other Democrats for not saying how much taxes would increase to pay for her Medicare for All plan. She finally gave a response (link). It includes plenty of chicanery.
The Associated Press, NY Times, and Los Angeles Times all report her Medicare for All would cost $20.5 trillion more for a decade. Of course, that's her number, and politicians excel in lowballing costs and slight of hand (Blahous). For example, private insurance plans reimburse providers far higher than Medicare does, but Warren assumes they will be reimbursed only 110% of Medicare rates. She says nothing about resulting healthcare facilities closing or job losses.
The first version of the AP article (since updated) gave revenue numbers that summed to $20.5 trillion to pay for it. However, since Warren has already tagged some of the revenues to pay for climate change, student debt relief, bigger Social Security benefits, etc., the numbers cannot sum to all of the additional government spending she wants.
The $6.1 trillion "savings" she subtracted in arriving at $20.5 trillion is phony. She assumed it's redirected to the federal government from what state and local governments now spend on Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and employer contributions. Huh? The federal government will take the money, and the beneficiaries will get equal or better under Medicare for All. That's not savings; it's slight of hand, evoking revenue and obliterating transfer of cost. Blahous also noticed it. Donald Berwick, whose article I addressed here, fabricated this slight of hand for Liz (link).
Also, $1.4 trillion of it made no sense. The alleged source is more tax revenue from people not having to pay "private health insurance's premiums, deductibles and co-pays." Sorry, Liz, and contra Blahous, not having to pay those things will not result in higher taxable income and taxes for the vast majority of people. They don't itemize and take medical deductions for income taxes, and health insurance premiums paid by employees are not deductible anyway.
By the way, isn't it amazing that eliminating co-pays and deductibles and handing out new "free insurance" cards to millions of Americans will not increase demand? Yet Liz says nothing about rising demand increasing healthcare costs.
Liz assumes the federal government will extract $8.8 trillion from employers via taxes what they would otherwise spend on private insurance for their employees. Bernie Sanders assumes only $3.9 trillion. She assumes the employers will pay 98% of what they were paying versus Sanders' 75%, but that falls far short of explaining $8.8 trillion versus $3.9 trillion. Does she assume extracting taxes from state and local governments, public school systems, and non-profits, all of whom are employers that pay zero taxes? Not surprisingly, Liz makes an exception for unions. To the supporters go the spoils.
Liz would restore the corporate income tax rate to 35%. In her fantasy world this will not retard economic growth.
From the AP article: "We can generate almost half of what we need to cover Medicare for All just by asking employers to pay slightly less than what they are projected to pay today, and through existing taxes," Warren wrote in a 20-page online post detailing her program.
Show a little honesty, Liz. You will not ask them. You want the government to coerce them. Is that Liz's newspeak -- asking includes coercing?
I have two more questions for Liz, like ones I had for Bernie Sanders (link):
Q1: Many employers that are nonprofits, state and local governments, and public school systems provide health insurance for their employees. Does Liz advocate the same healthcare tax on them that she does on private employers and eliminating the health insurance such employers provide for their employees? Why should these employees have anything better than private sector employees?
Q2: Would the current healthcare plan for federal employees and retirees (Federal Employees Health Benefits Program) be eliminated? I much doubt it. Special and superior privileges for government employees is the usual for authoritarians like Liz. But if not, why not? Why should federal employees have anything better than private sector employees?
No comments:
Post a Comment