Why Are Pundits Fawning Over Elizabeth Warren’s Medicare-for-All Financing Proposal?
Somehow, the least progressive Medicare-for-All funding proposal I have ever seen is being championed by many in the media as our best and only choice.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren addresses the audience at the Environmental Justice Presidential Candidate Forum at South Carolina State University on November 8, 2019 in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Sean Rayford / Getty Images
I have been swimming in the Medicare-for-All waters for over a decade now, going back to when I worked on the Ralph Nader presidential campaign that made Medicare for All (M4A) its number-one issue. During this time, I developed a specific understanding of what we might call “the M4A Financing Problem.”
The Problem
The M4A Financing Problem, in simple terms, is that even if you bring in existing federal spending on health care, existing state spending on health care, and a bunch of new rich-people taxes, you still fall short of financing the program. Thus, to actually complete the financing, you have to use some middle-class taxes.
The proper response to this “problem” has always been to point out that it is no problem at all. Yes, you will have to impose some middle-class taxes to round out the total amount of money you need, but those taxes will charge the middle class far less than they are currently paying for health care. What people don’t like about taxes is that it means they have less money. But swapping these taxes for the elimination of premiums and out-of-pocket expenses would actually mean that the middle class has a lot more money.
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