Audio: Dissecting the True Cost of Medicare for All
Michael Tanner with the CATO Institute penned a must-read column for National Review looking at the true costs of "Medicare for All."
He joined us on Montana Talks with Aaron Flint to go over the highlights. Click below for the audio:
Here's an excerpt from the piece:
Sanders does provide a helpful list of possible tax hikes that could be considered: a 7.5 percentage point increase in the payroll tax; an income-based premium paid by all Americans (roughly a 4 percent income tax); significant increases in tax rates for those earning more than $250,000 per year; increased corporate taxes; big increases in the capital-gains tax; and a new wealth tax. Of course, some of the new taxes would be offset by the legislation’s elimination of insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs. But most middle-income families would likely end up as net losers — and that’s without taking into account the drag on economic growth and job creation that would result from taxing risk-taking and entrepreneurship.
If you like your insurance, will you be allowed to keep your insurance? Roughly 91 percent of Americans have health insurance today, and polls suggest that most Americans are generally satisfied with their coverage. For example, Gallup reports that 69 percent of Americans are satisfied with their current insurance plan. Satisfaction runs even higher for Americans who receive employer coverage. But Sanders’s plan would summarily kick every American off their current plan and dump them into the new government-run system. In an interview for CBS News, Sanders gleefuly suggested that private insurance would be reduced to paying for “nose jobs.” Of course, the proposal’s backers can try to argue that in exchange for giving up their current plans, Americans will get something better. But voters may not believe them. Similar arguments didn’t fly with those who lost their insurance through Obamacare.