Okay, as a Liz supporter let me be the first to say that the messaging in her plan sucks. Luckily its buried way down so nobody is going to read it, but I assume she’s going to use talking points from this and they suck.
Option 1: Maintain our current system, which will cost the country $52 trillion over ten years. And under that current system –
Last bullet point there:
Together, the American people will pay $11 trillion of that bill themselves in the form of premiums, deductibles, copays, out-of-network, and other expensive medical equipment and care they pay for out-of-pocket - all while America’s wealthiest individuals and biggest companies pay far less in taxes than in other major countries.
UGGGGGH that’s $11T OUT OF POCKET!!! Not just $11T. They pay more than that because their employers pay premiums for them, which
A) Reduces their potential take-home pay
B) Stifles economic growth, reducing potential future earnings for businesses and workers alike.
You are tying one hand behind your back if you’re going to tackle how to pay for a $32T plan while only counting $11T of the existing costs as currently falling on normal folks. If you’re going to do that you have to be specific about how much will currently fall on them in the new plan, which is virtually impossible… But wait, it gets worse:
Option 2: Switch to my approach to Medicare for All, which would cost the country just under $52 trillion over ten years. Under this new system –
FIFTY-TWO FUCKING TRILLION??? What happened to 32???
And the last point…
The $11 trillion in household insurance and out-of-pocket expenses projected under our current system goes right back into the pockets of America’s working people. And we make up the difference with targeted spending cuts, new taxes on giant corporations and the richest 1% of Americans, and by cracking down on tax evasion and fraud. Not one penny in middle-class tax increases.
That’s kind of non-specific, and it’s just going to open her to the same line of questioning. Also, how many “working people” are there and how much does each of them save while getting hassle-free premium-free coverage? That’s a pretty key selling point you should be pushing, not ignoring.
Let’s say we have about 155M workers (I think the number was 157M late last year, I’m knocking off just over 1% who will certainly be paying for it)… 11T/157M = ~71K each, or about 7.1K a year.
So maybe we want to include that figure in there prominently? Just a thought.
She’s also kind of screwing blue states if I’m reading this right…
Under my approach to Medicare for All, we will redirect $6 trillion in existing state and local government insurance spending into the Medicare for All system. This is similar to the mechanism that the George W. Bush Administration used to redirect Medicaid spending to the federal government under the Medicare prescription drug program.Under this maintenance-of-effort requirement, state and local governments will redirect $3.3 trillion of what they currently spend to support Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program and $2.7 trillion of what they currently spend on employer contributions to private insurance premiums for their employees into Medicare for All
And this is buried waaaaaaaaaaaay down.
Medicare for All puts all health care spending on the government’s books. But Medicare for All is about the same price as our current path – and cheaper over time. That means the debate isn’t really about whether the United States should pay more or less. It’s about who should pay.
Like, Liz, that’s your jam, that should be way near the top.
Here’s another key component buried way down.
Let’s start with a basic fact: American companies are already paying a lot for health care for their employees. They are projected to pay nearly $9 trillion over the next ten years, mostly on employer contributions for employee health insurance and on health-related expenses for employees under workers’ compensation and long-term disability. My idea is that instead of these companies sending those payments to private insurance companies, they would send payments to the federal government for Medicare in the form of an Employer Medicare Contribution.
She also has some stuff in there about how unions getting healthcare benefits would get other benefits (pay increase, pensions, etc) to replace them - the mechanism to force it would be the company either having to pay in taxes the same amount it’s currently spending on healthcare per employee, or getting to pay the national average and give the difference back to those employees via other forms of compensation.
Like, in conclusion, her plan is what you would expect, it’s fine, it would work well. Her messaging on it, if this plan release is any indication, is shitty.