Three ways to pay for Bernie’s Medicare for All plan (tax payers would love)
By Tyrone Heppard
After Sen. Bernie Sanders unveiled his proposed Medicare For All bill last month, skeptics and critics took to social media and comment sections to level criticisms about the single-payer proposal. Chief among those complaints was the belief that the plan was either too expensive or that Sanders did not go into enough detail about how to pay for it.
For many, this was enough to dismiss the bill as nothing more than an empty progressive dream instead of a viable alternative to the current healthcare system or the rolling disaster the Republicans attempted to replace it with.
There’s no denying implementing Medicare For All would require budget cuts and tax hikes on the federal level. However, what isn’t discussed nearly enough is how there are in fact some budget cuts and tax hikes a majority of Americans would support.
Progressives don’t have to dream about it, either. They got the numbers.
Most Americans want to change the system
Before diving into the numbers on the Medicare for All plan, let’s get something straight right now: most Americans say something’s gotta change.
A recent Gallop poll shows how 45 percent they have a negative view of the health care industry, 52 percent of Americans think it’s the government’s responsibility to provide healthcare; and 57 percent worry about the affordability and availability of health care.
A Pew Research poll from June illustrates that people (albeit mostly Democrats) are beginning to think single-payer, or government-run, healthcare is a viable option.
The fact people support the policy but continue to have questions about how to fund it leaves one to assume most Americans are ready for Medicare for All — they just need to be sold on how to pay for it.
A $1.4 Trillion price tag
Contrary to popular belief, in the past, Sanders has gone into great detail about how specifically we’d pay for universal health care (TL,DR version: some revenue comes from savings, taxes on average Americans are VERY minimal, and a good chunk of revenue comes from the rich/corporations finally paying their fair share of things).
Sanders has also said it will cost just under $1.4 trillion annually to implement Medicare for All over a ten-year period, though people would be seeing some YUGE cost savings along the way.
Keeping it real, though: $1.4 trillion is a lot of money. Plus, pretty much every red-blooded American has a visceral reaction to being told they have to pay new taxes — no matter how minimal or how much they would benefit their families.
The following are three policies that would not only significantly reduce the tax burden on the average American, they are (or could be) wildly popular proposals any politician would be wise to pursue if they wanted to rally constituent support.
End major subsidies to oil companies
Cost savings: $4 billion/yr
Americans who support it: 59%
Last year, the New York Times reported on a study done by Gilbert Metcalf, an economics professor at Tufts University. Metcalf found eliminating the top three federal subsidies for oil companies would yield $4 billion in revenue, which seems to jibe with the federal Treasury Department’s numbers.
What’s arguably the most interesting part of the the study was how while he was only talking about cutting the most expensive government handouts to multinational corporations, Metcalf also concluded there would be virtually NO impact on the cost of production for companies while cost increases for consumers would be about a penny.
Furthermore, a 2013 study by members of the Yale Program for Climate Change Communication found 59 percent of Americans want to put an end to ALL oil subsidies.
The takeaway here seems to be clear: stop spending our money on oil companies who don’t need it and we’ll save $4 billion. And most people would like that. Okay — we’re moving on….
Enforcing fines on corporations
Cost savings: N/A
Americans who support it: 77%
As anyone who’s ever balanced a budget will likely tell you, it’s a very bad idea to rely heavily on fines as a source of revenue for anything.
But given how often corporations are caught collectively screwings us, it’s a safe bet to assume fines levied against lawbreaking businesses would raise at least a few billion dollars each year over the next decade — if they’re actually forced to pay them, that is.
In December 2015, Frontline took a look at the 10 largest settlements levied against corporations by five federal agencies from 2012 to the end of that year.
Turns out corporations were ordered to pay $80 billion, but only ended up paying $48 billion, which resulted in a $17 billion loss in revenue for the federal government and taxpayers wronged by these companies.
The reason is simple: when corporations are caught breaking the rules, they either see drastically-reduced fines, or they are able to write off most penalties as a business expense.
There aren’t any data showing how many Americans would support recouping these costs, but a study put out last year by the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency found that while 58.7 percent of people favor less stock market regulation, an overwhelming 77.7 percent of people say they support tougher penalties for corporate executives.
Cut waste from military budget
Cost savings: $12.5 billion/yr
Americans who support it: 31%
In September, the Senate moved to approve $80 billion to the Pentagon, increasing the defense budget from $611 billion to nearly $700 billion — more than the 15 other countries with the highest defense budgets on the planet.
All this would be fine if the money was being used efficiently, but in December 2016 Americans learned Pentagon officials blatantly hid the fact they straight up blew $125 billion and did so as a way to ensure they could get more money.
It’s unclear how long the waste had been going on, but it’s crystal clear allocating $80 billion toward Medicare for All instead of to a bloated government agency would be a poor choice.
Hell, even if Congress didn’t allocate that money to single-payer, the Intercept points out that spending the same amount on student debt relief over 10 years, it would practically end that problem.
But according to a Gallop poll from March, most Americans aren’t on board with cutting defense spending. Only 31 percent of people say we’re spending too much on our military while 37 percent of people think we don’t spend enough.
But every fiscal conservative in America should be disturbed by officials covering up wasting billions to ask for more money. Good budgeting and common sense say you should probably do something else with it.
Trimming $125 billion from the defense budget over 10 years evens out to $12.5 billion a year of taxpayer money that’s taken out of the waste bin and into improving healthcare for everyone.
The takeaway
With regard to potential revenue being generated by progressive policies, the proposals mentioned here are just the beginning: take legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, dismantling the for-profit prison system, cutting pharmaceutical drug prices, bringing home our troops.
Detractors of Medicare for All are quick to tell progressives Sanders’ proposal is politically unattainable — both now and in the future — and that using a candidate’s support for such a plan should not be used as a litmus test, or as a way for voters to determine whether that person gets their vote.
However, even if these policies were implemented and not a dime went towards Medicare for All, the point is politicians shouldn’t be looking to push these policies simply because they’re inherently liberal or could help them win future elections. These proposals should rise to the top of policy discussions for one reason: it’s what we want.
No test need — those are just the numers.
