Tomorrow night begins round 2 of the Democratic debates and Kamala Harris has already put Bernie Sanders and his Medicare For All plan in her sights, announcing her own Medicare For All plan today:
DAILY CALLER – Democratic presidential contender and California Sen. Kamala Harris released her Medicare for all plan Monday ahead of the second round of Democratic debates scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.
Her Medicare for all plan is less extreme than that of her presidential rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders. Harris is signed onto Sanders’ Medicare for all plan in the Senate but used her new proposal to take aim at how the Vermont Independent plans to pay for a government-run health care system.
“[O]ne of Senator Sanders’ options is to tax households making above $29,000 an additional 4% income-based premium. I believe this hits the middle class too hard. That’s why I propose that we exempt households making below $100,000, along with a higher income threshold for middle-class families living in high-cost areas. To pay for this specific change, I would tax Wall Street stock trades,” Harris wrote in her plan.
Harris said she could raise “well over $2 trillion over 10 years” by taxing Wall Street stock trades at 0.2 percent, bond trades at 0.1 percent and derivative transactions at 0.002 percent. She would also seek to tax offshore corporate income at the same rate as domestic corporate income.
Ok first of all, Harris says she can raise over $2 trillion in a decade by raising taxes on those making over 100k. But 2 trillion isn’t much considering how expensive Medicare For All will be and she doesn’t say how much she can raise in total. She only says we are paying 3.5 trillion per year as it stands now (Medicare/Medicaid).
Bernie’s plan from 2016 was analyzed last year by a Clinton health care advisor who claimed it would cost at least 32.6 trillion over 10 years. Considering that’s almost how much we are paying for Medicare/Medicaid right now with only 134 million enrolled, I think that estimate is low when you consider everyone will be on the new Medicare For All system. 2 trillion isn’t going to put a dent in it.
Secondly, she doesn’t eliminate private insurance but she greatly curtails what they can do:
The largest provision for private health insurance coverage in Harris’ new plan is not through the “supplemental” proposal she had alluded to before. Instead, it would allow people to choose Medicare Advantage plans rather than traditional Medicare, which too would undergo changes in how it operates and would be allowed to cover more services.
“Essentially, we would allow private insurance to offer a plan in the Medicare system, but they will be subject to strict requirements to ensure it lowers costs and expands services,” Harris wrote in a blog post. “If they want to play by our rules, they can be in the system. If not, they have to get out.”
With the strict nature of the coverages that Kamala’s new plan would demand, I suspect that many insurance companies would have to “get out”, being unable to compete in the new private insurance market.
I really don’t see any point in diving into her plan much further because honestly, it’s DOA just like Bernie’s plan. These just aren’t serious proposals. But it will be fun to watch them both have to defend their proposals in the debates this week.