Elizabeth Warren Doesn’t Want to Say How She’d Pay for Her Health Care Plan

Elizabeth Warren famously has a plan for everything—everything, that is, except financing the single-payer health care system she says she supports. It’s a telling omission that reveals what happens when Warren’s wonky tendencies come into conflict with her campaign mantras.

Since launching her presidential campaign, the Massachusetts Democrat has rolled out Warren-branded plans for everything from universal childcare to green energy to “economic patriotism.” But on health care, so far, the senator has been content to endorse Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All plan, which would eliminate most private health insurance and set up a government-run health insurance system, without putting forth one of her own.

The Sanders plan would, according to Sanders himself as well as multiple independent estimates, require new government spending totaling somewhere between $30 and $40 trillion a year. While Sanders has outlined ways to offset some of that cost, he hasn’t put forth a plan to fully finance the additional spending. He has, however, made clear that it would require higher taxes on the middle class.

Bragg ‘allowed political motivations’ to ‘infect’ prosecution of Trump, House Judiciary GOP says

Police at Princeton pop-up encampment arrest 2 as anti-Israel protests sweep universities

Federal judge rejects Trump request for new trial in E. Jean Carroll suit, says he must pay $83.3 million

NYC Construction Workers and Union Members Go Wild When Trump Makes Unexpected Visit En Route to Courthouse

A Nuclear Apocalypse Has Never Been This Fun: After the ‘Fallout’ Show, Here Are the Games to Play

Dems attack Johnson over impassioned Columbia speech condemning anti-Israel student activists

Trump slams ‘Bidenomics’ ahead of court, claims to have a ‘good chance’ of winning liberal state

‘You’ve Got to Be Kidding’: Upcoming O.J. Simpson Biopic Reaches New Low for Hollywood, Depicts Him as Innocent

Foreign Students Who Get Suspended for Anti-Israel Activities Could Face Even Tougher Punishment, DHS Confirms

Fauci to testify publicly before Congress for 1st time since retirement

US senators demand answers on closure plan for California women’s prison where inmates were sexually abused

Biden admin cracks down on power plants fueling nation’s grid

Supreme Court to hear arguments in Trump presidential immunity case

Biden sparks Christian group’s anger after making sign of the cross at abortion rally: ‘Disgusting insult’

Texas high school shooting leaves 18-year-old student dead, shot multiple times; suspect in custody

But despite endorsing Sanders’ plan, Warren has repeatedly declined to say that middle-class taxes would have to go up. She dodged the question in earlier debates this year. And at the debate last night, she once again all but refused to answer the question directly.

Instead, she offered a vague promise that “middle-class families are going to pay less” while insisting that “those at the very top—the richest individuals and the biggest corporations—are going to pay more.”

When a debate moderator pressed her specifically on the question of taxes, she still declined to offer a direct response. Families have to deal with “total cost,” she said, reiterating her support for Medicare for All. “Costs are going to go up for wealthier individuals, and costs are going to go up for giant corporations. But for hard-working families across this country, costs are going to go down, and that’s how it should work under Medicare for All in our health care system.” The specific question—Would taxes rise for middle-class families?—remained unanswered.

In part, this is a sign that Warren, though running what is nominally a bold progressive campaign, has adopted the conventional Democratic playbook when it comes to tax hikes. As Russell Berman writes at The Atlantic, in recent years the party’s presidential candidates have tended to adhere to the rule that it’s OK to propose raising taxes on the rich—but not on the broadly defined middle class.