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.

Navy Sends Robots to Take Out Iranian Mines in Strait of Hormuz: Several Successful Detonations Already Reported

WHCD Shooter Was California Teacher Once Praised as ‘Teacher of the Month’

House lawmakers to watch as GOP leadership tries to pass FISA extension

Becerra gains momentum in California governor’s race after Swalwell shake-up

California DOGE leader slams Newsom, Bonta over state’s massive fraud issues: “Every day is opposite day”

Mississippi middle schoolers stop runaway bus after driver loses consciousness from asthma attack

Correspondents’ dinner chaos hits high-profile guests already marked by political violence

Who is Cole Allen? California man named as suspect in White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting

Breaking: WH Correspondents’ Dinner Shooter Identified, Appears to Be Kamala Harris Donor on Public Listing

Trump strikes defiant tone after another shooting: ‘I can’t be concerned’

WH Correspondents’ Dinner Cancelled After Shooting Despite Trump Wanting the Show to Go on

Secret Service in line of fire at WHCA shooting still unpaid due to Dem-led shutdown

Man charged security checkpoint and shot Secret Service agent at White House correspondents’ dinner: Trump

Trump rushed from same hotel where Reagan assassination attempt unfolded in 1981

Breaking: Shooter Reportedly Shot Dead or Apprehended at WH Correspondents Dinner with Trump in Attendance

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.