Sanders Admits He Would Raise Taxes On The Middle Class To Pay For Programs

Guthrie said she would give Sanders “10 seconds just to answer the very direct question: Will you raise taxes for the middle class in a Sanders administration.”

“People who have health care under Medicare for All will have no premiums, no deductibles, no copayments, no out of pocket expenses. Yes, they will pay more in taxes, but less in health care for what they get.”

Still, taxes would significantly increase as “the government takes on trillions of dollars in health care costs now covered by employers and individuals,” the Associated Press fact checked. “Independent studies estimate the government would be spending an additional $28 trillion to $36 trillion over 10 years, although Medicare for All supporters say that’s overstating it. How those tax increases would be divvied up remains to be seen, as Sanders has not released a blueprint for how to finance his plan.”

Health care, a contentious topic among candidates in the first debate night, was expected to be an explosive talking point during the second debate with top-polling candidates like Sanders and Joe Biden.

But lower-profile candidates also dove into the health care debate.

Sen. Michael Bennet, who was the last candidate to earn a spot on the debate stage, took a shot at Sanders on taxes.

Bennet said he believed in getting to universal health care. “I believe the way to do that is by finishing the work we started with Obamacare and creating a public option that every family and every person in America can make a choice for their family about whether they want a public option which for them would be like having Medicare for All or whether they want to keep their private insurance. I believe we will get there much more quickly if we do that.”

“Bernie mentioned the taxes that we would have to pay, because of those taxes, Vermont rejected Medicare for All,” he added. Sanders shook his head in response.

When asked which candidates would abolish private health insurance in favor of a government-run plan, only Sanders and Harris raised their hands.

Supporters of a single-payer plan like Medicare for All say that a “public option” to buy insurance, the competing approach, is just another incremental step, like Obamacare, that perpetuates the power and profits of the private insurance industry while failing to achieve universal coverage.

Those against Medicare for All say it would be too hard to implement, resulting in underfunded hospitals due to lower Medicare-rate payments, and not provide enough options for consumers.

“Everybody who says Medicare for All, every person in politics who allows that phrase to escape their lips has a responsibility to explain how you’re actually supposed to get from here to there,” said South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg. “I would call it Medicare for All Who Want It.”

Buttigieg said he would take parts of Medicare and give people an option to buy into it, providing “a very natural glide path to the single-payer environment.”

Story cited here.

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