Elizabeth Warren’s plan to pay for Medicare-for-all - Vox

Elizabeth Warren’s plan to pay for Medicare-for-all - Vox
by Ezra Klein

On Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren released her Medicare-for-all financing plan. After being attacked at the last Democratic debate for refusing to admit Medicare-for-all would require middle-class tax hikes, Warren wants to show that you can pay for the plan without them.

And you can. Maybe.

Warren’s financing plan has two parts. The first describes her approach to estimating the costs of Medicare-for-all. The second lays out the way she pays for the plan without, in her words, “one penny” of middle-class tax increases.

As befits Warren’s wonkish, master-of-plans persona, she’s relied in both cases on top experts. Her cost estimate was conducted by Don Berwick, the former director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; and Simon Johnson, the former chief economist at the World Bank. Her tax plan was developed by Betsey Stevenson, who served as chief economist at the Labor Department; Mark Zandi, the head economist at Moody’s Analytics; and Johnson. Helpfully, her plan is backed up by two detailed appendices laying bare, and arguing for, the assumptions Warren makes.

So let’s take them in turn.

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