Presidential candidate Joe Biden hit left-leaning Democrats Mayor Bill de Blasio and Sen. Kamala Harris during the second round of debates Wednesday over the cost of their proposals to uproot private health insurance in favor of a singular government plan.
“I don’t know what math you do in New York, I don’t know what math you do in California, but I tell ya that’s a lot of money,” Biden said of the cost of their “Medicare for all” plans. He oscillated between claiming that their plans would cost, over a decade, $3 trillion and $30 trillion.
Harris has said she wouldn’t raise taxes on the middle class and released a plan that more specifically said she wouldn’t raise taxes on families making less than $100,000 a year. To pay for her healthcare plan, she floated an income-based premium paid by employers, taxing people whose income was at the top 1% of the population, and taxing capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income.
Bernie Sanders, who was on stage the previous night, is the designer of the Medicare for All Act, and has acknowledged it would ban private health insurance as well as increase taxes on the middle class to fund its $30 trillion to $40 trillion cost over a decade.
The Medicare for All Act doesn’t explicitly detail how it would be paid for, but Sanders has offered a few suggestions and has said that people would pay taxes instead of the premiums they do now. Some estimates show his bill would reduce overall healthcare spending, but that would be achieved by paying healthcare providers less.
Biden has instead called for injecting more funds into Obamacare and giving people the option to buy a government plan, saying Wednesday that “Obamacare is working.” He has said his plan, which his campaign estimates will cost $750 billion over a decade, would be funded through repealing tax cuts passed under President Trump and through capital gains tax hikes for taxpayers making over $1 million.
“If they like their insurance, they should be able to keep it,” he said. He accused Harris of “double talk” on her plan because she has gone back and forth about whether she would allow private health insurers to stay in business if elected. Biden reminded the audience of her wavering, warning that “you can’t beat President Trump with double talk on this plan.”
On Monday, Harris settled on a plan that would allow private insurers to contract with the government to administer plans. The arrangement would be similar to the way that Medicare Advantage and Medicaid managed care operates. Harris hit back on Biden during the debate by warning his plan would leave 10 million people uninsured, and said her idea was crafted after listening to people she met on the campaign trail.
