Bernie Sanders’s ‘Medicare for all’ plan would improve health and life expectancy but could reduce commerce by as much as a quarter over time, according to a new outside analysis.
The proposal to enroll everyone in the United States in a comprehensive government plan would reduce the proportion of Americans with serious health conditions from 15% to 13% and increase life expectancy by about two years, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan project that analyzes the fiscal impacts of public policies. The analysis provides an early look at how the Vermont senator’s plan might be assessed by congressional scorekeepers if it advances as legislation.
On the other hand, Sanders’s plan could badly curb economic growth, depending on which taxes were raised to pay for the added federal spending, which would amount to $34 trillion over a decade, according to another outside estimate.
Sanders’s campaign has not provided details of the financing for the plan, which would eliminate premiums, deductibles, and co-payments.
[Related: Bernie Sanders: Cost for ‘Medicare for all’ is ‘impossible to predict’]
If the new benefits were financed by adding to the debt, the researchers conclude, the plan would reduce gross domestic product by 24% by 2060.
Sanders has said he will raise taxes, including middle-class taxes, to pay for the plan. If the plan paid for itself through payroll taxes, meaning that workers with higher wages paid more, GDP would fall by 15%, according to the model.
The plan would actually slightly boost economic output if, instead, workers paid the same insurance premium, subsidized for low-income people. The researchers pointed out that “Medicare for all” would increase worker productivity thanks to improved health overall.
Sanders has said his administration would introduce “Medicare for all” legislation in his first week in office but has declined to expand on its financing.
“You’re asking me to come up with an exact detailed plan of how every American — how much you’re going to pay more in taxes, how much I’m going to pay. I don’t think I have to do that right now,” the Democratic presidential candidate said in an interview with CNBC.
