It's no secret that I'm not a fan of Medicare for All. That's why I'm impressed that Senator Elizabeth Warren's campaign reached out to me to independently review her proposed financing plan for the program. Her numbers add up and her plan fully finances the program without imposing any new taxes on middle-class families.
The most important source of revenue for Warren's Medicare for All plan is simply to have businesses pay their employees' health insurance premiums to Medicare instead of private insurance companies. Over time, businesses would be required to pay slightly less to Medicare for health insurance than they would otherwise have paid to private insurers. New small businesses with fewer than 50 employees would not be required to make these payments.
There has been some handwringing that this would be regressive. That is, lower-paid workers would suffer, since businesses would pay more for lower-paid workers' health insurance as a percent of their pay than for higher-paid workers. But companies' current premiums generally vary by the type of insurance plan and family size, and not by employee income. Warren's Medicare for All plan effectively preserves this. And by replacing trillions of dollars in individual spending on health care with new taxes on large corporations and the rich, her plan overall is clearly progressive.
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