Trillion, with a ‘t’
The price tag for ‘free’ health care
An aide to Mahatma Gandhi once famously observed, “It costs a lot of money to keep this man in poverty.” Likewise, it would take a lot of cash to pay for all of Bernie Sanders’ “free” stuff.
On Monday, the Mercatus Center at George Washington University released a study concluding the Vermont socialist’s “Medicare for all” proposal — a government takeover of the nation’s health care system — would cost $32.6 trillion over 10 years, requiring astronomical tax hikes.
To put this into perspective, the entire federal budget for fiscal 2019 will be $4.407 trillion.
Sen. Sanders responded typically for those who don’t have the facts on their side: He shot the messenger. In particular, he attacked the Mercatus Center because it receives some money from … trigger warning! … the nefarious Koch brothers, those dastardly, rich libertarians who promote dangerous ideas such as the value of free markets.
“This grossly misleading and biased report,” Sen. Sanders said, “is the Koch brothers’ response to the growing support in our country for a ‘Medicare for all’ program.”
In fact, the Mercatus Center has an outstanding academic reputation. Tellingly, Sen. Sanders didn’t refute the findings with his own numbers. That’s because he doesn’t have any. Bernie has yet to provide a cost analysis of his “free” health care for all pipe dream. When he gets around to it, you can quadruple the estimate, and it will still be a lowball number.
Far from being “misleading and biased,” the study confirms what previous reviews have concluded. Bernie’s own home state of Vermont abandoned its pursuit of socialized medicine in 2015 because it would have doubled the state’s spending in the first year alone and would have required backbreaking tax hikes on residents and businesses. Similarly, California Democrats shelved plans for a single-payer system after learning it would cost $400 billion a year, more than twice the state’s current budget.
Meanwhile, a 2016 analysis by the left-leaning Urban Institute calculated the Sanders plan would cost $32 trillion over 10 years, right in line with the Mercatus findings. Kenneth Thorpe, a health policy expert at Emory University, authored a 2016 study that found the Medicare-for-all price tag would be $27 trillion over a decade.
“Even though people don’t pay premiums, the tax increases are going to be enormous,” Mr. Thorpe told The Associated Press. “There are going to be a lot of people who’ll pay more in taxes than they save on premiums.”
Throw in “free” college tuition, “free” child care and whatever else Sen. Sanders wants to hand out in his cradleto-grave welfare state, and the annual taxpayer costs could run into the $4 trillion range. Looting the evil “1 percent” wouldn’t be remotely enough to pay for it all. Neither would doubling the current tax rates on everyone.
As humorist P.J. O’rourke wrote, “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.” Sen. Sanders and his credulous progressive acolytes can’t wait to turn Mr. O’rourke’s quip into reality. Voters should beware of their poisonous snake oil.
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Fax 702-383-4676 in oil-rich Venezuela, it can happen anywhere, including the United States.
When you steal from those who produce and give to those who don’t, you lose the incentive to produce and eventually run out of other people’s money. Socialism has brought misery, poverty, starvation and death everywhere it’s been tried. Be very careful what you vote for. You might just get it.
The Democrat Party is no longer the party of JFK. It is the National Socialist Party. not win the popular vote. Hillary Clinton won by more than 2.9 million votes. Mr. Trump is the president because of gerrymandering, which allowed the Electoral College to put him in office.
Gerrymandering is a serious danger to our democracy. Democrats and Republicans alike must take steps to do away with gerrymandering and give us back a legitimate voting system. It’s an unfair system that allows voting districts to be realigned at the whim of a political party. I hear hard-core Republicans complaining this will give Democrats an advantage. Really? What do they think gerrymandering did for the GOP this time?