Tom Shattuck: What’s Warren’s plan for Medicare for All?

Oct. 30--Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is lugging around a wagon-full of grand policies and initiatives aimed at curing all of society's ills.

Student loan debt? She's got a plan. Income equality? She's got a plan. Warren even has a plan for slavery reparations.

So many plans. The boldest of all these plans is a plan to socialize the health care system, commonly known as "Medicare for All." That plan would cover every single American -- a natural next step after Obamacare for giddy ultra-progressives who have adopted the platform of Bernie Sanders and the impatience of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The challenge is the price tag. By most estimates, Sen. Warren's plan would require $34 trillion in additional federal spending over the first 10 years of implementation. That's in addition to all of the other entitlement spending already forecast. In the end, spending could increase 60% or more.

Since the government has no money, it will necessarily go to the taxpayer to gather the funds. That is a big bill to pay and one would expect the Democratic front-runner to have details at the ready, especially on the debate stage.

It did not happen that way, though, during the Westerville, Ohio, Democratic 2020 debate, when Marc Lacey at Otterbein University posed the straightforward question to the senior senator from Massachusetts.

"Sen. Warren," Lacey asked. "You've proposed some sweeping plans, free public college, free universal childcare, eliminating most Americans' college debt. And you've said how you're going to pay for those plans. But you have not specified how you're going to pay for the most expensive plan, Medicare for All. Will you raise taxes on the middle class to pay for it, yes or no?"

A good question, deserving of a good answer. But it was not to be.

"So I have made clear what my principles are here," Warren said. "And that is costs will go up for the wealthy and for big corporations, and for hard-working middle-class families, costs will go down."

"Costs," not taxes. That is the dodge.

At that point Warren mused about selfies and various anecdotes about campaign interactions with sick people in this state or not, whatever it took to meander away from the subject of taxes.

As it became clear to the questioner that the deflection was an endless diatribe, he gave it another try.

"Sen. Warren, to be clear," he demanded. "Sen. Sanders acknowledges he's going to raise taxes on the middle class to pay for Medicare for All. You've endorsed his plan. Should you acknowledge it, too?"

Off she went.

"So the way I see this, it is about what kinds of costs middle-class families are going to face. So let me be clear on this. Costs will go up for the wealthy. They will go up for big corporations. And for middle-class families, they will go down. I will not sign a bill into law that does not lower costs for middle-class families."

At this point, Lacey handed the issue off to Mayor Pete Buttigieg who quickly fashioned the query into a sledge hammer.

"Well, we heard it tonight," Buttigieg explained. "A yes or no question that didn't get a yes or no answer. Look, this is why people here in the Midwest are so frustrated with Washington in general and Capitol Hill in particular. Your signature, Senator, is to have a plan for everything. Except this."

Mayor Pete wasn't finished.

"No plan has been laid out to explain how a multitrillion-dollar hole in this Medicare for All plan that Sen. Warren is putting forward is supposed to get filled in."

He's right and that is frightening.

If Elizabeth Warren knew of any other way to pay for her plan without taxing the middle-class, shock-and-awe style, she'd tell us.

To his credit, Bernie Sanders is not shy about letting the American middle-class know that his plan is going to hurt, badly.

Sen. Warren needs to show the courage of her convictions as well as respect to American voters by airing the details of her many fantastic plans. This is not a shell game. These are people's lives.

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