Why is it so important to get Warren to say, 'I'll raise taxes'?

[BeyondGeography]

After a Democratic presidential debate in July, MSNBC host Chris Matthews interviewed Elizabeth Warren and tried relentlessly to get her say that if we pass Medicare-for-all, taxes would go up. She refused to give him the sound bite he was after, insisting that the real question is whether the total amount people pay for health care — through taxes, but also in premiums, deductibles, and co-pays — goes up or down, and she insisted that total costs would go down for most people.

At Thursday’s debate it happened again, but this time it was ABC’s George Stephanopoulos acting as though it was of pressing importance to get the words “Taxes will go up” to pass Warren’s lips...Warren is obviously determined not to give people like Matthews and Stephanopoulos what they’re after. The question that interests me is, why are they so determined to get her to say that taxes would go up?

...If the question you’ve put to a candidate winds up in an attack ad against them, you’ve done your job. The fact that Republicans would attack Warren for saying “Taxes will go up” is precisely why they want to get her to say it. There’s also a degree to which TV anchors and pundits offer an unspoken acceptance of a basic Republican idea, that taxes are somehow uniquely bad. You can see it in the way Matthews pressed Warren, acknowledging that total costs may go down but saying he didn’t really care, because what matters to him is whether taxes go up.

Which, when you think about it, is utterly bonkers. The average insurance premium for an employer-provided family plan is nearly $20,000 a year. If that’s what you were paying, and I told you that I could give you back that $20,000 but your taxes would go up by $10,000 so you’d wind up with $10,000 more than you had to begin with, and you replied, “No deal — I don’t want to pay higher taxes!” you’d be a complete fool.

More at https://beta.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/13/why-it-is-so-important-get-warren-say-ill-raise-taxes/#comments-wrapper

[bluewater]

1. For sound bites in Right Wing attack adds in the General Election?

Seems most likely. It is the corporate media after all.

The media wants to inflame the viewership and scream "She rasied yur taxes!"

They figure that will attract attention in their screen crawl texts.

[rurallib]

9. That is exactly what I thought when Stephie was going after Warren last night

'has he been paid by the repugs to make a commercial for them?

[Bettie]

11. That seems to have been the aim in all the debates thus far

the questions tend to be phrased as "gotcha" questions designed to capture talking points and sound bites for ads.

[lostnfound]

10. Stephanopolis and tweety probably get a big bonus for getting those words out of her mouth

[brooklynite]

16. So Chris Matthews, former Chief of Staff to Tip O'Neill, is a Right-Winger?

The only thing worse than a bad conspiracy theory is a lazy one.

[Celerity]

34. +1

[RhodeIslandOne]

44. He also praised Flight Suit Bush on "Mission Accomplished" day and obsessed about Hillary's....

....manufactured weaknesses versus Obama, Bernie and Trump. He also seems to admire Reagan as much as Tip and Jack Kennedy.

Let's stop acting like Chris Matthews is anything other than a front running ripped from the headlines simpleton. His political "analysis" is some of the dumbest stuff on MSNBC.

Herr durr buh whos gonna pay? is exactly what I'd expect from a 70 some year old beltway bullshitter who still thinks Reagan was a great president.

[qazplm135]

52. I mean

ultimately, those weakness became apparent didn't they?

Sure they were manufactured by the right and unfair...doesn't mean they didn't exist.

Herr durr buh who's gonna pay is a question a lot of non-progressives are going to ask.

So you can mock Matthews for being a 70 year old beltway bullshitter, but there's a lot of 60 and 70 year olds who will ask the same question in 2020, and they vote in great numbers.

Might behoove us to, ya know, have a good answer to that question.

[RhodeIslandOne]

67. It's too bad "who's paying for the military waste?"

....is verboten to beltway bullshitters, though.

Nevermind the generous Trump/Ryan/Bitch tax cuts which never seem to annoy Tweety as much as someone getting a free education or a reasonably priced cancer operation.

And the last election was stolen and would have been against any Democrat. So anyway I’m not going there. Thanks.

[qazplm135]

68. It's also verboten to voters

They want military spending.

You can complain about it being unfair and sure it is, doesn't change anything though.

[RhodeIslandOne]

69. Not if it's framed as wasteful spending that actually hurts our service members

Like the contractors in Iraq setting up electric showers.

[qazplm135]

70. You're talking about tiny things

Not an F22 or whatnot.

Bottomline is military excess isn't going to remove the need to explain spending.

[RhodeIslandOne]

71. And if everyone is afraid to address it, it will never get fixed.

Which is why I laugh at people who seem to always say "I'm afraid you can't say that! It's too extreme to the average voter!". And gatekeepers like Tweety feed that narrative. It's why he's so cozy with Ryan and Delaney.

[Act_of_Reparation]

80. Lots of people who were liberal in 1987 ain't so liberal now.

It's called "progress".

[DBoon]

30. Yup

Up there with supporting busing to achieve racial parity in schools

Raw meat to the right wing

[DrFunkenstein]

57. She Should Just Say Mexico Will Pay For It

It's going to be a big, beautiful health coverage.

[blm]

2. She clearly states that overall costs will go down. No mystery that

Since I am now paying $7200 a year for health insurance, and am likely to pay an additional $1000 a year in taxes for Med for All, then my overall costs will go down.

Why do people need to pretend that it is too difficult to understand?

That extra $6000 in the bank means a big RAISE in income for a working family.

[Gothmog]

19. Why did Warren refused to answer question?

Link to tweet

[qazplm135]

55. point me to where she uses actual numbers like that

sure, she states overall costs will go down, but she does not provide the simple math to show how that is so.

That is not to say that she couldn't do it, but for whatever reason, she hasn't.

It's quite maddening because she more than likely could easily and succinctly do it in a way that DOES stop folks from asking the question "how do you pay for it?"

That's the way you do it, not get upset because people are asking the question.

[Docreed2003]

76. +1

[mopinko]

3. yup. trying to push her onto the third rail.

[Hoyt]

4. To make it clear that her "big ideas" come with big costs -- and risks -- too.

BTW: I don't think she's going to be able to get that $20,000 back.

And, it may just be that some folks, perhaps a lot of folks, don't trust the "It won't cost anymore than you are paying now," at the same time we will supposedly be picking up millions of uninsured, eliminating all cost-sharing through deductibles and coinsurance, adding dental and vision, doctors and other healthcare professionals will accept Medicare rates and a future dependent on political whims, etc.

All of those are worthy goals, but some people are going to question if it is so great, why make it mandatory?

Finally, both Warren and Sanders are offering a bunch of other stuff that supposedly isn't going to cost us anything -- childcare, response to climate change, bolstering Social Security, college debt relief, free college, jobs training, etc.

[jcgoldie]

5. Its an old GOP game to brand people as "tax and spend" Democrats...

Except now the bullshit seems to coming from inside the house.

[House of Roberts]

6. People need to see how much their employer chips in for their health insurance.

Make them put the amount on their W2s, and even the dense ones will finally discover how much better a comprehensive Medicare would be, coverage wise as well as cost wise.
Of course, the law must also require the employer to pay employees the money no longer going toward health insurance, otherwise, this is another way for deadbeat bosses to shortshrift on overall compensation.

[CTyankee]

22. Well, supposedly, the "market" forces taken over at that point...they compete for workers. With

health insurance out of the picture, employers can compete for workers based on salary more than health benefits. Supposedly.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

29. Well increasing healthcare costs are a big part of wage stagnation.

That’s a fact.

So will workers see an immediate benefit? No. But something needs to be done.

There are plenty of studies showing healthcare as partially responsible

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/baicker-health-care-costs-wages/

Over the past decade, employers have cut back on wage increases in order to cover the ever-increasing cost of health insurance, according to economists. Recently released figures—from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Health Research & Educational Trust—show that since 1999 the cost of employer-provided health insurance rose, on average, 160%, while median household income, adjusted for inflation, fell by 8.9%.

“Workers ultimately bear the cost, and they bear the cost in lower wages,” said [[Katherine Baicker]], professor of health economics in the Department of Health Policy and Management, in an Oct. 1, 2011 article in the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel. “When health care costs go up and health insurance premiums go up, workers’ wages rise less quickly than they would otherwise.”

Median household income, which now stands at roughly $50,000 in the U.S., has dropped by about $4,900 since 1999, according to the Census Bureau. While much of that decline is due to the overall weak economy, the growing cost of health care has also been a factor for workers who get health coverage through their employers.

[DBoon]

31. and how much vanishes "pre tax" from their own pay

The amount is huge and tends to be invisible during discussions like this

Of course there are people who hate government so much they would gladly pay $1,000 to private insurance to avoid paying $500 to a government run healthcare system instead.

[forthemiddle]

74. I don't see how they could force that

As long as the employer is paying minimum wage, or higher, how do you force the employer to give the employees that money?
I don’t take my company insurance now, instead I am on my husbands insurance, yet my employer doesn’t give me any extra compensation.

[House of Roberts]

75. No employer paying minimum wage is giving employees health insurance now.

It's part of an employee benefit package, and it becomes redundant, so the employee should get a substitute benefit, otherwise it is a reduction in compensation.
If you don't take the benefit, you should get an alternative benefit. You'd have to negotiate for it, but if you're not costing them the insurance premium, that should be in YOUR favor, not theirs.

[DrToast]

7. Because running from it is how we got here in the first place

We need to change the conversation about taxes.

[Skittles]

8. because she knows it would be in a repuke campaign ad for Trump

[madville]

12. M4A won't pass Congress regardless

She and Bernie know it can't get through Congress so at the worst it's just a campaign promise they won't be able to deliver.

[mntleo2]

13. I am proud to say I pay about 17% in taxes

I am at almost the lowest income in this country. As a matter of fact I live in the state where at least 2 of the richest men in the world live who pay less than 2% of their $ billions.

I tell my legislators that I and all the poor in this state make a greater financial sacrifice paying their revenue than Bill Gates and his rich friends. I point out that if Gates alone paid the same percentage as I do, this state would not only cover out our bills, we would have at least a $10 Billion surplus and he would only have (SOB, sniffle)around $60 billion left to "eke" out his living while I am left with a whopping $8000 to live on.

I also point out that if my low income friends understood this, we would be seeing an anger for this betrayal these law makers may not want to see. I then sit back and enjoy the look of terror in their eyes before they hood them and pretend that, of course that would never happen.

Hey People, pass this on.www.itep.org/whopays. Check it out for your state there.

Therefore as someone who makes a huge sacrifice to pay taxes and am glad to do so,, I can tell anyone who do not pay their fair share in taxes are tax deadbeats. E.W. should have no fear that all should pay their fair share, and yes this means you should take the same sacrifices the poor make.

SO THERE you rich tax deadbeats!

Cat in Seattle

[Gothmog]

14. How long will Warren dodge on health care and taxes

Link to tweet

None other than late-night host Stephen Colbert made it painfully clear that Warren is ducking. He asked twice about whether taxes will go up and practically begged her to level with voters. “I’ve listened to these answers a few times before," he said, "and I just want to make a parallel suggestion to you that you might defend the taxes, perhaps, you’re not mentioning in your sentence: ‘Isn’t Medicare for All like public school? There might be taxes for it, but you save money sending your kids to school, and do you want to live in a world where your kids aren’t educated? Do you want to live in a world where your fellow Americans are dying?’”

Let’s be clear: If Colbert and debate moderators can figure this out, her opponents in the primary and, more important, the Republicans in the general election will hit her again and again.

It is not simply a matter of the viability of her health-care plan. It goes to her core critique of the moderates: They are too timid and too scared to do the big things. Well, perhaps they have figured out what the big things cost and don’t see they are economically or politically viable.

Warren’s brand is truth-telling about the rich and powerful, but you simply cannot get the rich and big corporations to pay for all of it. The Medicare-for-all plan introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is presumably the basis for Warren’s idea — despite all her other plans, she has little specifics on health care. Sanders’s plan posits a number of funding sources and specifies a premium for families (“a typical family of four earning $50,000, after taking the standard deduction, would pay a 4 percent income-based premium to fund Medicare for All — just $844 a year — saving that family over $4,400 a year. Because of the standard deduction, families of four making less than $29,000 a year would not pay this premium”). Now, there are a lot of people who consider themselves middle-class who might have to pay more, but at least Sanders makes some effort to spell out the costs and the savings.

[BeyondGeography]

15. Political advice for Dems from Jennifer Rubin

Somehow we’ll manage without, thanks.

[Gothmog]

18. Why will Warren not answer a simple question??

Link to tweet

[BeyondGeography]

21. If you want to show Team Biden what a winning message looks like

Here it is:

https://www.newsweek.com/elizabeth-warren-trump-worst-symptom-corrupt-system-1461241

[Gothmog]

26. Really?

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[BeyondGeography]

38. Joebamacare trailed M4A 49-44 in the last Q poll

And respondents preferred govt-run plans to private insurance by 55-29.

I know you guys like polls. That’s the A+ poll where Warren gained 15 points on Biden in the last month.

[Gothmog]

41. How is Warren doing with African American voters?

Good luck getting the nomination without the support of African American voters. South Carolina and the southern states on Super Tuesday will be fun.

[Fiendish Thingy]

32. Why won't Biden answer a simple question?

Why won't Joe explain why he's satisfied with his plan, which will still leave millions uninsured or underinsured and at risk for bankruptcy for medical bills?

[Gothmog]

35. Because Biden's plan can be adopted in the real world

Warren will not tell how much her plan costs or who she will pay for it. I live in the real world and like plans that can be adopted in the real world.

I also trust Joe Biden

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[TidalWave46]

20. Because it is the cornerstone of progress. NT

[Gothmog]

27. Societal Savings are not tax revenues and this plan will not work in the real world

Such a plan in theory may generate societal savings but such savings would not pay for a program. Governments can only spend tax revenues and/or borrowings. This study does not say how one would pay for such a program in the real world. I note that Prof. Krugman like the concepts of such a plan in theory but notes that taxes will have to be raised a great deal to pay for such a plan
Back in 2016, here is his position Prof. Krugman compares Sanders hoped for health care savings to the GOP tax cuts. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/weakened-at-bernies/?_r=0

On health care: leave on one side the virtual impossibility of achieving single-payer. Beyond the politics, the Sanders “plan” isn’t just lacking in detail; as Ezra Klein notes, it both promises more comprehensive coverage than Medicare or for that matter single-payer systems in other countries, and assumes huge cost savings that are at best unlikely given that kind of generosity. This lets Sanders claim that he could make it work with much lower middle-class taxes than would probably be needed in practice.

To be harsh but accurate: the Sanders health plan looks a little bit like a standard Republican tax-cut plan, which relies on fantasies about huge supply-side effects to make the numbers supposedly add up. Only a little bit: after all, this is a plan seeking to provide health care, not lavish windfalls on the rich — and single-payer really does save money, whereas there’s no evidence that tax cuts deliver growth. Still, it’s not the kind of brave truth-telling the Sanders campaign pitch might have led you to expect.

Today, Prof. Krugman says that such a plan is feasible if you are willing to pay a great deal more in taxes
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/paul-krugman-explains-why-single-payer-health-care-entirely-achievable-us-and-how

If we went to government provision of all insurance, we’d pay more in taxes but less in premiums, and the overall burden of health spending would probably fall, because single-payer systems tend to be cheaper than market-based."

The amount of higher taxes are not quantified in this article by Krugman. To pay for any such plan will require massive tax hikes

Again sanders has utterly failed in his attempts to get Vermont to adopt his magical single payer plan because the state of Vermont cannot use hypothetical societal saving to pay for this plan. Even Krugman admits that much higher taxes are needed

[Fiendish Thingy]

33. If only there was another country in the real world who had succeeded in implementing UHC...

Then, we would know it's not impossible...

[Gothmog]

37. How much will Warren's plan cost and how will she pay for it

Socialism and warren's plan polls badly and could help re-elect trump

Link to tweet

THE MAIN TAKEAWAYS are that socialism, broadly speaking, is unpopular, but Republicans have work to do if they want to tarnish some key Democratic proposals. Once voters hear about the agenda as framed by Republicans, 61% say it is socialist. Calling Democrats’ policies “socialist” causes a 10-point drop in their popularity.

-- FOR EXAMPLE: Take ‘MEDICARE FOR ALL.’ When asked about supporting Medicare for All, and hearing it described as “guaranteed health care coverage regardless of … income, and every American’s health insurance would come from a single government-run plan,” 41% favor it, 55% oppose and 4% are unsure. When Republicans start describing it as causing “doctor shortages, longer wait times for urgent care and delays in access to the latest drugs for cancer and other serious diseases,” the numbers move to 34% favor and 60% oppose.

-- THE ‘GREEN NEW DEAL’ is actually above water when described as a plan that “would work to address climate change and income inequality, and transition the United States from an economy built on fossil fuels to one driven by clean energy.” 48% favor, 46% oppose and 7% are unsure.

IT SINKS when Republicans start describing it as potentially costing “93 trillion dollars” and hiking energy bills by $3,000. It goes then to 32% support and 61% oppose. Polling memo … Poll deck

[Fiendish Thingy]

45. Yes, if any issue is framed a certain way,

You can even get Democrats to vote against their own interests.

[Gothmog]

46. At some point the CBO will have to score any bill

Warren cannot keep this information secret forever. Colbert made Warren look bad when she refused to answer this question.

Link to tweet

[The Mouth]

39. Some people

It's only fair if people can have all the facts, good and bad, before voting.

we're Democrats, we don't hide from the truth.

Everyone is still pissing their pants like a beat dog from Mondale gettign whupped, supposedly because he admitted he'd raise taxes.

[The Mouth]

48. It was the perfect storm, really

Reagan was probably the best *politician* of our lifetimes; Presidents Clinton and Obama were pretty good (and of course with much better agendas) but in terms of connecting with the voters *and* pushing congress to get his agenda through, no one has topped him. Even if Mondale had done everything right it would have been like a really good college football team going up against a Superbowl' champion team, sad to say.

It's not that I don't like Warren's plans, for the most part; I don't doubt her competence or sincerity and *do* think she could beat Cheeto Benito, but even people with minimum information and common sense can tell she's obfuscating, even if it is out of sheer necessity; I think we would be better off pointing out that universal healthcare - even if we need to go through the phase of Medicare for all who want it (and leaving people with health insurance they like the hell alone)- is less expensive and better long term. If we can't make that argument, coherently and with power, it's never going to happen. But she's smarter and has better advice and polling than I do, all I have is a couple of degrees in political science, a few years as a pollster and my gut. She's my number three, and I know Yang or Mayor Pete don't have much of a chance.

[The Mouth]

65. Well, I don't want to refight 2016

or piss off anyone, but 2016 was, in my opinion, more about us beating ourselves than anything the Russians or hackers did. the sheer number of people who didn't fucking vote was many times the number of possible stolen votes or hacked machines.

All we needed was the same people who turned out for President Obama.

I mean it's not that the Republicans won't try underhanded stuff, or that the Russians (or whomever) unleash a horde of trolls, or that the media prefer Trump simply because he gets ratings, or that districts haven't been gerrymandered; but compared to damn near 100 MILLION people sitting out the election all of those factors, combined, times 10 mean little. And if they don't vote this time, Trump will win again.

All the voter suppression and hacking possible can't overcome a candidate who turns people on, fills them with enthusiasm and gets them off their asses on election day.

I tried like hell to get even people who didn't care much for Senator Clinton to realize that this was ALL about SCOTUS, but then I'm a bit of a political junkie.

[Gothmog]

78. Warren is avoiding the reality that middle-class Americans would have to pay more in taxes

Link to tweet

[Uncle Joe]

24. It was a major concern of Matthews because he makes approximately 5 million dollars a year

He is estimated to earn more than $5 million a year.
Chris Matthews - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Chris_Matthews

and George Stephanopoulos makes approximately 15-17 million a year, so this is of pressing concern to them, their personal medical expenses or the tribulations of the average American by comparison not so much.

ABC News has signed its chief anchor, George Stephanopoulos, to a new four-year deal believed to be valued at between $15 million to $17 million a year, ensuring he will stay at the Walt Disney-owned news outlet well beyond the 2020 election.

A person familiar with the matter confirmed a report on the New York Post’s Page Six that ABC had signed Stephanopoulos, a familiar presence on “Good Morning America” and “This Week,” to a four-year pact. The report suggested the anchor’s annual salary may increase to more than $15 million annually over the course of the new agreement

(snip)

https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/02/20/abc-news-renews-george-stephanopoulos-for-4-year-deal-2/

Thanks for the thread BeyondGeography.

[Gothmog]

25. I like this ad from Mayor Pete

[andym]

28. They want to Mondale her.

But if she's smart she will say that there will be no DIRECT increase of income taxes on the middle class. There are ways to pay for these things (employer taxes, wealth tax and national sales tax etc). We will see.

[aikoaiko]

36. This.

[The Mouth]

40. Exactly. Many people consider themseles 'middle class'

and are of the opinion that they pay QUITE ENOUGH taxes already.

One can argue endlessly about what actually constitutes 'middle class' and 'paying enough/one's fair share', but perception is reality at the ballot box.

[DrToast]

49. Why won't she defend taxation?

Why is she running from that fight? What happened to "it's time for big ideas"?

[crazytown]

53. Has Amy ever defended taxation?

[DrToast]

58. Did you just try to "But her emails" the discussion?

I do think that if Klobuchar wants to raise taxes she should say so and not run from the issue.

[crazytown]

62. Senator Klobuchar

has shown a singular lack of courage and conviction throughout her career.

[DrToast]

63. You can attack my preferred candidate

But it basically shows how you have no defense for Warren on the issue.

[crazytown]

64. nor you

for yours

[Doremus]

42. She already said she'd raise taxes on the 1%.

The fixation on "how will we pay for it" memes is exposing our idiocy by playing right into their hands.

For shits and giggles, instead of repeating repuke talking points, why don't you spend that time googling how many repukes were howling about paying for the $1TRILLION tax cuts?

Can you say NONE? Why then are you worried about it? She's said a thousand times she would raise taxes on the filthy rich and that it will more than pay for the programs she has outlined.

Why do you continue to repeat repuke lies?

[mitch96]

43. "raise taxes on the top 1%."

HAMMER THAT THOUGHT... The top 1% got a tax break. Tax them at a higher rate to pay for health care.. Also tax their Social Security at a higher rate than their bullshit low limit.
Now THAT will end any problems funding SS in the future.. HA!
YMMV
m

[DrFunkenstein]

50. Remember George Lakoff's "Don't Think of an Elephant"

Republicans want to frame this as a taxation issue, Dems want it to be about cost and value. Guess which frame the media wants to accept.

Warren is not feeling sorry for herself, though. Instead, she's refusing to take the dangled bait.

In the end, though, I don't think she's willing to jeopardize her entire agenda for M4A. She's said as much already earlier this year.

[DrToast]

54. Why is she afraid to have that fight?

Why don’t she defend taxation?

Look at Beto. I’m not even sure if I agree with him about mandatory buybacks, but I respect him for saying “Hell yes we’re gonna take your guns.”

[qazplm135]

51. because you have to win more than your side to win a presidential election

you might think it doesn't matter, or you may get that taxes will rise less than the cost of healthcare (and in fact you may implicit trust her when she says it), but plenty of folks don't immediately trust her, or want to know the specifics.

It should never be the case that one argues...why do you want to know the specifics of my plan? Something Warren is usually the opposite of in fact.

I have no idea why she doesn't simply say the following:

Right now you pay on average X dollars a year in health care costs.
My plan will reduce that to Y dollars a year, most of it in the form of taxes.
Thus you will save, on average, Z dollars a year even though your taxes go up.

"Which, when you think about it, is utterly bonkers. The average insurance premium for an employer-provided family plan is nearly $20,000 a year. If that’s what you were paying, and I told you that I could give you back that $20,000 but your taxes would go up by $10,000 so you’d wind up with $10,000 more than you had to begin with, and you replied, “No deal — I don’t want to pay higher taxes!” you’d be a complete fool."

Exactly...so she should just say that. I think that's what Matthews is TRYING to get her to do. Republicans are going to write tax ads about taxes regardless, because taxes ARE going to go up. We all know it. It's baked into the plan. So why should saying it somehow be the wrong move? Why is hiding it the right move? It just creates distrust. Say it, and explain why you ultimately will pay less using actual numbers.

[lapfog_1]

56. So here is the actual problem with any M4A

yes, the total costs will go down.

yes, our middle class (and to be fair) upper class taxes will go up.

so... what gives? Costs are going down, taxes are going up, where did the savings go...

To corporate profits!

What SHOULD happen is that we all (all of us that work, union job or white collar or minimum wage) should get a huge raise to offset our higher taxes... and, hopefully, the quality of service should be at or near the same as our company or union provided group insurance...

But does anyone actually believe that corporate america will pass along those savings in health care costs to their workers... much like Walmart providing a living wage to their workers instead of telling those workers about social programs that "they should take advantage of" thus passing the cost of those workers on to the rest of us?

[Gothmog]

79. 73% of people favor [the] public option that would keep private insurance in place.

Link to tweet

[dawg day]

60. It's a rightwing thing.

They think-- and they might be right-- that many Americans would rather lose a leg than 'pay higher taxes.'

Sensible people think that if taxes are paying for good things, it's an efficient way to get healthcare and highways, which almost no one could pay for alone.

I think there are enough sensible people out there... and if so, Warren's the one who can speak to them.

But I remember a friend of mine who was furious that "he" had to pay so much 'death taxes' on his mother's estate. 50%! he asserted.

I was curious-- this is not a rich family- and I said, "But there are no estate taxes for estates of less than like $11 million."
He insisted that he'd had to pay federal estate tax. I thought maybe he was just confused, because our state does have an inheritance tax, so maybe he paid that... but there's a $250K exemption for children inheriting, and I didn't think he'd inherited that much.

But he just insisted he'd only gotten 50% of the estate, and "the government" got the rest.

I said, "Don't you have a brother?"
Yes, and the brother (not the government) of course got the other 50%. Seriously, he was so hating on taxes he somehow decided that what his brother actually got went to the government.

He was looking for a way to feel aggrieved and "overtaxed". This is the sort of person Chris Matthews thinks he's talking to.

[northoftheborder]

61. This whole discussion about any candidates' health care "plan"

is not clarifying anything. No matter how detailed or perfect the plan might be, IT HAS TO GO THROUGH CONGRESS. Whatever the future President presents will NOT be what results in the end. And trying to "debate" this complex subject in 60 second sound bites on the "debate" stage is ludicrous. I'm so disgusted with the "debate" formats I could scream, and haven't watched all of them. Sound bites are all that result from them or the short "interviews" on various shows. No one has the opportunity to get complex plans across, even if they are asked a good question. The ability to think on their feet, their composure under fire, and their general personality is about all that can be learned with these occasions. Some of the town halls have been good, and give them an ability to explain their ideas and philosophy in greater detail, but not all candidates have been given that kind of opportunity to be televised.

[BeyondGeography]

66. I agree

It comes down to which candidate you trust to get the best possible outcome. Who do you want representing your interests when private insurance and pharmaceutical companies are pushing their agenda? Warren scores very well on that front for a lot of people, no matter how she deals with this particular question.

[Gothmog]

72. I remember when Warren supported Obamacare

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

73. Obamacare Has Made People Healthier

Getting rid of Obamacare is a bad move https://politicalwire.com/2019/09/30/obamacare-has-made-people-healthier/

Washington Post: “Poor people in Michigan with asthma and diabetes were admitted to the hospital less often after they joined Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. More than 25,000 Ohio smokers got help through the state’s Medicaid expansion that led them to quit. And around the country, patients with advanced kidney disease who went on dialysis were more likely to be alive a year later if they lived in a Medicaid-expansion state.”

“Such findings are part of an emerging mosaic of evidence that, nearly a decade after it became one of the most polarizing health-care laws in U.S. history, the ACA is making some Americans healthier — and less likely to die.”

[Gothmog]

77. Will Medicare-for-all hurt the middle class? Warren and Sanders struggle with questions about its im

Eventually someone will have to tell voters how much these plans will cost and how they will be paid for

Link to tweet

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are running on a multitrillion-dollar plan Sanders wrote to provide health insurance coverage to all Americans through the federal government, rather than from private insurers. Although they have frequently stressed that the middle class would see overall costs go down, a wide range of experts — including one whom Sanders has relied upon — say it is impossible to make those guarantees based on the plans that the candidates have outlined so far.

“Obviously, all of the 180 million people who have private insurance are not going to pay less. It’s impossible to have an ‘everybody wins’ scenario here,” said Kenneth Thorpe, chairman of the health policy department at Emory University. “The plan is by design incredibly disruptive. As a result, you create enormous winners and losers.”....

Warren has been pressed in a variety of settings — on debate stages, in interviews, on late-night television shows — but has avoided the question of costs to the middle class. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews asked her the question in late July several times without an answer, to the point that he said in frustration, “I’m not getting anywhere.”

When asked specifically how she would finance Medicare-for-all, Warren’s campaign said that she is “reviewing the options” suggested by Sanders and is also examining “other options” for how to pay for the plan. Her campaign would not outline what that entails.

The campaign pointed to Warren’s previous statements pledging to not raise overall costs on middle-class families but would not outline how she would accomplish that with a plan that many economists, as well as Sanders, say will require significant tax hikes.

[Gothmog]

81. Support for a public option has been increasing, and for Medicare-for-All has been decreasing

Link to tweet