We don’t like her because she won’t come out and admit “Medicare for All” will mean higher taxes for all. It’s the only way to do it. Bernie does. Warren automatically descends into “politician speak” about “overall costs.” We really can’t stand that.
As both Obama and Trump found out, healthcare is a complex issue that is large enough to do damage to the economy if not handled correctly. Warren will always display her wonkiness in such issues by carefully avoiding generalizations that she might have to walk back.
Her econ team is top-notch and speaks from the same school of thought as Bernie’s, and there are some in that school that claim “paying for” Medicare 4 All may be the worst thing to do from a macroeconomic perspective. Take note that the targets for higher taxation from Bernie’s perspective are those who he would likely want to be taxed higher just because they make too much money and threaten the democratic process.
The program will make some 750k to 1 Million workers who depend upon the insurance industry, either directly or in healthcare administration, involuntarily unemployed. We would have a responsibility to provide training and re-employment opportunities for them above and beyond the meager benefits their respective states may offer. While there will obviously be some private sector economic incentive from people having no premiums or out of pocket expenses, it may not be enough to overcome the blow of so many losing their jobs.
Raising taxes on the middle class to pay for anything is additionally deflationary and would only drag the economy down further. The whole concept of anything the government does having to be paid for is right out of Milton Friedman’s economics and a standard go-to ploy of the right that the neoliberal left has signed onto fully ever since Clinton’s ill-advised budget surpluses. It’s an easy sell to the public which must secure money from some source, jobs or bank lending, prior to spending, but it doesn’t translate to Congress which is mandated (Article 1: Section 8) to “coin” the currency for the common welfare.
From the perspective of the monopoly issuer of the currency with such a mandate, it is much better to assure full employment than to claw back every dime spent (which, by the way, steals resources and labor used by the government from the private sector via a covert 100% tax rate that leaves nothing in the economy to fund economic and population growth, store value from commerce or retire private debt). The “payfor” question is just a tactic to promote austerity and kill any progressive legislation at the federal level that may benefit the people by forcing the economy to service a mostly meaningless budget number that should always be in deficit in any economy that allows trade deficits and extreme wealth accumulation to drain currency.
