Dive Brief:
- U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders has finally released some details on his proposed plan for universal healthcare as he and Hillary Clinton vie for the Democratic presidential nomination.
- Sanders' plan calls for $1.38 trillion in tax increases to fund the program. While impacting employers and individuals, the plan most significantly would affect the wealthy through a progressive tax system.
- The plan partially rests on an aggressive goal of reducing U.S. healthcare spending by $6 trillion over 10 years.
Dive Insight:
The plan outlines how to pay for universal health coverage, but skeptics continue to question whether its projected cost savings are too optimistic.
"They assumed $10 trillion in healthcare savings over 10 years," Larry Levitt, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, was quoted by Vox. "That’s tremendously aggressive cost containment, even after you take the administrative savings into account."
Another issue is whether it's valid to suggest under the plan, the average American family would pay just $466 per year. Employer payroll taxes could be expected to be passed on to employees, which would cost families roughly an additional $3,100. "There's a wee bit of smoke and mirrors here," as Mother Jones reported.
The plan also does little to address how the system would actually work, skeptics note, such as who would decide what treatments are covered and what the appeals process would be. "Without knowing that, it's impossible to say whether a particular single-payer system is a good idea or a really, really bad one," as Vox noted.