Comprehensive Enrollment and Cost Estimates for the Biden Health Plan, the Buttigieg Health Plan, the Warren Health Plan, and the Sanders Health Plan

In this hyper-partisan environment, I can't think of an organization that better fits the definition of bipartisan than the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Their mission is to keep the federal budget process honest and responsible. 

Its current board members include a veritable who's who of Washington, DC adults; Mitch Daniels, Leon Panetta, Tim Penny, Erskine Bowles, Kent Conrad, Vic Fazio, and Bill Gradison.

The Committee has just released a comprehensive evaluation of the leading Democratic candidates' health care plans.

It is required reading for any serious health policy wonk. Disbelieve their work at your own peril.

Republican Health Care Reform: The Congressional Republicans' Irrational Opposition to Medicaid

Congressional Republicans have consistently, if not unanimously, opposed Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid.

Their opposition is irrational.

It is also unpopular with voters. In dark red states like Nebraska, Idaho and Utah voters recently went over the heads of their Republican legislators and governors by approving referendums to expand the program. And, Kansas is about to become the 37th state to expand Medicaid under Obamacare after a bipartisan agreement between the Democratic governor and Republican leaders in the legislature.

While Obamacare's individual health insurance reforms and subsidies have been a disaster for the middle class (See: Obamacare is "Stable" at an Incredibly Unstable Place), the Medicaid expansion in the states that have approved it has covered millions of people that would never have been covered otherwise––at a cost that could never have been less.

Republican opposition has centered around a number of arguments. Let's take a look at each of them.

Biden, Bloomberg, and Buttigieg Have the Health Plans That Can Become Law and Will Work

In an earlier post, I pointed out that there is no better chance of passing a Medicare for all health care plan through Congress in the coming years than there was in 1977, or 1993, or 2009.

Then Elizabeth Warren showed us just how politically unrealistic single-payer health care is when she released her funding plan and then quickly backtracked to the public option approach in the face of rapidly declining polls. See my post: Elizabeth Warren Backs Into the Public Option and Effectively Takes Medicare for All Off the Table for Democrats in 2021

In a separate post, I pointed out that single-payer advocates, like Sanders and Warren, have yet to answer the biggest financial questions surrounding putting the entire country on a single government reimbursement system: How will their paying providers Medicare rates for everything not bankrupt hospitals and doctors? And, if they don't pay providers these lower Medicare rates, how will their proposals save us any money?