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.

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?

Buttigieg and Biden Spend What They Would Gain Repealing the Republican Tax Cuts on Health Care

Shouldn't any gain from repealing the Republican tax cuts on the wealthiest go toward fixing the debt and deficit problems these tax cuts have contributed to?

Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg both rely on repealing some of the Trump tax cuts––particularly those for the "rich"––to pay for their very similar and incremental health care plans that rely upon making a government-run public option available to consumers.

On one level that notion can be attractive to Democratic voters turned off by the 2017 Republican tax cuts.

But when those tax cuts were passed, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated those cuts would add $1.6 trillion over ten years to the deficit. The Democrats were apoplectic over the Republican irresponsibility of it all.