Re: “Another View: Warren fools no one by avoiding Medicare tax talk” (Oct. 19):

I can’t blame Elizabeth Warren for being coy about how to pay for “Medicare for All.” I’ve seen little straightforward reporting about the cost of Medicare for All compared to alternatives. Instead, most coverage seems aimed at scaring people away from reasoned comparison and debate.

For example, the cost of the proposed Medicare for All is almost always presented as a 10-year number, but often does not mention the “10-year” timeframe when reporting that “scary big” number.

Secondly, media coverage almost never mentions that the current system of for-profit health insurance will cost as much or more than Medicare for All. Readers are left to infer that the quoted amounts are “in addition to” versus “instead of” the current for-profit health insurance system.

Thirdly, media coverage almost never points out that “premiums” on households and businesses to fund Medicare for All will be no more—and probably less—than “premiums and out of pockets” paid by these same households and businesses to fund the for-profit health insurance system. Characterizing the funding for single-payer as “taxes” while ignoring the simultaneous elimination of “premiums and out-of-pocket payments” invites the Norquistadors to pounce with shrieks of “She said ‘tax increase’! She said ‘tax increase’!”

Single-payer health insurance is big reform, and a legitimate option for solving a national problem. It deserves an honest comparison to the alternatives. If Elizabeth Warren could trust the media to do that, maybe she wouldn’t need to be so coy.

 

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