‘No Way’ to Fund Medicare for All by Simply Taxing the Wealthy, According to New Study

This is yet another addition to the wide body of evidence showing Medicare For All would require massive taxes on middle-class families

October 29, 2019

According to a study conducted by a bipartisan budget watchdog, there would be “no way” to fund Medicare For All by “simply raising taxes on the rich.”

“The report, published by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, examines a variety of potential ways to raise the estimated $30 trillion over 10 years necessary to fund “Medicare-for-All,” including a 32 percent payroll tax, a 25 percent income surtax and a 42 percent value-added tax. These methods could all raise $30 trillion, the report says, but there is no way for the federal government to bring in that much money simply by taxing rich people.”

Without these massive tax increases, the CRFB report reveals the federal government would need to cut “non-health federal spending by 80 percent” to pay for the proposal. Alternatively, debt-financing would have devastating consequences for the economy.

“Deficit-financing ‘Medicare-for-All’ would be far more damaging to the economy,” the report says. “Assuming that such a massive increase in the debt would not roil financial markets or lead to high inflation, we estimate that a 108 percent of GDP increase in the federal debt would shrink the size of the economy by roughly 5 percent in 2030 – the equivalent of a $4,500 reduction in per-person income – and far more in the following years.”

This is yet another addition to the wide body of evidence showing Medicare For All would require massive taxes on middle-class families. It also further demonstrates that any claim of funding a single-payer system simply by increasing taxes on the rich is completely false.