What the Health?

Under Biden, Obamacare would grow in a few key ways. Those are: the creation of a public health care provider that is run by the government which would compete with private insurance companies, an increase in tax credits for working families, an expansion of Medicaid, and a drive to decrease the cost of prescription drugs. So, in layman’s terms, Biden promises better, cheaper and more accessible healthcare (unsurprisingly, a common thread among all the candidates). He plans to fund this expansion mainly through the closing of loopholes present in the capital gains tax code (a tax levied on sold property or investments), as well as a reimplementation of Obama era tax rates on the rich (39.6% on the top income bracket).

Next up is Medicare for All, Bernie Sanders’ plan for a centralized, government run healthcare system. Medicare for All has the support of two other candidates aside from Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang, but we’ll stick with Sanders’ as he wrote the bill. The most striking change under Medicare for All would be the huge reduction in the presence of private insurance providers. They will still exist, but only to provide services not already covered by Medicare. All necessary medical procedures and pharmaceuticals will be paid for by the federal government. This, at least in theory, gives the government a huge amount of bargaining power when negotiating with healthcare providers (doctors and hospitals, not insurance companies), as they would represent nearly every client or potential client they would ever have. The idea of the plan is to take the Medicare system, which currently serves Americans over the age of 65, and expand it to include “everyone”. It’s worth noting that none of Medicare For All’s supporters have answered whether or not the plan would cover people living in America who are not citizens (residents, undocumented immigrants etc). Depending on who you ask, the bill even comes with a built in revenue source. Along with the Medicare for All bill, Sanders released a document discussing various ways we could finance the program. Sanders estimates we could generate roughly $16 trillion over the next decade through a combination of tax increases and loophole closures, which he argues would more than cover the costs of the project. Emphasis, however, on who you ask. Seemingly not a single expert can agree with another, and you can find evidence supporting a price tag of anywhere from $13 trillion to $32 trillion.

That brings us to the last plan put forward by the 2020 Democrats: Medicare for All (Who Want It). This is a catch all term describing the policies of Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, and Julián Castro. All of their plans involve working towards a system very reminiscent of Medicare for All, with slight differences based on the candidate. The one large difference they all share from Medicare for All, and the distinction that puts them in this third group, is that they would not abolish private insurance that offers basic medical care, and would instead opt to create a competing public plan that would (hopefully) drive down the prices of private insurance.

So, yeah, this whole debate is a bit of a mess. To quote a very stable genius (whose great wisdom is simply unmatched), "...it's an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew health care could be so complicated." Each of these proposed solutions has been carefully constructed as to not cause the complete collapse of the rickety Jenga tower that is the American healthcare system, and we’ll just have to hope that, no matter the plan, the whole thing doesn’t come crashing down on top of us.