January 2020 - While Donald Trump and Republicans across the country continue to try and take away your health care rights, the Democrats are working to strengthen and improve your access to quality healthcare, with each of the Democratic Presidential candidates putting forth their own plan for healthcare reform.

In general, though, Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) go the furthest, believing that enrolling all Americans in a public health insurance plan ("Medicare for All") is the best approach for improving the nation's healthcare system. The other Democratic candidates also approve of a public plan, but support it as an additional option to those plans currently available to you through either your employer or the health insurance marketplace.

(image from nytimes.com)
So, given the variety of plans being promoted this election year, which one of the candidates has the best ideas? One piece of that evaluation is to review the estimated costs and the proposed funding for each plan.

Which is what the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) recently did. Focusing on the impact of each candidate's health care proposals as they affect the national debt, the CRFB evaluated the plans put forth by the four leading Democrats running for President: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg. Based on the details released by each candidate, the CRFB estimates that the unfunded portion of each candidate's plan will total the following over the next ten years:

Senator Warren: $6.1 billion

Vice President Biden: $800 million

Mayor Buttigieg: -$450 million

Note that the Mayor's number is a negative amount, i.e. his plan, as currently structured, would reduce the national debt over the next ten years. Specifically, the Buttigieg plan would increase gross spending by $2.85 trillion, reduce health care costs by $1.2 trillion, and raise $2.1 trillion through direct and additional offsets (mostly through business tax increases), resulting in a net reduction in federal deficits during those years.

(image from cnnintl.com)
This doesn't mean that the other candidates couldn't find the additional revenue or expense savings to cover the cost of their plans, particularly Mr. Biden, who's plan already is almost revenue neutral over the next ten years. Of course, the Presidency is not a dictatorship (despite the direction Mr. Trump and his yes-men are trying to take it) and any healthcare plan would have to pass both Houses of Congress before the President can sign it into law. Consequently, any plan that emerges from Congress likely will differ from any of the candidates' current proposals, for better or for worse.

For more specifics on the CRFB study, we recommend the January 24th online article by Adriana Belmonte, Associate Editor of Yahoo Finance, titled "Buttigieg's Health Care Plan Would Save Money, While…".

As for the CRFB itself, you can check out their website at www.crfb.org. They describe themselves as a bi-partisan, non-profit organization whose goal is to analyze and educate the public on the economy and issues that affect the federal budget.

(It may be worth noting that progressives have raised concerns regarding the significant financial support the CRFB has received over the years from billionaire Pete Peterson, who champions reductions in Social Security and Medicare, and from tobacco lobbyists, who have fought against tobacco excise taxes in federal healthcare legislation. Which doesn't mean the CRFB can't be objective in their analyses, but it's always worth keeping in mind where an organization gets its funding and whether it might have a hidden, or even unintentional, bias.)

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