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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said his Medicare for all plan as well as his tuition-free public college and student debt cancellation proposal are going to be fully paid for if he becomes president. He added that middle-class Americans would pay more in taxes to pay for Medicare for all. “Every proposal that I have brought forth is fully paid for,” he said at the Democratic presidential primary debate on Thursday night. Sanders predicted that health insurance premiums would decrease overall under his Medicare for all plan. He was asked if the middle class would have...

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in an op-ed accusing President Trump of lying about "Medicare for all," starts out with a whopper of his own. "It would guarantee everyone could get the healthcare they need without going into debt at far lower cost than the current dysfunctional system," Sanders writes in USA Today. The problem with his pie-in-the-sky statement, and the op-ed that follows, is that it fails to recognize the natural tradeoffs between access and cost in healthcare policy. In doing so, he also ignores the value of individual choice and the distinction between public and private that is central...

When President Trump declared in a USA Today op-ed that the Democrats' "Medicare for all" proposal would "outlaw" private health insurance, CNN's Jim Acosta indignantly tweeted that this was "false." But reading the text of the leading proposal by Sen. Bernie Sanders makes clear that Trump's op-ed was correct. "It is right there in their proposed legislation: Democrats outlaw private health plans that offer the same benefits as the government plan." This is, in fact, 100 percent accurate. The plan would require, in four years time, for individuals to be enrolled in the new government plan at birth. At that...

No excerpts allowed from USA Today, story here.

Chuck Schumer declared this week that health care is the issue that will define the November elections, and the Senate Minority Leader may be right for the wrong reason. Democrats could end up paying a big political price for signing up en masse for Bernie Sanders’s government-run health-care agenda. Republicans are running ads slamming Democrats on single-payer health care, and President Trump framed the issue this week in a USA Today op-ed that said “Democrats would gut Medicare with their planned government takeover of American health care.” Democrats claim this is unfair because not every candidate has endorsed single payer,...

If Sanders has his way, 180 million Americans who currently have private coverage would have it ripped away and be automatically enrolled in public insurance. Kids would be enrolled at birth. Medicare for All doesn’t just offer government health insurance to the needy. It makes private coverage illegal, including the health coverage you get at your job. Employers are prohibited from covering workers, retirees and their families. Sanders’ bill raises a critical question: If you’re seriously ill, will you be able to get the care you need? BernieCare guarantees you hospital care, doctors’ visits, dental and vision care, mental health...

Sanders’ health plan EDITOR: I’m unfazed by Bernie Sanders’ admission that government-administered health care might raise my taxes. Under the current system, my husband and I pay $18,200 in annual premiums for the lowest level of catastrophic health insurance. If we require medical care, that could run us another $13,400 before our coverage kicks in, for a total annual liability of $31,600. I’m confident that by cutting the parasitic health insurers out of the equation, and by containing costs through bargaining and economies of scale, a Sanders administration could provide us all with Medicare-type coverage and put a lot of...