Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said that while she favors a Medicare for All system of health care, she is opposed to raising taxes on the middle class, leading to the question: How would such a plan be paid for?
Harris made the seemingly contradictory remarks during an interview on CNN.
"Part of it is going to be about Wall Street paying more," Harris said. "It's going to be about what we tax in terms of financial services. That's part of it. The other part is to ups understand this is about an investment that will reap a great return on the investment. We can't only look at this issue in terms of cost without thinking about benefit. The benefit to the American public will be that people will have access to health care that right now they cannot afford. And we are all paying a price for that."
This is, of course, unlikely if not impossible. She talks about raising taxes on Wall Street and taxing different financial services, but her answer is mostly a glossing over of the real math question at hand.
Even Bernie Sanders, the author of the Medicare for All plan Harris has supported as a senator, admits his plan would require a middle class tax increase.
"How do you think we … Health care is not free. Now, we pay for health care in a variety of ways, pretty complicated. About half of health care dollars, more or less, comes from taxes," Sanders said Tuesday to The Washington Post.
Sanders said Medicare for All would cost about $40 trillion over a 10-year period.
Harris, however, is choosing to take the path of both supporting Medicare for All and opposing middle class taxes, apparently hoping that voters will simply believe it to be possible because they would like to believe it is possible.
