Vox May 7, 2021
The Biden agenda has run into the hardest roadblock in health care: How do you pay for it?
As Joe Biden closed in on the Democratic Party’s nomination, with only Bernie Sanders still running against him, part of his pitch was that he knew how he’d pay for his proposals.
Bernie’s $32 trillion single-payer Medicare-for-all plan? Unrealistic and unaffordable. Biden’s $800 billion plan to create a new public insurance option and build on Obamacare? Joe has it covered.
“The fact of the matter is, everything I call for I pay for,” Biden said in his final debate with Sanders on March 15, 2020.
But in practice, an $800 billion plan may be almost as politically daunting as a $32...