Warren to release a plan on financing Medicare-for-all

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Sunday that she will release a plan to pay for her Medicare-for-all goal "in the next few weeks." Democratic presidential rivals have been attacking Warren on her refusal to specify how she proposes to fund the plan, and reporters continue to ask her if she would raise taxes, not just lower total health-care costs, for the middle class.

"The cheapest possible way to make sure that everyone gets health care is Medicare-for-all," Warren said at the end of a town hall in Indianola, Iowa. "Right now, the cost estimates on Medicare-for-all vary by trillions and trillions of dollars. And the different revenue streams for how to fund it — there are a lot of them," she added. "So this is something I've been working on for months and months and it's got just a little more work until it's finished."

Warren has mostly embraced the Medicare-for-all legislation introduced by fellow presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and the bill does not specify how it would be financed. The price tag for universal single-payer health care is usually put at about $30 trillion over 10 years, and supporters for such a plan argue that Americans and U.S. companies already bear that financial burden, at least, through health insurance and other medical costs.

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Many of Warren's rivals favor a plan that would offer Medicare to any American who wants it. If every American wants it, they would, of course, have to find a way to pay for that.