Elizabeth Warren is a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts who is seen as one of the favorites to win the Democratic nomination due to her popularity. Her views on healthcare are Medicare should be for all but the cost should only fall on the shoulders of the rich. 

All candidates are fighting over Medicare and Elizabeth Warren supports Bernie Sanders about this issue. Rising prescription drug costs have also been a major concern about Medicare. For instance, the popular drug, Novolog, increased in the list price by 353% from 2001-2016. With rising prices and the introduction of more costly insulin products over time, the average total Medicare Part D spending per user on insulin products increased by 358% between 2007 and 2016, from $862 to $3,949.

She states, “Medicare for All, would be funded.” and she will eventually put out a plan which she has been working for months. 

Warren’s campaign said they are studying a range of options for paying for Medicare for All. She had not outlined her own health care plan in 2017 but instead was running on Sanders’s single-payer legislation that she had signed. 

On October 31, 2019, Warren proposed her plan, “We don’t need to raise taxes on the middle class by one penny to finance Medicare for All.”

Warren’s Campaign proposal insists that costs can be covered by existing federal and state spending on Medicare. Unlike Sanders’ plan, Warren does not project any new tax burden on the middle-class families and will maintain and boost a funding pipeline from other sources. 

Here’s the outline of her plan: 

• $20.5 trillion price tag of the plan
• Employer contribution would be about $8.8 trillion
• Taxing additional take-home pay: $1.4 trillion
• Cracking down on tax evasion and fraud: $2.3 trillion
• Targeted taxes on the financial sector and large corporations: $3.8 trillion 
• Beefing up the wealth tax: $1 trillion

Although Warren knows what she’s proposing and has a $52 trillion plan for Medicare, many people are confused and want to know how Warren is going to fill the multi-trillion-dollar hole in Medicare. 

“No plan has been laid out to explain how a multi-trillion-dollar hole in this Medicare-for-all plan that Senator Warren is putting forward is supposed to get filled in,” charged South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg. 

In order to make the plan, $20 trillion are needed in spending, covered largely by an array of taxes on corporations, the wealthy and employers in general. 

She has been facing doubt from people and even her own party about the plan as she claims not only will the middle class not be hit with a tax hike but even suggests billionaires alone can fund it. 

“It doesn’t raise taxes on anybody but billionaires,” said Warren. Even the Joe Biden campaign fired back with Warren’s statement saying it is not true. Her plan would create a new tax on employers, which would come out of their pockets causing more financial issues.   

Aside from the cost issues, Warren has been truthful and honest that Medicare-for-all could result in substantial job losses because of the cost issues where almost 2 million jobs would be lost. But she did tell in her interview with New Hampshire Public Radio, that she will not sign any legislation into law that costs for middle-class families to go down.