Comments by "" (@thehumanity0) on "Warren's Plan to Pay for Medicare-for-All" video.

Thanks for being fair about this David. It would be good to hear about what you think on the employer head tax that she implements in her plan. This is my biggest criticism by far, that she uses a regressive tax instead of the payroll tax in Medicare for All.
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Medicare for All is already considered "the gold standard" of healthcare bills. The bills in the House and Senate are already incredibly comprehensive in how they're paid for. Anyone claiming that Warren explains how it's finally paid for is incredibly dishonest and disingenuous. She switched a progressive payroll tax out for a regressive employer head tax, which is far worse for lower and some middle class families.
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@White_Oak_ "Support drops to 37% if people think their taxes will go up, which is why Warren came up with a plan that doesn't do that." Except an employer head tax WILL cost people, she's more likely to get called out for being dishonest about it than her political calculation working. The question about taxes going up was already bogus theatre; the media is going to ask that question no matter what, and when they find out Warren's plan still implements a flat head tax that effectively costs the middle class even MORE in the long run, they will double down on their claims that Warren is not being honest about the cost. Also, it's pure fantasy to think that Warren's new funding for Medicare for All would be more likely to pass through Congress. She includes a wealth tax and immigration reform as part of her plan; including those issues is only going to make Medicare for All much much harder to pass through a partisan Congress (I actually support a wealth tax, but attaching it to a large healthcare bill is only going to exacerbate the struggle for Single Payer). At least with Bernie's proposed funding, our primary goal is to just convince the public that 98% of people will save money by implementing a progressive payroll tax that funds a Single Payer system that is free at the point of service, just like our fire houses, police forces, public construction sites, and government buildings are all funded by an income tax and additionally Social Security and Medicare are funded by their own payroll taxes. Trying to complicate the framing is only going to make things more wonky and harder to explain to people, and especially with this issue, we need a politician to be short and succinct to get their point across easily to the American people so the maximum amount of people understand the issue; we're going to need all the support we can get.
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@White_Oak_ "the employer head tax will not affect employees because it is not a new expense for employers". This is incredibly false, under a flat head tax, employers for low income earners would be paying up to 68% in taxes of what their workers make (what they pay their workers). If you don't think that's going to effect people's income you're incredibly naive; employers would be paying nearly double for their workers' services, the people who will get punished are the workers. This possibly maybe wouldn't be the case if Warren just made the head tax progressive and linked to income, but it almost guarantees workers will get stiffed by making them far more expensive to employ. It also makes the system incredibly flimsy when you make the taxes the same for a worker making minimum wage as you would for an employer making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Not to mention she adds in giant loopholes for companies being exempt if they have less than 50 employees or if the employees are subcontractors. This already exempts large corporations from having to contribute to a head tax, but the ones that it will effect can just restructure the companies to include several small companies composing of less than 50 employees and then they will have to pay nothing. The whole thing can unravel at any moment and it's already incredibly unfeasible making the head tax the same flat tax for everyone, it's only going to end up harming workers more, whether it's from employers slashing pay or from more job loss due to companies being unable to afford a 68% tax rate for a job that could likely be scrapped, automated or outsourced. Meanwhile, with real Medicare for All, the first $29,000 of income is tax exempt and low-income earners are taxed the least, while high-income earners are progressively taxed more. I agree with the idea in theory to tax the employer, not the worker, but when you make it a regressive flat tax and when you conclude that it's terrible distribution that most likely wouldn't even work, then no I don't support it nor do I think it's a good idea when a payroll tax is by far the more progressive option that also has a much more likely chance of being passed than tying a healthcare bill to immigration reform and 5 other issues.
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