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In reply to the discussion: Bernie Sanders thanks Kamala Harris for endorsing single-payer [View all]sheshe2
(83,660 posts)To understand the challenges Bernie Sanders's "Medicare for all" plan would face in the United States, you need look no further for instruction than his home state of Vermont.
In the early 2010s, Vermont made a serious, years-long attempt to build a single-payer system. The state's governor, legislature, and even many hospitals and businesses got behind the effort. When I went to Vermont's capital, Montpelier, in March 2014 to write a long story about the single-payer effort, the working assumption among pretty much everyone I spoke to was that this was it this time, a single-payer plan would actually happen.
And then it didn't. Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin announced in late 2014 that he would give up on single-payer after budget analysts realized Vermont would need an additional $2.5 billion in tax revenue to pay for the system. That would have required raising the payroll tax by 11.5 percent and income tax by 9 percent.
Vermont's failed single-payer attempt helps explain the difficulties a Sanders administration would face in building a Medicare-for-all system. Like Vermont, the United States would also need a massive tax increase to build a health care system like Canada's.
https://www.vox.com/2016/1/20/10793864/sanders-single-payer-vermont