Biden Misleads on His Health Care Plan

Presidential hopeful and former Vice President Joe Biden released his healthcare plan earlier this month.

In a video announcing his new plan, Biden sought to contrast his position with other Democrat candidates that have proposed eliminating private health insurance used by over 195 million Americans and creating a system of socialist healthcare with government as the single payer.

The truth is, there is little difference between the plan offered by Biden and by advocates of the socialist Medicare for All proposal like Bernie Sanders. Biden’s plan is simply a half way point toward achieving more government control over healthcare, less choice, and higher taxes, just Medicare for All.

Case in point – Biden’s healthcare plan contains a long list of policies that are found on the wish-list of the progressive agenda.

For instance, Biden is proposing to radically transform the market-based structure of Medicare Part D by having the government interfere in free market negotiations. Part D works because it facilities negotiation between private stakeholders such as manufacturers and insurers and expressly forbids the government from setting prices.

This system has largely been successful – 9 in 10 seniors are satisfied with the Part D drug coverage and federal spending has come in at less than half the originally projected amounts.

Biden would also allow the importation of unsafe, unvetted medicines from foreign countries and would adopt foreign reference pricing to determine the price of new drugs.

Make no mistake, these policies would harm American healthcare.

Both proposals allow the importation of price controls and other heavy-handed government policies into the U.S. system.

Importing price-controlled medicine will siphon off drugs from other markets and exacerbate the true problem – foreign countries freeloading off American innovation.

This is not hypothetical -- roughly 290 new medical substances were launched worldwide between 2011 and 2018. The U.S. had access to 90 percent while other developed nations such as the United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada had access to just half.

These proposals do not represent a kind of reasonable middle ground as Biden would claim.

In fact, they are the same proposals embraced by Bernie Sanders and other progressive members of Congress because they erode free market incentives, give the government more control over healthcare, and set the groundwork for socialist healthcare.

Biden’s healthcare proposal has another key similarity to socialized healthcare – massive tax hikes.

In fact, Biden says he wants to follow in the footsteps of Obamacare – the law which imposed $1 trillion in higher taxes on the American people including a tax on health insurance, a tax on medical devices, a tax on high medical bills, and (until it was repealed by President Trump) a tax for failing to buy government approved health insurance.

Like the Medicare for All plan, Biden says he wants to pay for it by “taxing the rich.” Already, Biden has proposed increasing the top rate from 37 percent to 39.6 percent and taxing capital gains income at a top rate of 43.4 percent.

However, just like Medicare for All, the rhetoric does not hold up to scrutiny. Sanders’ socialist healthcare plan proposes a new $4 trillion tax on workers and a $3.5 trillion tax on businesses among a grab bag of tax hikes totaling $16 trillion.

Similarly, Biden has repeatedly vowed that full repeal of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will be one of his first acts as President. Repealing the GOP tax cuts would increase taxes on Americans at every income level and for businesses large and small.

Under his plan, a typical family of four would see a $2,000 tax increase and the average tax liability will increase by almost 25 percent based on data by H&R Block.

While Biden may seek to distance his plan from the socialized healthcare plan offered by Bernie Sanders and others, his proposal puts the U.S. healthcare system on the same path toward government-controlled healthcare. Biden’s plan – just like single payer healthcare – will mean more government control over the healthcare system, less choice for patients and consumers, and higher taxes for American families.

Alex Hendrie is Director of Tax Policy at Americans for Tax Reform, a taxpayer advocacy group dedicated to lower taxes and limited government.