Democrats trade barbs over paying for health care
Biden calls out Medicare-for-all plan; former CKE Restaurants CEO Andy Puzder reacts.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders' "Medicare-for-all" plan may sound promising to some, but the price tag will scare away voters, according to Andy Puzder.
Puzder told "The Story" Thursday the total cost of "Medicare-for-all" is estimated to nearly equal the federal government's total revenue.
"There's only one way to make health care better," he said. "Increase the quality, decrease the price."
"You basically have to double the amount of money that we bring in through taxes -- and you still would have a trillion-dollar shortfall."
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Puzder cited a George Mason University Mercatus Center report that claimed "Medicare-for-all" would cost more than $3 trillion per year for a decade.
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"I think what scares them is the percentage in taxes that those middle-class people would have to pay," he claimed. "Nobody who hears what that percentage is is going to vote for Bernie Sanders... $2.3 trillion doesn't even pay for 'Medicare-for-all' -- so you could take every penny that everybody who makes over $500,000 per year earns, it wouldn't even come close to paying for it."
Puzder, who President Trump considered for Labor Secretary before dropping out of contention, added that former Vice President Joe Biden's health care proposal is more realistic.
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Earlier Thursday, Sanders told Fox News that Biden’s plan supported “a dysfunctional, wasteful and cruel health care system, a system today which is costing us twice as much per person as the people than any other industrialized country pay.”
On "The Story," Puzder remarked he thought Biden's attacks on Sanders' health care plan were "the smartest thing he's done so far," but suggested he still wouldn't support the Delaware Democrat.
Fox News' Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
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