BernieCare thirty-two trillion increase called a decrease

A recent Mercatus working paper from George Mason University that detailed the tremendous cost of Bernie Sanders’ health care plan spread like wildfire the last few days with false headlines from Leftist media outlets saying it showed government health care spending would decrease by 2 trillion dollars. But‪ the Mercatus white paper itself says right off, in the first paragraph, that the $32.6 trillion is NOT the TOTAL cost, to be compared with the current cost, but is a lowball estimate of the INCREASE IN COSTS over current spending:

"Medicare for All Act (M4A), would under conservative estimates increase federal budget commitments by approximately $32.6 trillion during its first 10 years of full implementation (2022–2031), assuming enactment in 2018."

The pro-Bernie articles also gloss over the difficulty in essentially doubling the government cost of health care. From the white paper:

"For perspective on these figures, consider that doubling all currently projected federal individual and corporate income tax collections would be insufficient to finance the added federal costs of the plan. The federal cost increase would by itself be more than two times all currently projected federal discretionary appropriations, including all defense as well as domestic discretionary spending. It is likely that the actual cost of M4A would be substantially greater than has been estimated from its legislative text."

It would take some serious digital forensics to determine who was the first person to turn this addition into a subtraction. But the estimate of an additional 32.6 trillion was subtracted from what a ThinkProgress article estimates at $33 trillion in current spending, government and personal spending combined. Even the subtraction they use is wrong! 33 minus 32.6 is, of course only .4 and not 2! Any decrease in personal spending would be more than offset by the required more than doubling of taxes needed to pay for it. Nevertheless, using their $33 trillion for current spending levels, the additional 10-year spending the working paper says BernieCare would require makes the total $55.6 trillion (33+32.6) and NOT $32.6 trillion! I’m calling it a math error, but how much of it is the media simply being misinformed versus deliberate lying (disinformation) we may never know. Here are a few example of the headlines the bad math produced: Think Progress went with “Koch-backed study finds ‘Medicare for All’ would save U.S. trillions.” People’s Policy Project headlined, “Mercatus Study Finds Medicare for All Saves $2 Trillion.” Slate and Splinter News attacked with deliberate disinformation in a headline saying, “Conservative Think-Tanker Accidentally Argues That Single Payer Could Save Americans $2 Trillion.”

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Medicare for All’ would save U.S. trillions

Several other news sources helped add to the confusion by leaving “additional” out of the headline. Reason headlined with “Bernie Sanders' Medicare-for-All Plan Will Cost $32 Trillion Over 10 Years.” Fox News said “ 'Medicare for all' bill estimated to cost $32.6T, new study says.” AP News and the Washington Post’s headline was picked up by a lot of news outlets, “Study: 'Medicare for all' projected to cost $32.6 trillion.” And so it went. While every headline I could find omitted the word “increase,” some of them did explain it correctly in their article. Fosters explained: “From 2019 to 2028, the federal government overall would spend an additional $2.5 trillion annually on health care under Sanders' plan, according to the study...” And a Washington Post article nailed it in the first two paragraphs of their article: “Sen. Bernie Sanders’ ”Medicare for all” plan would increase government health care spending by $32.6 trillion over 10 years, according to a study by a university-based libertarian policy center.” “Those studies found increases in federal spending over 10 years that ranged from $24.7 trillion to $34.7 trillion.” The made-up claim of Bernie saving $2 trillion has now even become a part of his campaign speeches. The cat is out of the bag now, that is, the $2 trillion lie has not only spread virally, it has become established fact as far as the Left is concerned. I’m afraid that no rational argument can save the Left now from believing a white paper showed BernieCare saves $2 trillion in spending for 10 years, when actually the theme of white paper was that BernieCare would add a whopping $32.6 trillion in 10 years! It sure looks like a long shot, but I’m hoping and praying my “pebble” of facts would hit this Goliath-sized viral lie in the forehead and cause it to fall.