Joe Biden doesn't have a healthcare plan or a budget

The argument

Biden has vowed to increase the scope of Medicare and affordability of medicine but has outlined little in the way of specifics about how this might be budgeted or implemented. Increased spending in the wake of one of the most severe recessions in recent history wold further burden the US economy which is struggling to pick up after a months-long national lockdown. Furthermore, many of his proposals are seen as bold and Biden himself has admitted that even the more centrist proposals in his plan will be hard to get through congress. Many of his suggestions are reminiscent of the Obama era and Republicans argue these measures would put increased pressure on people’s taxes and further burden the American people.

Context

The US healthcare system currently combines public and private programs to insure the American people. Most Americans are covered through their employment. There are also government funded programs such as Medicare and Medicaid which provide further funding and support to vulnerable demographics.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Joe Biden has outlined the proposals he wants to implement should he be elected. These measures will be to expand the aid programs, simplify the current system and lower the cost of medicine. His current plan seeks to increase the tax burden on high income households and hold large tax-avoiding companies to offset the cost.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise is inaccurate on its own terms. A costed plan was published during the campaign — a public option, expanded subsidies, a lower Medicare eligibility age, negotiated drug prices — with a stated financing route through higher rates on high incomes and capital gains and the reversal of parts of the 2017 tax act. It can be criticised as optimistic or as thin in places; "little in the way of specifics" is a different criticism and a harder one to sustain. [Rejecting P2] The economics is contested rather than settled. The mainstream position after a demand-driven contraction is that public spending supports recovery rather than burdening it, and health spending in particular is largely a transfer between payers rather than new consumption. The premise also treats increased federal outlay as automatically increased tax on ordinary households, which the plan's own financing does not. [Rejecting P3] Conceding that legislation is hard to pass is candour rather than a defect, and it applies to anything either candidate proposed. The conclusion is besides comparative and the premises never make the comparison: it does not follow from a plan being hard to enact that the alternative is better, particularly where the alternative had been four years of attempts to repeal the existing framework without a published replacement.