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This @MattBruenig post, which cites the RAND report on the NY Health Act in defense of single-payer, misconstrues a couple of RAND's findings. peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/08/07/the…
@MattBruenig First, the NY Health Act is not "fully funded." The bill identifies two new taxes, on payroll and non-payroll income, and says they should be progressive, but leaves the rates and brackets undetermined.
@MattBruenig In order to perform its distribution analysis, RAND was obliged to fill in the blanks with a tax structure of its own devising -- which may or may not be politically realistic.
@MattBruenig Liu and her co-authors designed their tax structure to be steeply progressive. Combined with NY's existing income taxes, marginal rates would approach 30% for incomes over $141,200. empirecenter.org/publications/d… 
@MattBruenig The chart included in @MattBruenig's post, taken directly from the RAND report, also needs clarification. It indicates that *average* payments would be lower up to 1000% of FPL, but that's not the same as saying everybody below that level saves money.
@MattBruenig Later in the report, RAND estimated that almost one in three NYers would face higher costs under its projected tax structure -- and that half of that group would be lower- or middle-income.
@MattBruenig By the way, the tax structure is predicated on a cost estimate that rests on dubious assumptions and could well be too low -- meaning tax rates, and the number of people facing higher costs, might far exceed their forecast.
@MattBruenig My takeaway from the RAND report is: Even if you assume a low-ball cost estimate, and even if you assume very high tax rates on the wealthy, you still end up with 30% of the population paying more -- half of them poor or middle-class.
