Story highlights The Vermont senator's plan would funnel all Americans into a government-run health insurance program similar to the Medicare program 
 
 The plan comes with a hefty price tag: $1.38 trillion a year 
 
 Charleston, South Carolina (CNN) Bernie Sanders released his Medicare-for-all health care plan Sunday, detailing how he'd implement a decades-old liberal dream just two hours before Democrats start their final debate before the February 1 Iowa caucuses. 
 
 The Vermont senator's plan would funnel all Americans into a government-run health insurance program similar to the Medicare program that already covers senior citizens. 
 
 "Universal health care is an idea that has been supported in the United States by Democratic presidents going back to Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman," Sanders said in a statement. "It is time for our country to join every other major industrialized nation on earth and guarantee health care to all citizens as a right, not a privilege." 
 
 The plan comes with a hefty price tag: $1.38 trillion per year, according to calculations released by the Sanders campaign. It would provide comprehensive care to all Americans, covering doctors' visits, hospital stays, long-term and hospice care, vision, dental, mental health and prescription drugs. 
 
 To pay for it, Sanders is calling for a new 2.2% income tax on all Americans and a 6.2% levy on employers. But he would also hike taxes on the wealthy. 
 
 Read More ||||| Hillary Clinton has made a lot of bad arguments about Bernie Sanders's support for single-payer. But her best argument was her simplest: With mere weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses, Sanders still hadn't released any details about his plan. And absent a real plan, no one could really say what he was proposing or whether it was a good idea. As Clinton said in an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, "The devil's in the details when it comes to health care." 
 
 On Sunday night, mere hours before the fourth Democratic debate, Sanders tried to head off Clinton's attacks by releasing his plan. Only what he released isn't a plan. It is, to be generous, a gesture toward a future plan. 
 
 To be less generous — but perhaps more accurate — this is a document that lets Sanders say he has a plan, but doesn't answer the most important questions about how his plan would work or what it would mean for most Americans. Sanders is detailed and specific in response to the three main attacks Clinton has launched, but is vague or unrealistic on virtually every other issue. The result is that he answers Clinton's criticisms while raising much more profound questions about his own ideas. 
 
 Sanders promises his health care system will cover pretty much everything while costing the average American almost nothing, and he relies mainly on vague "administrative" savings and massive taxes on the rich to make up the difference. It's everything critics fear a single-payer plan would be, and it lacks the kind of engagement with the problems of single-payer health systems necessary to win over skeptics. 
 
 What Sanders's plan tells us that we didn't know before 
 
 Clinton's first attack was that Sanders hadn't released a plan. Now he has. 
 
 Clinton's second attack was that Sanders would rely on states to manage and partially finance his health care system, as he's proposed in the past. His plan puts that criticism completely to rest, clarifying that the system will be "federally administered." As far as this document goes, there is no role for states at all. 
 
 Clinton's third attack was that Sanders's plan would raise taxes on the middle class. In response, Sanders gets very detailed on the financing of his plan. It would raise taxes on the middle class — in part through a 2.2 percent tax increase on all income, and in part by a 6.2 percent "income-based premium" on employers (which would, in turn, get passed on to workers through lower wages and higher prices). 
 
 The rest of the financing would come through a raft of new taxes on the rich. Sanders would raise marginal rates on income over $250,000, he would raise the tax rate on capital gains and dividend income, he would hike the estate tax, and he would close sundry deductions and loopholes. 
 
 In general, I'm comfortable with higher taxes on the rich — though they've risen substantially in the Obama era already — but tax increases of the scale Sanders proposes here would begin to have real economic drawbacks. European countries tend to pay for their health care systems through more broad-based, economically efficient taxes like VATs; Sanders's effort to fund a universal health care system so heavily on the backs of the wealthy would be unprecedented. 
 
 All in all, Sanders wants to raise taxes by a bit more than a trillion dollars per year — which may not sound like much to those who remember the Obamacare debate, but remember that the numbers that got thrown around for Obamacare were 10-year estimates. Adding inflation, Sanders will be raising taxes by close to $15 trillion when the Congressional Budget Office applies its normal scoring window. 
 
 Of course, these new taxes replace the premiums Americans pay now. Here, Sanders promises that between shifting health care financing to the rich and cutting costs through single-payer's efficiencies, his plan will only cost the average American family around $450 — a savings of more than $5,800 over what they're paying in premiums now. 
 
 Those benefits are big. To get them, Sanders is assuming some immense cost savings. And that's where the problems start. 
 
 Sanders's plan isn't Medicare for all 
 
 Sanders calls his plan "Medicare for all." But it actually has nothing to do with Medicare. He's not simply expanding Medicare coverage to the broader population — he makes that clear when he says his plan means "no more copays, no more deductibles"; Medicare includes copays and deductibles. The list of what Sanders's plan would cover far exceeds what Medicare offers, suggesting, more or less, that pretty much everything will be covered, under all circumstances. 
 
 Bernie's plan will cover the entire continuum of health care, from inpatient to outpatient care; preventive to emergency care; primary care to specialty care, including long-term and palliative care; vision, hearing and oral health care; mental health and substance abuse services; as well as prescription medications, medical equipment, supplies, diagnostics and treatments. Patients will be able to choose a health care provider without worrying about whether that provider is in-network and will be able to get the care they need without having to read any fine print or trying to figure out how they can afford the out-of-pocket costs. 
 
 Sanders goes on to say that his plan means "no more fighting with insurance companies when they fail to pay for charges." 
 
 To be generous, it's possible that Sanders is just being cynical in his wording, and what he means is that under his plan, individuals have to fight with the government rather than private insurers when their claims are denied. 
 
 But the implication to most people, I think, is that claim denials will be a thing of the past — a statement that belies the fights patients have every day with public insurers like Medicare and Medicaid, to say nothing of the fights that go on in the Canadian, German, or British health care systems. 
 
 What makes that so irresponsible is that it stands in flagrant contradiction to the way single-payer plans actually work — and the way Sanders's plan will have to work if its numbers are going to add up. 
 
 Behind Sanders's calculations, for both how much his plan will cost and how much Americans will benefit, lurk extremely optimistic promises about how much money single-payer will save. And those promises can only come true if the government starts saying no quite a lot — in ways that will make people very, very angry. 
 
 What Sanders doesn't tell us that we really need to know 
 
 "They assumed $10 trillion in health care savings over 10 years," says Larry Levitt, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "That’s tremendously aggressive cost containment, even after you take the administrative savings into account." 
 
 The real way single-payer systems save money isn't through cutting administrative costs. It's through cutting reimbursements to doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and device companies. And Sanders gestures toward this truth in his plan, saying that "the government will finally have the ability to stand up to drug companies and negotiate fair prices for the American people collectively." 
 
 But to get those savings, the government needs to be willing to say no when doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and device companies refuse to meet their prices, and that means the government needs to be willing to say no to people who want those treatments. If the government can't do that — if Sanders is going to stick to the spirit of "no more fighting with insurance companies when they fail to pay for charges" — then it won't be able to control costs. 
 
 The issue of how often the government says no leads to all sorts of other key questions — questions Sanders is silent on. For instance, who decides when the government says no? Will there be a cost-effectiveness council, like Britain's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence? Or will the government basically have to cover every treatment that can be proven beneficial, as is true for Medicare now? What will the appeals process be like? 
 
 This might sound technical, but it's absolutely critical. Sanders implies everything will be covered because he knows how important that question is to people. But everything won't be covered. So who decides, how do they decide, what gets covered, and what doesn't? Without knowing that, it's impossible to say whether a particular single-payer system is a good idea or a really, really bad one. 
 
 Another crucial question is whether Sanders envisions the possibility of exit inside his system. Technically, a single-payer system is a system with, well, a single payer. Private insurers are outlawed — otherwise, it would be a multi-payer system. But the term is often used more loosely than that, and many systems that get mentioned during discussions of single-payer, like the French system, include various kinds of supplementary, private insurance that people generally purchase. 
 
 The role of private insurers matters because it drives the government's bargaining power. If drug companies either sell to the government or they go out of business, then the government can get better prices. The problem there is obvious, though: What do people do if the government doesn't cover a treatment they need? But if there are private insurers selling add-on policies to wealthier Americans, then drug companies can deal only with them, and the government's negotiating power wanes. 
 
 Another question Sanders's plan doesn't answer but is crucially important: How do you guarantee physical access to medical care? Right now hospitals charge Medicaid one price, Medicare a somewhat higher price, and private insurers an even higher price. If the entire system is squeezed down to Medicare pricing, a lot of hospitals are going to close. How will Sanders keep that from happening? Or will he let it happen, even if it means people in rural areas need to drive hours for care? 
 
 The easy rejoinder to this is that this is just a campaign proposal, and these are details that can be worked out in the legislative process. I disagree. Sanders is proposing a huge, disruptive reform here — he owes the public answers to the most central, obvious questions about how that reform would work. Perhaps more importantly, he also needs to show that he's at least aware of the difficulties of a single-payer system and has realistic ideas for managing the transition. 
 
 Moreover, the fundamental debate between Sanders and Hillary Clinton — and Sanders and the GOP — is whether single-payer is a good idea at all. That debate can't be resolved unless these kinds of questions are answered. 
 
 In the absence of these kinds of specifics, Sanders has offered a puppies-and-rainbows approach to single-payer — he promises his plan will cover everything while costing the average family almost nothing. This is what Republicans fear liberals truly believe: that they can deliver expansive, unlimited benefits to the vast majority of Americans by stacking increasingly implausible, and economically harmful, taxes on the rich. Sanders is proving them right. 
 
 A few days ago, I criticized Hillary Clinton for not leveling with the American people. She seemed, I wrote, "scared to tell voters what she really thinks for fear they'll disagree." Here, Sanders shows he doesn't trust voters either. Rather than making the trade-offs of a single-payer plan clear, he's obscured them further. In answering Clinton's criticisms, he's raised real concerns about the plausibility of his own ideas. ||||| Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders released his plan for a single-payer healthcare system in the United States Sunday, hours before the start of the fourth Democratic debate. The Vermont senator, a self-proclaimed socialist, has long advocated for universal healthcare and nine times has proposed legislation to expand Medicare to all Americans. 
 
 The eight-page plan, titled "Medicare for All: Leaving No One Behind," praised the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, for helping "more than 17 million Americans" gain health insurance. At the same time, it called for the U.S. to "build upon the success of the ACA" because about 29 million Americans still lack health insurance, while even many of those who do have coverage cannot actually afford to use it. 
 
 Photo: REUTERS/Chris Keane 
 
 A single-payer healthcare system is a system where a single public agency organizes the financing of healthcare. The current U.S. system relies on a complex network of insurance companies and a mix of public and private systems to handle payment for medical care. 
 
 One of the biggest questions Sanders has faced in calling for universal healthcare has been the issue of finances -- how much it would cost, and how it would be paid for. According to the plan released Sunday, the annual costs of $1.38 trillion would be "fully paid for" from several revenue streams, including a 6.2 percent income-based healthcare premium levied on employers, amounting to $630 billion per year. Households would contribute with an income-based premium of 2.2 percent per year, for annual revenues of $210 billion per year. 
 
 Continue Reading Below 
 
 The plan would also be funded through progressive income tax rates, so that the more people earn per year, the higher the rate they pay in taxes. His proposed rates ranged from 37 percent to those with annual income between $250,000 and $500,000 per year to 52 percent on households making more than $10 million per year. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Meanwhile, tax breaks for capital gains and dividends would end, and instead, that income would be taxed "the same as income from work," the plan said. Other proposed sources of revenue for the single-payer plan included a limit on tax deductions for the rich, a "responsible estate tax" and savings accrued from ending various tax breaks, aimed at subsidizing healthcare, that would no longer apply with a single-payer system. 
 
 His plan also laid out how universal healthcare would cost far less for the government, the average consumer and businesses, than the status quo. It promised that Sanders' plan would cost $6 trillion less than the existing healthcare system over the next decade, and it would save the average middle-class family some $5,800 per year. Such a family would have to pay $466 in annual premiums for healthcare coverage, according to Sanders' plan. 
 
 The Obama administration credits the Affordable Care Act with lowering the ranks of the uninsured by some 16.4 million. Still, even those with health insurance have found medical care to be prohibitively expensive, skipping doctor's visits and medical tests as a result. The group Physicians for a National Healthcare System touts the benefits of a single-payer system, in comparison to the Affordable Care Act, here. 
 
 In 2014, healthcare spending in the U.S. reached $3 trillion, or more than $9,500 per person, and accounted for 17.5 percent of the country's GDP. ||||| Bernie Sanders told TIME on Sunday that he would be willing to raise taxes on the middle class in order to guarantee universal healthcare, after months of weathering attacks from Hillary Clinton. 
 
 When asked in an interview in Charleston, South Carolina, on Sunday which of his big-ticket proposals would cost the middle class more in taxes, the insurgent presidential candidate said “I think if we can guarantee healthcare to all people comprehensive healthcare, no deductibles, and if we can cut people’s healthcare bill substantially.” 
 
 Sanders disputed to TIME it was a middle-class tax hike, saying it would ultimately save taxpayers money by cutting out private health insurers. 
 
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 He added that Clinton’s attacks over the bills were a “distortion of reality.” 
 
 “What media sometimes does, what my opponent does, what Republicans do, is they really try to take a cheap shot. If you were paying $10,000 in private health insurance and I said to you, guess what, you ain’t going to pay that $10,000 and more but you’re going to pay $5,000 more in healthcare premiums, you’d be jumping up and down for joy. You save $5,000 on your healthcare bills,” Sanders told TIME. 
 
 “It’s disingenuous. I’ve heard this my whole life,” Sanders continued, arguing the legislation would save money. 
 
 The Senator’s comments on Sunday appear to backtrack from statements he made last month, when he said he would not raise taxes for any program except paid family leave. 
 
 At the heart of the debate between Clinton and Sanders over taxes is the question of what programs the federal government should be willing to pay for. Sanders has long supported a single-payer healthcare system in the style of European countries and Canada that he calls “Medicare for all,” saying the program would guarantee healthcare for all Americans and greatly reduce healthcare bills. 
 
 But Sanders has never firmly answered how as president he would pay for the proposal, which many have estimated to cost upwards of $15 trillion over 10 years. Legislation he has repeatedly introduced in the past has indicated he would raise taxes on the middle class, including a 2.2% income tax and a 6.7% tax on employers. 
 
 Since then, Sanders has walked back his earlier proposals, saying that he would only be willing to raise taxes on the middle class to pay for paid family leave. Sanders’ policy advisor, Warren Gunnels, told TIME last month that the government could pay for single-payer healthcare without raising taxes on the middle class. 
 
 A Facebook post by Sanders supporter and former President Bill Clinton advisor Robert Reich indicated Sanders was planning to release his healthcare plan today 
 
 Read More: Why Bernie Sanders’ Tax Pledge Matters 
 
 In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press last month, Sanders was asked whether he would not raise taxes on the middle class for any reason—except to pay for paid family leave. “Yes, that’s right,” Sanders said. “Look, we have seen a huge transfer of wealth from the middle-class to the top one-tenth of 1%.” 
 
 Read More: Clinton and Sanders Set for High-Stakes Democratic Debate 
 
 The Clinton campaign has repeatedly attacked Sanders for being willing to raise taxes on the middle class. The former Secretary of State has promised not to raise taxes on the middle earners, drawing fire from progressives who argue that would necessarily curtail her domestic agenda. 
 
 Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver told TIME in November that Clinton’s criticism was a “Republican approach.” 
 
 “Why [do] you have a candidate who claims to be a progressive that is essentially laying out an approach to problems that is a Republican approach?” Weaver said of Clinton two months ago. “It’s an instinctive move back to the corporate centrism that the Democratic rank and file has disavowed.” ||||| By dropping his healthcare plan so close to the debate, Sanders' campaign all but guarantees he will spar with Clinton on the topic on Sunday night. | Getty Sanders, Clinton clash over his new 'Medicare for All' plan 
 
 CHARLESTON, S.C. — Bernie Sanders released the details of his “Medicare for all” single-payer health care plan just two hours before the Democratic debate here on Sunday night, escalating the bitter wrangling over health care with Hillary Clinton. 
 
 “Universal health care is an idea that has been supported in the United States by Democratic presidents going back to Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman,” Sanders said in a statement as he unveiled the plan. “It is time for our country to join every other major industrialized nation on earth and guarantee health care to all citizens as a right, not a privilege." 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Clinton's campaign swiftly issued a critical statement, questioning Sanders' numbers and details, and Clinton during the debate hit him for switching up the details after she highlighted flaws in his earlier blueprints, particulary her contention that he left too much of it up to the states -- and their Republican governors. 
 
 But her main health care point during the debate itself was that Democrats should defend and improve Obamacare-- not "tear it up and start over" in a divisive debate over single payer. 
 
 "Here's what i believe," she said. "The Democratic Party and the United States worked since Harry Truman to get the Affordable Health Care Act passed. We finally have a path to universal health care. We have accomplished so much already, I do not to want see the Republicans repeal it and I don't to want see us start over again with a contentious debate." 
 
 Sanders denied he'd tear down Obamacare, noting that he had a role in drafting it and he voted for it. But he said he wants to build on it, and bring down the cost of health care which is still leaving the newly insured with big expenses. He also pointed out that nearly six years after Obamacare was enacted, around 29 million people are still uninsured. 
 
 He said the obstacles were the "campaign finance system that is corrupt," as well as insurers and the pharmaceutical industry "pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into campaign contributions and lobbying." 
 
 The Sanders' proposal released before the debate includes a series of tax increases, though the Vermont senator's campaign contends that it would save families and employers money once they transition to the government-financed system and no longer have to pay insurance premiums. 
 
 His plan calls for a federally- managed program paid for by a new 6.2 percent income-based health care tax paid for by employers, a new 2.2 percent income-based tax paid for by households, and a progressive tax scheme with a top rate of 52 percent for those earning over $10 million. 
 
 It also includes an estate tax which the campaign said would affect the wealthiest 0.3 percent of Americans. It also includes a proposal to tax capital gains the same as work income. 
 
 In a memo, Sanders’ campaign says it estimates that the plan would cost $1.38 trillion per year. 
 
 It will take health care economists some time to crunch his new numbers. But he's been attacked in the past for making overly optimistic estimates about how much savings his health plan could wring from the system to close spending gaps. 
 
 Clinton's campaign quickly fired off a statement criticizing Sanders for releasing the plan two hours before the debate and accusing the Vermont senator of shifting on core issues. Her campaign in particular faulted his earlier plans for allowing states to potentially undermine federal protections. 
 
 “Sen. Sanders has been changing a lot of positions in the last 24 hours because when his plans and record come under scrutiny, their very real flaws get exposed," campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said in the statement. "After digging in his heels for weeks, he backpedaled on his vote to give sweeping immunity to gun manufacturers and dealers. And after weeks of denying the legitimacy of the questions Hillary Clinton raised about flaws in the health care legislation he’s introduced 9 times over 20 years, he proposed a new plan two hours before the debate." 
 
 Sanders bristled at the criticism of his proposal's cost and possible burden on the middle class. "I'm disappointed that Secretary Clinton's campaign has made this criticism. It's a Republican criticism. Secretary Clinton does know a lot about health care, and she understands, I believe, that a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program will substantially lower the cost of health care for middle class families. 
 
 Many liberal Democrats have long championed a single-payer health plan, also known as Medicare for all. But even many of its advocates backed the Affordable Care Act as a more politically realistic strategy for expanding health coverage — and even that has been a nonstop political struggle. 
 
 Early versions of the health care bill in Congress in 2009 did include a scaled-back substitute for single payer, known as the public option, but it was jettisoned after centrist Democrats and insurers objected. Clinton noted that history during the debate Sunday night. 
 
 Sanders has fought back against the Clinton camp including Chelsea Clinton’s criticisms of his proposal as likely to “dismantle” the ACA, Medicare, and private insurance. 
 
 Some Sanders allies have noted Clinton's own disagreements with President Barack Obama over health policy in their 2008 primary fight, but Clinton's team has embraced the ACA and had put considerable pressure on Sanders to release his plan, turning health care into a central point of contention between the two candidates. ||||| Chelsea Clinton maligns Bernie Sanders single-payer plan 
 
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 This quick personal short is likely something that occurs thousands of times a day. While running the board for the ThinkWing Radio with Mike Honig Show at KPFT 90.1 FM, a Pacifica radio station in Houston, Texas, I had a potentially fatal blood pressure rise. A call was made to 911 and some great paramedics came, gave me oxygen, took me into the ambulance, gave me an EKG, and continued to monitor my pressure. It went down some, though remained at a dangerous level. When it was time to leave the paramedics asked if I wanted to go to the hospital in the ambulance, which hospital, or if I wanted to go in my own vehicle. I immediately inferred that they were cognizant that many folks are justifiably concerned about cost. 
 
 Since my EKG was perfect and the blood pressure had dropped some, I told them I would drive to an emergency room. My insurance encourages urgent care centers: I drove to a private emergency center—not knowing that it wasn’t technically an urgent care center—for my medical issue. After stabilizing my pressure, they told me to see my primary care physician. 
 
 The next day my primary care physician was completely booked. Another doctor in the office had an opening but since she was not my primary, I would have needed a referral. After going back and forth with the insurance company and the doctor’s office, I got an appointment that would take place two days later. They told me if there was an emergency I should go to the emergency room—so much for cost-saving and efficiency. I told someone in my primary care physician’s office, with the insurance company listening in via a three-way call, that a system that requires one to go the emergency room not because of lack of capacity or doctors, but because of an ill-conceived structure, is the problem with our healthcare system. An hour later I got a call from the office of my primary physician to come in immediately. 
 
 Since I do not get a subsidy for insurance, I purchased my insurance from a broker. All insurance whether on the Obamacare exchange or elsewhere must have the protections defined in the Affordable Care Act. Sadly, while the safeguards are there, they are useless if you are unable to use the system because of the controls that are clearly designed for profit maximization. 
 
 The complexity of using healthcare even under Obamacare is a travesty. Many are more concerned about finances in times of illness or injury, when all they should be thinking about is getting healthy or getting life-saving treatment. The number of decisions our system asks a patient to make at a time of need is immoral. What hospitals can I go to? Which doctor will take which plan? Can I afford a co-pay? Can I afford that ambulance, or should I risk driving? 
 
 A single-payer/Medicare-for-all system is the next step in our journey to a real humane healthcare system, a moral system and a provably less expensive system. When one removes the chaos created by multiple insurance companies partitioning our health delivery system for profit, health care becomes much less expensive. The sole purpose of an insurance company is to skim some of the premiums paid for a profit. They do that by managing risk. Managing risk ensures you get as few health care services as possible. The monies skimmed pay exorbitant executive salaries, duplicative administrative services like database management, advertising, capital costs, and much more. A single-payer system eliminates all of that. 
 
 Hillary Clinton and her team is characterizing Bernie Sanders’ support for a single-payer healthcare system as one that would kill many social programs including the Affordable Care Act. The inference the Clinton team would want one to make is much different than the reality: In a single-payer/ Medicare for all system, all are covered. Health care becomes a right. Implemented correctly, it’s funded by a progressively taxed income—which means most have skin in the game and pay what they can. Most importantly, there is only one risk pool: America. 
 
 As more Americans understand the realities, even Clinton supporters may balk. Folks will see further improvements to Obamacare as an appeasement to insurance companies, as opposed to a bold policy position that is friendly to the middle class and helps us all. 
 
 It will tie into the narrative of Hillary Clinton being owned by the corporatocracy.
– Bernie Sanders unveiled a single-payer health care plan just before Sunday night's debate that he calls "Medicare for All." He lays it out here, declaring that it's about time health care becomes a guarantee for all Americans, "not a privilege." Some related reading: The International Business Times digs into the finances, including the tax hikes that would pay for the $1.4 trillion annual cost: a 2.2% income tax on all Americans, a 6.2% tax on employers, and progressively heavier income-tax rates on the wealthy (from 37% for those with annual income between $250,000 and $500,000 to 52% on households north of $10 million a year). CNN has a tangible example for the middle class: "A family of four making $50,000 would pay $466 in new taxes." Sanders makes the case to Time that it would save people money on health care costs in the long run. The Clinton campaign is skeptical of the numbers, and Hillary Clinton herself took issue with the plan in the debate, reports Politico. Democrats should build on ObamaCare, not "tear it up and start over," she said. A post at the liberal Daily Kos thinks Clinton's criticism could be politically costly: "It will tie into the narrative of Hillary Clinton being owned by the corporatocracy." The Wall Street Journal notes that Sanders envisions it being administered by the federal government, not the states. At Vox, Ezra Klein says what Sanders released isn't actually a plan. "It is, to be generous, a gesture towards a future plan. To be less generous—but perhaps more accurate—this is a document that lets Sanders say he has a plan, but doesn't answer the most important questions about how his plan would work, or what it would mean for most Americans."