When Vice President Kamala Harris ran for president in the 2020 election, the then-California senator proposed a new health insurance plan that would be potentially costly for middle-class Americans.
An archived version of Harris’ campaign website viewed by Fox News Digital detailed her personally proposed “Medicare for All plan,” in which she promised to provide “comprehensive health insurance that covers every American.”
Harris cited her presidential primary rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, as a model for how to fund her own plan, noting in particular “employer-paid income-based premiums, higher taxes on the top 1 percent, and taxing capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income.”
Harris also provided a link to Sanders’ plan, which includes a 7.5% payroll tax increase on employers and a 4% income tax increase on households making more than $29,000 a year.
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Vice President Kamala Harris. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
While Harris praised Sanders’ plan for having “good options,” the Vermont senator criticized the 4% tax increase as excessive, proposing instead that the new tax only apply to households earning more than $100,000.
“I would impose a 0.2% tax on Wall Street stock trades, a 0.1% tax on bond trades, and a 0.002% tax on derivatives trades. Think of it as a $2 fee for every $1,000 traded by investors and big banks,” Harris continued. “I would also eliminate overseas tax avoidance by taxing foreign corporate income at the same rate as domestic corporate income. Combined, these proposals could raise more than $2 trillion over ten years, more than enough to make up the difference if we raised the middle class income threshold.”
But the proposal to raise employer payroll taxes by 7.5% and a 4% tax increase on households making more than $100,000 was panned by critics, including some who would join Harris in a future Biden administration.
Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager at the time and White House communications director from 2021 to 2023, called the plan “Bernie Sanders’ version of Medicare for All, a refusal to be honest with middle-class Americans who would face huge tax increases under this plan.”
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While Harris has pledged to focus the burden on employers and higher-income households, some experts argue the costs will be borne primarily by middle-class workers.
Thomas Savage, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, told Fox News Digital that any payroll tax increases on employers would likely be passed on to employees in the form of lower wages.
Vice President Kamala Harris. (Frederick J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
“The costs of a payroll tax increase are ultimately borne by employees,” Savage said. “Payroll tax increases on employers take away funds that could be used to increase employee salaries, improve benefits or hire additional staff.”
Savage noted that a 4% income tax increase would affect a large portion of middle-class Americans and would be particularly harmful in the current economic environment where many are already saving and cutting back on spending due to concerns about inflation.
More than 37% of U.S. households making more than $100,000 a year could be affected by the tax, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, which represents a large proportion of middle-class workers.
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Savage also argued that Harris’ proposal is the most “extreme” way to address Americans’ concerns about health care costs, noting that such a plan would not only distort the market but would have significant effects on wait times and quality of care.
“This is an extreme approach,” Savage said. “It will end up making the problems we have even worse.”
Harris’ current campaign website does not yet list her policies, and the New Democratic candidate has yet to release a new health care plan.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital inquiry about whether Harris supports the plan or would support a similar plan this time around.
Senator J.D. Vance speaks at a press conference in New York on May 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephen Jeremiah, File)
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But Ms. Harris’ proposal was roundly rebuked by the office of Mr. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, who the Trump campaign has touted as a “policy attack dog for Kamala Harris.”
“After four years of high inflation straining household budgets, the last thing Americans need is more tax hikes from Kamala Harris,” Vance spokesman William Martin told Fox News Digital. “Harris’s middle-class tax hikes will hurt millions of families and have drawn comparisons within her party to Bernie Sanders. There is no room for Harris’ weak, failed and dangerously liberal agenda in the White House.”
