The woman said that she had around $28,000 in medical expenditures. She makes $60,000. Bernie would exempt the first $29,000 of her salary, which means if she does not get a subsidy, most of the remaining $31,000 of her salary would face a massive medical tax.

I think Bernie's answer is typical for him explaining the details of his proposals, it was really a poor answer and the math doesn't work out for anyone but his most starry-eyed believers.

dealing mostly in ideals I think. The term pragmatism seems to piss them off.

That is why I hope Bernie drops out soon. The other candidates are close to being realistic but Bernie gets to talk in vague terms. The two are apples vs oranges when what we need is pragmatic realism.

Once everyone is getting good preventative care, appropriate healthcare education and timely treatment. It's a lot cheaper to treat conditions if you have early treatment. Instead of waiting until someone's cancer is almost untreatable or their diabetes is out of control, we could even be sending in home healthcare aides to teach people how to shop for groceries, buy healthy food on a budget, and cook healthy meals.

Effective preventative care requires a change in behavior across a broad spectrum. I live in a part of the country that has a lot of morbidly obese people, seldom do I go shopping and not see lots and lots of morbidly obese people. Smoking seems to be somewhat better, I don't see anymore people smoking in public than I do in say California or New York City. I don't know about alcolism rated.

So, for my area, the big challenge would be getting people to lose a LOT of weight, not an easy thing to do. Those people will likely continue their ways and eventually bring enormous costs to Medicare for All.

The hidden fact is that for MFA to work properly, we will need more than half of people watching their diet, not smoking and drinking alcohol at light levels. That composite definitely is not the case where I live, even among young people there is a large amount of morbidly obese kids.

How do we change people's habits? I think starting in schools showing kids that nutritious food can be delicious is the way to start, but results of that effort could not be obvious for a decade or more. We need a healthcare plan that takes that into account, so that costs don't explode to unsustainable levels, I don't believe that is Bernie's plan.

Taking people's private insurance is a double looser in the general. Live in Michigan and I am union, entire family is as well. Talk of taking our excellent private insurance is already turning many union members away again.

Half my family voted Trump in 2016 and the other half of us voted for Hillary. As it stands right now the half who voted for Trump will do so again and half of the other half is leaning that way and talk of taking their private medical insurance is part of the reason.

Bernie Math... or something. All I know is that it doesn't add up.

But his overall answer was really weak, as we have consistently seen when he tries to explain his own policy proposals.

I agree, to a certain extent... and personally speaking, my OWN ability to accurately perform mental-math could use some improvement... so I'm sympathetic.

But, in this case, I believe it's much more than just flubbing-up some off-the-cuff calculations. Fact of the matter is this: This is a "cornerstone" of his agenda. He needed to be better prepared. But he wasn't. -- Why not? Is this a clue as to what the American people could expect from a BS administration?

I know, right? It's all just soundbite politics, bumper sticker politics... it all "sounds" great... but where are the plans and details? How do these things get funded? How does it get through congress? What are the sacrifices? What is the compromise? When will it take place? --- These meaningful details are almost always missing from his "proposals" and "his" ideas.

Rainbows, gumdrops, lollipops, cotton-candy and unicorns... so many promises, but no realistic plans on how we get from here to there, how we pay for it, and how it get passed.

As a voter, I have higher standards. I want more than hollow promises. All I'm saying is... ANYONE can promise the moon, but it takes REAL LEADERSHIP and REAL PLANNING to come up with a realistic and workable path. It takes a leader who's willing to compromise in order to get what he or she wants.

posdible to understand his mode of operation. The New York Daily News fiasco particularly stand out, but he flubbed or walked out of a number of newspaper interviews before that. Look at the disorder in his campaign, I honestly have no idea why any people think that he can lead a complex country. There is going to be heavy lifting to clean up the mess that Trump is making, we need someone that is up to that task.

They are geared towards making devotees swoon and have ecstatic pleasure -- especially when it comes to sticking it to the corporations and billionaires. The numbers are not important.

So, a deep dive in numbers will always derail his townhalls.

to a demagogic sloganeer who just has platitudes but no plan, framework, policy and pro-forma regulations to back it up.

He should drop out and let the Democrats elect a leader.

Trust me, it will all work out. It will be cheaper; it will be vastly better. We'll iron out the details later.

Who needs math anyway?

Apparently, even some of Sanders' supporters would like to see the work sheets. Just think of the rest of the electorate.

Such a plan in theory may generate societal savings but such savings would not pay for a program. Governments can only spend tax revenues and/or borrowings. This study does not say how one would pay for such a program in the real world. I note that Prof. Krugman like the concepts of such a plan in theory but notes that taxes will have to be raised a great deal to pay for such a plan
Back in 2016, here is his position Prof. Krugman compares Sanders hoped for health care savings to the GOP tax cuts. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/weakened-at-bernies/?_r=0

Today, Prof. Krugman says that such a plan is feasible if you are willing to pay a great deal more in taxes
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/paul-krugman-explains-why-single-payer-health-care-entirely-achievable-us-and-how

The amount of higher taxes are not quantified in this article by Krugman. To pay for any such plan will require massive tax hikes

Again sanders has utterly failed in his attempts to get Vermont to adopt his magical single payer plan because the state of Vermont cannot use hypothetical societal saving to pay for this plan. Even Krugman admits that much higher taxes are needed

My family might be considered "upper income" by some measures. I already pay a boatload for healthcare. I don't want to pay more.