According to analysis from Emory University professor Kenneth Thorpe, a former Clinton administration advisor who has also done paid work for health industry clients, Sanders has wildly underestimated the cost of providing such comprehensive benefits to all Americans. Either his plan would blow a giant hole in the deficit, Thorpe predicts, or the new payroll and income taxes to finance the proposal would be more than twice as high as the Sanders campaign has projected.

Either way, Thorpe says, the Sanders plan would create both winners and losers, as any health reform proposal would. The winners would include workers for whom the new taxes would still be less than what they pay now, in premiums and out-of-pocket costs combined. The losers would include some Medicaid recipients with jobs, because their employers would pass along the expense of new payroll taxes as lower wages.