Biden proposes taxes on the rich to cover Medicare expenses

US President Joe Biden has proposed new taxes on the rich to help fund Medicare, saying the plan would help to extend the insurance programme’s solvency by 25 years and provide a degree of middle-class stability to millions of older adults.

In his plan, Biden is overtly declaring that the wealthy ought to shoulder a heavier tax burden. His budget would draw a direct line between those new taxes and the popular health insurance programme for people older than 65, essentially asking those who have fared best in the economy to subsidise the rest of the population.

Biden wants to increase the Medicare tax rate from 3.8 percent to 5 percent on income exceeding $400,000 per year, including salaries and capital gains. That would likely increase tax revenues by more than $117bn across 10 years, according to prior estimates by the Tax Policy Center.

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