Joe Biden is continuing his shift to the political left to entice disappointed Bernie Sanders supporters into his fold, an unusual move ahead of a general election.
While not adopting Sanders’s signature “Medicare for all” bill, Biden announced Thursday he would roll out a plan to lower Medicare’s eligibility age from 65 to 60 if he’s elected to the White House in November.
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He’s also proposing to forgive student debt for those from low-income and middle-class families who attended public colleges and universities or private historically black and underfunded minority-serving institutions, the Washington Post first reported.
Biden fiercely opposed “Medicare for all” during the Democratic primary, instead campaigning on bolstering Obamacare through a public option. Expanding Medicare in tandem with his existing plan would provide healthcare insurance for some but not all of the roughly 27.5 million people in the United States without coverage. Lowering Medicare eligibility requirements, which helps secure his older base of voters, also has Democratic support in the Senate.
Biden’s proposal would create two Medicare groups based on whether recipients work and retire before they turn 65, or whether they are 60 and above and no longer want to be covered by their employer, the Affordable Care Act, or the public option, according to his campaign.
Last month, the former vice president said a Biden administration would make public colleges and universities free for students from families whose combined income was below $125,000. His primary campaign called for two years of free community college or other forms of similar training, as well as a range of measures alleviating debt and loans. He also reiterated the need for $10,000 in debt forgiveness across the board as Congress haggled over a coronavirus-related stimulus package.
Both ideas would be paid for by repealing the high-income “excess business losses” tax cut in the new CARES Act, Biden explained in a blog post Thursday.
Biden has made several overtures to Sanders and his supporters as it became increasingly clear he would become the party’s 2020 presidential nominee, and poll after poll suggested he was struggling to enthuse younger Democrats.
In a statement this week marking Sanders’s departure from the race, Biden listed some of the Vermont senator’s priorities that would survive his White House bid.
“While the Sanders campaign has been suspended — its impact on this election and on elections to come is far from over,” wrote the 36-year Delaware senator.
He added: “We will address the existential crisis of climate change. We will confront income inequality in our nation. We will make sure healthcare is affordable and accessible to every American. We will make education at our public colleges and universities free. We will ease the burden of student debt. And, most important of all, we will defeat Donald Trump.”
Sanders told late-night TV host Stephen Colbert Biden wouldn’t adopt his entire platform, but recommended he make concessions on issues such as climate change and free college to endear his backers to him. The senator didn’t mention “Medicare for all.”
“I hope to be able to work with Joe to move him in a more progressive direction, and I think Joe is a good politician, and he understands that in order to defeat the Trump, he is going to have to bring new people into his political world,” Sanders said.
