Debate over socialized healthcare was the key topic of the first hour of Friday night’s Democratic presidential debate. It started with a heated clash between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders on the whopping price tag, $34 trillion, for “Medicare for all,” a government takeover of healthcare.
Amy Klobuchar was having none of it. She chimed in to blast Sanders for how unrealistic his plan is, seeing as it has essentially zero chance of passing the Senate. Klobuchar also wisely noted that socialist healthcare would throw hundreds of millions of people off of the private insurance they have now even if they’re happy with it.
.@amyklobuchar on Medicare for All: “[Senator Sanders], 2/3rds of the democrats in the Senate won’t get behind your bill.”
She then notes that Warren is behind similar bill with longer phase in before calling out Buttigieg as having previously backed M4A.
— Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) February 8, 2020
Amy Klobuchar criticizes @PeteButtigieg‘s changing view on Medicare for All, citing a support tweet from a few years ago #DemDebates
— TheStreet (@TheStreet) February 8, 2020
Klobuchar also called out Buttigieg, who dishonestly claims that he doesn’t really support socialist healthcare. She noted that in a 2018 tweet, he sang a very different tune and endorsed “Medicare for all” emphatically: “I, Pete Buttigieg, politician, do henceforth and forthwith declare, most affirmatively and indubitably, unto the ages, that I do favor Medicare for All, as I do favor any measure that would help get all Americans covered.”
Klobuchar has a point.
Buttigieg claims to support something called “Medicare for all who want it.” It’s an imaginary thing that does not exist. Buttigieg claims he would provide a government option alongside private insurance for those who wish to keep it. This is fantasy. In reality, the two could not co-exist. As Washington Examiner contributor Sally Pipes has written:
The public option would be cheap for two reasons. First, because it’s a government-run program, it could sustain losses in perpetuity. So its premiums for the public could be well below its costs… Second, public option supporters envision paying doctors and hospitals at rates close to Medicare’s, which are much lower than those for private insurance.
Many consumers would drop their private coverage in favor of the cheaper public plan. Those public option patients would yield lower payments for doctors and hospitals. So providers would raise rates for the remaining privately insured population to compensate. Private insurers would pass those increases along in the form of higher premiums. That would drive yet more people to the public option.
“Medicare for all who want it” would quickly turn into “Medicare is your only option.” Heck, Buttigieg admits as much in the fine print of his campaign plan, where it openly admits that his proposal is just a “pathway to Medicare for All.”
Kudos to Klobuchar for calling out his duplicity.
