The question of how a “Medicare for all” plan would be financed dominated the healthcare discussion at the expense of other healthcare issues for the eighth Democratic debate Friday night.
During the back-and-forth, Amy Klobuchar noted that the candidates had gone around on the same question numerous times.
“I keep listening to this same debate, and it’s not real,” the Minnesota senator said.
Indeed, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, both “Medicare for all” advocates, defended their plans to fund the government-run healthcare system as they have in past debates, arguing that the current system is more expensive in the sense that households suffer major burdens.
“I think we need to think about healthcare differently,” Warren said. “That is 36 million Americans last year could not afford to have a prescription filled, and that includes people who have insurance. Think about that.”
Sanders also repeated his argument that his Medicare for All Act would lower costs for families and that he believes healthcare is a human right.
However, he again declined to offer a clear plan for financing “Medicare for all.”
The sweeping reforms that Warren and Sanders have proposed again invited criticism from centrist candidates on the states, including Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg.
Buttigieg said he thinks “there’s a better way” to ensure that all people have access to healthcare than mandating that all Americans get on board with a government-run healthcare system.
“There is now a majority ready to act to make sure there’s no such thing than an uninsured American and no such thing as an unaffordable prescription,” Buttigieg said. “Just so long as we don’t command people to accept a public plan if they don’t want to.”
The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor tried to make a case for his “Medicare for all who want it” proposal, which he said would cost the government about $1.7 trillion — a price tag he says is much more manageable.
By debating seven other times how they would fund a “Medicare for all” system, candidates have avoided other consequential healthcare topics that matter to voters, including surprise medical billing and lowering the cost of prescription drugs. Congress intended to address both issues in 2019, but punted them into 2020. The three senators in the race could work to advance the legislation in this Congress, but did not discuss why no reforms have been enacted.
