Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said that he has concerns about implementing a healthcare system in the U.S. that would move every citizen onto Medicare, as has been proposed by more than a dozen of his Democratic colleagues.
“I’ve got some concerns about it,” Kaine said, speaking at the Federation of American Hospitals, or FAH, policy conference in Washington, D.C. “Chief among my concerns is, with more than 100 million Americans getting health insurance through an employer-provided plan, and 80 percent of those are generally happy with their plan, I don’t think they’re going to feel good when we tell them, ‘We’re going to do a single-payer system, but don’t worry, you’ll like it just as much.’ For some reason I just don’t think they’re going to believe us when we say that.”
The proposal, called the Medicare for All Act, would move all people onto Medicare, even if they have private healthcare coverage. It was reintroduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and gained the unprecedented support of 16 Democratic senators.
Kaine was not among them, but he said he would be willing to have “robust discussion” about such a proposal. During his speech he instead voiced support for improving Obamacare, saying that as governor of Virginia, a job he held from 2006 to 2010, he often had to sign bills that were improvements on existing policy rather than the creation of new ones.
“I believe about any bill that you pass a bill and even if you can say, ‘This bill did significant good,’ you have to be analyzing it to see what can be done better,” Kaine said.
Kaine, who was the running mate on the Democratic ticket for Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign, pointed to Republicans’ failed efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, saying that the public spoke up against their efforts and that polling shows Obamacare has become more popular and want it to be fixed. Democrats had to offer new options, he said.
“I don’t think we can keep limping along and keep playing defense,” he said of fighting off efforts at repealing Obamacare.
He noted a bill he has introduced in the Senate that would allow people to buy into Medicare, called the Medicare-X Choice Act. This policy is often known as a “public option” that would allow people to choose government-funded medical coverage alongside other plans sold by private insurers.
Chip Kahn, president of the FAH, told Kaine after his remarks that his organization was concerned about lower reimbursement rates under Medicare. He urged lawmakers to work to fix Obamacare.
“We signed on [to Obamacare] because we thought it was the best route to universal coverage, and if it hadn’t been for the Supreme Court and Republicans, it would have been,” Kahn said, referring to changes that were made to the healthcare law over the years.
