Elizabeth Warren avoided using the phrase “Medicare for all” in Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate, shortly after facing backlash for the price tag and details of her healthcare plan.
Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, took a nosedive in the polls in December when she released a detailed, $26 trillion “Medicare for all” spending proposal along with a follow-up transition plan. During Tuesday night’s debate in Des Moines, Iowa, she avoided saying “Medicare for all,” instead saying: “I’ve got a plan to expand healthcare.”
She also didn’t get into specifics about how it would work. Rather, she promised to “provide healthcare to all of our people” and noted that millions of people in the United States struggle to afford prescription drugs.
“We have got to get as much help to as many people as quickly as possible,” she said.
Warren’s plan would abolish private health insurance in favor of a single, government plan, and the left-leaning Urban Institute has estimated that it would raise national healthcare spending $7 trillion over 10 years, adding $34 trillion to the government’s tab. It would let the government negotiate drug prices and cover all medical care, including prescription drugs, long-term care, doctor visits, and hospital care. It would be far more generous than universal coverage systems in other countries.
When Warren released her plan, she received criticism that she vastly underestimated the costs of “Medicare for all.” Her transition plan, which would have first made a government plan optional, opened her up to accusations that she was not a “Medicare for all” purist.
Warren avoided the phrase “Medicare for all” even after being pressed by more centrist rivals, including Pete Buttigieg, the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
Warren shot back at Buttigieg’s healthcare proposal and others from centrists such as Joe Biden, which would let people buy into a government plan, by saying they were much less extensive than her own.
“They are a small improvement, which is why they cost so much less,” she said.
