Biden slams Harris for ‘have-it-every-which-way’ healthcare plan

“This new, have-it-every-which-way approach pushes the extremely challenging implementation of the ‘Medicare for all’ part of this plan 10 years into the future, meaning it would not occur on the watch of even a two-term administration,” said Kate Bedingfield, deputy campaign manager for Biden.

The campaign further brought attention to how Harris has gone back and forth on the issue of whether to allow private insurers to stay in business. Harris is a cosponsor of the Medicare for All Act, which abolishes private insurers except to provide coverage for cosmetic surgery, a provision that isn’t currently included in plans.

Harris first said in a town hall that she wanted to do away with private insurers, then said she would allow “supplemental” coverage. During the first debate, she said she would obliterate private insurers but the next day said she had misunderstood the question. In the Senate, she has been one of more than a dozen Democrats supporting the Medicare for All Act, but didn’t appear alongside Sanders when he re-introduced the legislation this year.

Under the new Harris proposal unveiled Monday, private insurers could contract with Medicare the way they do now, under an arrangement known as Medicare Advantage. The arrangement generally covers more medical services but has stricter limits on which doctors and hospitals patients can see.

The Sanders campaign was no more positive on the Harris proposal than the Biden campaign was, noting that the Medicare Advantage arrangement under the current healthcare system is a highly lucrative business for insurers.

“Call it anything you want, but you can’t call this plan Medicare for All,” said Bernie 2020 campaign manager Faiz Shakir. “Folding to the interests of the health insurance industry is both bad policy and bad politics. This plan is centered around privatizing Medicare, enriching insurance executives and introducing more corporate greed and profiteering into the Medicare system.”

Biden, who has stressed his commitment to Obamacare, accused Harris through his deputy campaign manager of “committing to still unraveling” his former boss’s healthcare law.

Biden has been more assertive in recent weeks in defending his healthcare plan against those endorsed by other Democrats, particularly Harris. Last week, he said her promise to pass the Medicare for All Act without raising taxes on the middle class amounted to a “fantasy world.”

Harris didn’t specifically vow again on Monday that she would not raise taxes on anyone in the middle class. Instead, she specified that she wouldn’t raise taxes on families making under $100,000 a year, and said the income threshold would be higher for families who live in parts of the United States that are more expensive. To pay for her healthcare plan, she floated an income-based premium paid by employers, taxing people whose income was at the top 1% of the population, and taxing capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income.

The one-time chief political adviser to Obama, David Axelrod, suggested the Biden response to the Harris plan was a deft political response.

“The @JoeBiden campaign put out a very sharp statement lashing the new @KamalaHarris health care plan. Hard to believe this isn’t a foreshadowing of a discussion we’ll see Wednesday night!” Axelrod tweeted.