Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders clashed during the Democratic debate Sunday night over their competing approaches to healthcare policy in the wake of Obamacare.
Clinton called for keeping Obamacare in place and building on it, while Sanders pushed expanding Medicare to provide insurance to all people in a single-payer style system.
“We are not going to tear up the Affordable Care Act,” said Sanders, who released his healthcare plan hours before the debate. “But we are going to move on top of that to a Medicare-for-all system.”
Sanders, however, didn’t directly answer a question from moderator Andrea Mitchell on problems with his home state of Vermont. The state tried to do a Medicare-for-all program but it failed back in 2014 due to requirements for major tax increases and potential cost overruns.
“I am not the governor,” Sanders said. “I am the senator for the state of Vermont.”
Meanwhile, Clinton openly questioned the wisdom of going back to Congress to develop a new healthcare plan.
“To start over again with a whole new debate is something that I think would set us back,” she said. “Republicans just voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act and thank goodness [President] Obama vetoed it.”
Clinton also harkened back to the original debate over the law back in 2009 and 2010.
“There was an opportunity to vote for what was called the public option,” said Clinton, referring to an option that allows people to get healthcare plans through Medicare. “Even when the Democrats were in charge we couldn’t get the votes for that.”
Universal healthcare has been on the wish list for Democrats for decades, with Clinton spearheading a White House effort when her husband Bill was president. The effort for single payer failed after intense lobbying from the insurance industry.
In rejecting Sanders’ plan for Medicare-for-all, Clinton said that the “Democratic Party in the U.S. worked since Harry Truman to get the Affordable Care Act passed. I do not want to see the Republicans repeal it and I don’t want to see us start over again for a contentious debate.”
Sanders responded that he was on the committee that wrote the law, and he made it a “better piece of legislation.”
But Sanders said that more needs to be done, saying that there are still 29 million people who have no insurance and many who are underinsured with plans that don’t meet their needs.
“My proposal provides healthcare to all people, gets private insurance out of health insurance,” he said.
