Top contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination torched each other’s proposals to reform the well being care system Wednesday, because the contest to unify behind a single candidate to defeat President Donald Trump took a bitterly divisive flip.
Minutes after Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, warmed up the controversy viewers in Las Vegas by describing the social gathering as a spirited however unified household, a lot of the candidates abruptly shifted into assault mode — and never simply towards Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire businessman and former New York City mayor making his first, belated look within the ninth debate.
Fighting to regain momentum after weak performances within the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire main, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts dispatched along with her opponents’ plans in brutally fast succession.
Pete Buttigieg, the previous South Bend, Ind., mayor, has supplied “not a plan” however “a PowerPoint” that she claimed would depart hundreds of thousands uninsured, she stated. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has a proposal that’s “like a Post-It note: Insert plan here,” she quipped. And Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, whose “Medicare for All” plan she initially adopted as her personal, “has a good start,” however his marketing campaign can not cease attacking those that query how it could work, she stated.
“Health care is a crisis in this country,” Warren concluded. “My approach to this is, we need as much help for as many people as quickly as possible.”
It wasn’t the one tense second.
Sanders Angers The Culinary Workers Union
How Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal would have an effect on unions specifically isn’t a brand new query. But regardless of robust help for the proposal from some nationwide unions, it emerged as a flashpoint within the run-up to Nevada’s caucus on Saturday, turning the state’s outstanding Culinary Workers Union towards Sanders, the present frontrunner, within the 11th hour.
The union didn’t endorse a candidate however warned members that Sanders’ proposal might remove the well being care protection they’ve gained via years of collective bargaining, changing it with a system that’s untested and unknown. The union then put out an announcement final week saying its members had been “viciously attacked” by Sanders’ supporters over the organization’s opposition. Sanders responded by saying that, although there have been some dangerous actors on social media, it was “not thinkable” that his supporters would assault union staff.
“Let me be very clear for my good friends in the Culinary Workers union, a great union: I will never sign a bill that will reduce the health care benefits they have,” Sanders stated. “We will only expand it for them, for every union in America and for the working class.”
Klobuchar defended the “hard-working” culinary staff “who have health care plans that have been negotiated over time, sweat, and blood,” she stated. “And that is the truth for so many Americans right now.”
Last summer Sanders tweaked his proposal to attempt to alleviate considerations from unions. Under a Medicare for All system, he stated, the National Labor Relations Board would supervise unions in renegotiating contracts with employers, in order that they might purchase “wrap-around services and other coverage not duplicative of the benefits established under Medicare-for-all.”
The concept, Sanders’ aides stated then, was in order that any financial savings a swap to single-payer achieved might nonetheless be handed on to staff, as elevated advantages or wages.
But members of the Culinary Workers Union — and another teams — nonetheless fear about shedding the protection they’ve, in trade for one thing unknown.
Would that occur? Technically, sure, the well being plan Nevada’s culinary staff get via their union would not exist. Under Medicare for All, personal well being plans couldn’t promote protection that duplicates what the federal government program provides.
But it’s price noting that, on this world, culinary staff would nonetheless have beneficiant medical insurance. Sanders’ envisioned well being plan is powerful – he says it could cowl nearly all working towards physicians and medically mandatory companies, with nearly no cost-sharing.
Of course, that may additionally depend upon whether or not a President Sanders might muster help for his plan amongst skeptical members of Congress.
$100 Billion In Profits
Sanders introduced up one favourite speaking level twice Wednesday — his declare that the well being care trade makes $100 billion a yr in earnings. We beforehand checked this declare and rated it True. The quantity comes from including the online revenues in 2018 from 10 pharmaceutical firms and 10 medical insurance firms. We recalculated the numbers, and so they added up. Experts stated it was even doubtless that the determine was an underestimate.
Big Pharma Is Giving Money To Buttigieg And Others
In one other biting second, Sanders charged that drug firms are donating to Buttigieg and different campaigns because the pharmaceutical trade earnings off the present system.
We beforehand checked Sanders’ declare that Buttigieg was a “favorite of the health care industry” and rated it Half True. This is partially as a result of it’s truly Sanders who has acquired probably the most donations of any Democratic candidate from the whole well being care sector, which incorporates pharmaceutical firms, medical insurance trade, hospitals/nursing properties and well being professionals.
But, whereas checking this declare we additionally discovered that Buttigieg has acquired donations from workers and executives of pharmaceutical and medical insurance firms similar to AbbVie, Aetna, Anthem, Eli Lilly and Co., Merck & Co. and Pfizer. We didn’t verify into donations for different candidates from pharmaceutical executives.
Do People ‘Love’ Their Insurance?
“You don’t start out by saying, I have 160 million people, I’m going to take away the insurance plan that they love,” Bloomberg stated simply minutes into the controversy, mentioning the shortcomings of Sanders’ Medicare for All plan.
It is true that Sanders’ signature well being proposal would remove personal medical insurance, changing it with a single public plan that covers all people. That would come with the roughly 160 million Americans who get employer-sponsored insurance coverage
But Bloomberg’s argument right here — that these individuals “love” their plans — is difficult.
When we beforehand checked the same declare — that 160 million individuals “like their health insurance” — we rated it Half-True. Cursory polling suggests individuals with that protection are largely happy.
But most isn’t all. And, consultants identified to us then, as soon as Americans attempt to use that protection, many discover it missing. In a Kaiser Family Foundation/ L.A. Times poll, as an example, 40% of individuals with employer-sponsored insurance coverage nonetheless reported having bother paying for medical payments, premiums or out-of-pocket prices. In that very same ballot, about half stated they skipped or delayed well being care as a result of — even with protection — they couldn’t afford it. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially unbiased program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.)
More About Warren’s Comments On Klobuchar’s Health Plan
“Amy, I looked online at your (health care) plan. It’s two paragraphs,” Warren stated.
This is very deceptive.
Warren’s marketing campaign informed PolitiFact that she was referring particularly to Klobuchar’s plan for “universal health care.” It pointed to the 2 paragraphs on the finish of this Klobuchar marketing campaign internet web page, which come underneath the heading “Propose legislation to get us to universal health care.”
But that ignores most of Klobuchar’s well being care plan, which she outlines in fairly a little bit of element on 4 totally different internet pages — a main health care policy page, a more detailed sub-page, a sub-page on prescription drugs and a sub-page on mental health.
We did a phrase rely on the textual content from these 4 internet pages, and it exceeded 6,000 phrases — and much more than two paragraphs.
PolitiFact’s Louis Jacobson contributed.
src=”http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″>
