Iowa Democratic Primary Debate: on Health Care

Amy Klobuchar: Non-profit public option: I have a plan for that

KLOBUCHAR: Senator Sanders and I have worked together on pharmaceuticals for a long, long time. And we agree on this. But what I don't agree with is his position on health care. This debate isn't real. Over 2/3 of the Democrats in the U.S. Senate are not on the bill that you and Senator Warren are on. You have numerous governors that are Democratic that don't support this. The answer is a nonprofit public option. The real debate we should be having is how do we make it easier for people to get coverage for addiction and mental health. I have a plan for that. And then, what should we do about long-term care? We need to make it easier for people to get long-term care insurance.

Amy Klobuchar: We need a paid-for healthcare plan, not a pipe dream

Sen. Bernie SANDERS: Medicare for all ends all premiums, all copayments. It ends the absurdity of deductibles. It ends out-of-pocket expenses. It takes on the pharmaceutical industry, which in some cases charges 10 times more for the same prescription drugs sold abroad as sold here. A Medicare for all single-payer program will end the $100 billion a year that the health care industry makes and the $500 billion a year we spend dealing with thousands of separate insurance plans. Health care is a human right.

Bernie Sanders: Medicare-for-All saves money to offset raising taxes

V.P. Joe BIDEN: I think we need to tell voters what it's going to cost. A 4 percent tax on income over $24,000 doesn't even come close to paying for between $30 trillion, and some estimates as high as $40 trillion over 10 years. That's doubling the entire federal budget per year. The way to do it is to take ObamaCare, rebuild it, provide a public option, allow Medicare for those folks who want it, and reduce the cost of drug prices. That costs $740 billion over 10 years. I lay out how I'd pay for t

Bernie Sanders: End the absurdity of co-payments and $600B corporate costs

Sen. Amy KLOBUCHAR: I think it is much better to build on the Affordable Care Act. If you want to be practical and progressive at the same time and have a plan and not a pipedream, you have to show how you're going to pay for it. I think you should show how you're going to pay for things, Bernie. I do.

Bernie Sanders: Help insurance industry employees transition to new jobs

SANDERS: We build in to our Medicare for All program a transition fund of many, many billions of dollars that will provide for up to five years income and health care and job training for those people.

Elizabeth Warren: Let government manufacture drugs when there's a price spike

WARREN: There are a whole lot of drugs, about 90% of drugs, that are not under patent. They're generic drugs. The drug industry has figured out how to manipulate this industry to keep jerking the prices up and up and up. So my view is, let's give them a little competition. The government lets contracts for all kind of things. Let's let the contracts out. Put the contracts out so that we can put more generic drugs out there and drive down those prices. This is a way to make markets work, not to try to move away from the market. You don't have to even use price controls. The whole idea behind it is get some competition out there so the price of these drugs that are no longer under patent drops where it should be.

Elizabeth Warren: Tax the 1 percent and we can provide health care to all

Mayor Pete BUTTIGIEG: It's not true that the plan I'm proposing is small. We've got to move past a mentality that suggests that the bigness of plans only consists of how many trillions of dollars they put through the Treasury. This would be the biggest thing we've done to American health care in a half-century. On prescription drugs, we'll have an out-of-pocket cap, even if you don't get the subsidies that would make it free, a $250 monthly cap.

Joe Biden: 4% tax doesn't bring in trillions to cover Medicare for All

Sen. Bernie SANDERS: Medicare For All will cost substantially less than the status quo. Medicare For All will end the absurdity of paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs and health care, while we have 87 million uninsured and underinsured. Under Medicare For All, one of the provisions we have to pay for it is a 4% tax on income, exempting the first $29,000. So the average family in America that makes $60,000 would pay $1,200 a year, compared to that family paying $12,000 a year.

Joe Biden: Add mental health parity to ObamaCare, with Biden option

Pete Buttigieg: Individual mandate so no such thing as an uninsured American

BUTTIGIEG: Well, it's making sure that there is no such thing as an uninsured American. Look, the individual mandate was an important part of the ACA because the system doesn't work if there are free riders. What I'm offering is a choice. You don't have to be in my plan if there's another plan that you would rather keep. And there's no need to kick Americans off the plans that they want in order to deliver health care for all. And my plan is paid for. Everything I've put forward--from "Medicare for all who want it" to the historic investments we're going to make in infrastructure to dealing with climate change--is fully paid for.

Pete Buttigieg: My plan does not cost the most, but isn't small

WARREN: The problem is that plans like the mayor's and like the vice president's is that they are an improvement. But they're a small improvement. And that's why it is that they cost so much less, because by themselves, they're not going to be enough to cover prescriptions for 36 million people who can't afford to get them filled. We can ask those at the very top, the top 1 percent, to pay a little more. When we do that, we have enough money to provide health care for all our people.

Tom Steyer: Break corporate stranglehold to get public option

V.P. Joe BIDEN: The proposal I lay out limits drug cost. It allows Medicare to negotiate with drug companies for the price. It sets a system whereby you cannot raise the price of a drug beyond the cost of medical inflation.

STEYER: Look, we've had this conversation so many times. Everybody on this stage believes that affordable health care is a right for every single American. And it makes no sense and the government has to step in. I do agree with Vice President Biden that we should move and develop the Affordable Care Act with a public option. But the real question is this: This is not a new problem. Why do we keep having this conversation? We have a broken government. It has been bought by corporations that include the drug companies, the insurance companies, and the private hospitals. How do we actually break the corporate stranglehold on our government so that we can get any of these things passed?

Tom Steyer: Term limits will break stranglehold on low taxes for rich