Topics in the News: Medicare-for-All
JD Vance on Health Care
: Aug 2, 2024
Medicare-for-All is a big handout to wealthy hospitals
Vance on Fox News: "The Democratic Party increasingly represents professional class elites. And Republicans represent middle- and working-class wage earners. Democratic leaders kind of get this. Look at the big proposals from the 2020 Democratic
presidential candidates: universal child care, debt-free college, even Medicare-for-All, which is framed as this lurch to the left, but is really just a big handout to doctors and pharmaceutical companies and hospitals.'" [via YouTube, 7/5/19]
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Source: 2024 Trump Research Book
Cornel West on Health Care
: Jun 16, 2023
Guarantee health care to all like every other major country
Medicare for All: Guarantee health care to all like every other major country on Earth.
Ensure comprehensive care including dental, vision, hearing, mental, substance abuse, and long-term. Lower drug prices and abolish medical debt
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Source: 2024 Presidential campaign website CornelWest24.com
Donald Trump on Health Care
: Sep 15, 2020
Already have a much better healthcare plan (but no details)
Q: Your response to the Biden healthcare plan?TRUMP: If you look at what they want to do, where they have socialized medicine, they will get rid of preexisting conditions, if they go into Medicare for All you can forget about your doctors and your
plans. We're going to be doing a healthcare plan--protecting people with preexisting conditions.
Q: I interviewed you last year, you said the healthcare plan would come in two weeks.
You told Chris Wallace that this summer it'd come in three weeks. You promised an executive order on preexisting.
TRUMP: I have it already, and it's a much better plan.
Q: What is it?
TRUMP: We're going to have a very good healthcare. I think maybe a great healthcare for less money.
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Source: ABC This Week: special edition 2020 Town Hall interview
Donald Trump on Health Care
: Sep 15, 2020
We already have much better healthcare plan, for less money
Q: TRUMP: If you look at what they want to do, where they have socialized medicine, they will get rid of preexisting conditions, if they go into Medicare for All you can forget about your doctors and your plans.
We're going to be doing a healthcare plan--protecting people with preexisting conditions.
Q: I interviewed you last year, you said the healthcare plan would come in two weeks.
You told Chris Wallace that this summer it'd come in three weeks. You promised an executive order on preexisting.
TRUMP: I have it already, and it's a much better plan.
Q: What is it?
TRUMP: We're going to have a very good healthcare. I think maybe a great healthcare for less money.
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Source: ABC This Week: special edition 2020 Town Hall interview
Kamala Harris on Health Care
: Jul 21, 2020
Supports single-payer without private insurance
Ms. Harris co-sponsored Bernie Sanders's Medicare-for-All legislation, and at a CNN town hall, she responded to a question about private health insurance by saying, "Let's eliminate all of that."
She came under fire for the statement, and the blowback was a signal of the political sensitivity surrounding the issue of abolishing private coverage under a single-payer system.
On the debate stage, the Democratic candidates were asked who would abolish private health insurance. Ms. Harris was among those who raised their hands.
Mr. Biden -- who wants to build on the Affordable Care Act -- did not raise his hand.
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Source: New York Times on 2020 Veepstakes
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Apr 8, 2020
Push for "Medicare for All" in context of coronavirus
Sanders suspended his presidential bid. acknowledging that he no longer had a viable path to the nomination and he vowed to push issues he had campaigned on, including committing to push for "Medicare for All" as the coronavirus leads to massive layoffs.
Sanders said that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic had hastened his decision to suspend his campaign, saying that continuing his presidential bid would only distract from efforts to combat the outbreak and damage it has done to the U.S. economy.
Sanders vowed to push forward with Medicare for All, saying the coronavirus is leading "millions" of laid off Americans to lose their health insurance. "In terms of health care, this current, horrific crisis that we are now in has exposed for all to
see how absurd our current employer-based health insurance system is," he said. "We have always believed that health care must be considered as a human right, not an employee benefit, and we are right."
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Source: The Hill on cancellation of 12th Democratic primary debate
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Mar 15, 2020
We need a simple system, which exists in Canada
Joe Biden: I laid out in the plan that I laid out for how we would deal with this crisis. Nobody, nobody will pay for anything having to do with the crisis. This is a national emergency.
Bernie Sanders: Last year at least 30,000 people died in America because they didn't get healthcare when they should, because we don't have universal coverage.
I think that's a crisis. One out of five people in America cannot afford the prescription drugs they need. They suffer. Some die. I consider that a crisis.
Bottom line is we need a simple system, which exists in Canada, exists in countries all over the world, and that is if you are an American, you get the healthcare you need, end of discussion.
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Source: 11th Democratic primary debate (Biden-Sanders one-on-one)
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Feb 25, 2020
Medicare-for-All will save Americans $450B per year
Q: [to Senator Sanders]: You've proposed more than $50 trillion in new spending. You've said Medicare for all will cost $30 trillion.Bernie SANDERS: Over a 10-year period.
Q: But you can only explain how you'll pay for just about half of that.
Can you do the math for the rest of us?
SANDERS: How many hours do you have? A new study that just came out of Yale University, published in Lancet magazine, said Medicare-for-All will lower health care costs in this country by $450 billion a year and
save 68,000 lives of people who otherwise would have died. One of the options in our plan is a 7.5% payroll tax on employers, which will save them substantial sums of money.
Q: Senator Klobuchar, does the math add up?
Amy KLOBUCHAR: No, the math does not add up. [Sanders' figures miss] nearly $60 trillion. The Medicare-for-All plan alone on page eight clearly says that it will kick 149 million Americans off their current health insurance in four years.
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Source: 10th Democratic Primary debate on eve of S.C. primary
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Feb 18, 2020
Medicare for All is already a compromise
My view is that Medicare for All, the bill that we wrote, is in a sense already a compromise.It is a four-year transition period.
All of you know that right now to be eligible for Medicare you've got to be 65. What we do is in the first year, we go from 65 down to 55. Next year, 45. Next year, 35. And then we cover everybody.
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Source: CNN Town Hall on eve of 2020 S. C. primary
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Jan 14, 2020
Help insurance industry employees transition to new jobs
Q: What happens to the jobs of people that live in insurance towns like Des Moines?"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.
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Source: 7th Democrat primary debate, on eve of Iowa caucus
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Jan 14, 2020
Medicare-for-All saves money to offset raising taxes
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 percent 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.
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
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Source: 7th Democrat primary debate, on eve of Iowa caucus
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Jan 14, 2020
End the absurdity of co-payments and $600B corporate costs
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.
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.
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Source: 7th Democrat primary debate, on eve of Iowa caucus
Kamala Harris on Tax Reform
: Nov 19, 2019
Higher tax on wealthy to fund Medicare-for-All & teacher pay
The Harris version of Medicare for All would rest on much the same tax-the-rich moves the Sanders plan suggests. But she would limit her plan's premium fee to households making over $100,000 a year.
To fund a $315 billion plan to raise teacher salaries, she calls for strengthening the estate tax and cracking down on loopholes that let our wealthy avoid taxes on "estates worth multiple millions or billions."
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Source: The Nation magazine on 2019 Democratic primary
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Oct 15, 2019
Taxes will go up with Medicare for All, most will pay less
Q: Will you raise taxes on the middle class to pay for Medicare for All?Sen. Elizabeth WARREN: Costs will go up for the wealthy & for big corporations. For hardworking, middle class families, costs will go down. It is about what kinds of costs middle
class families are going to face. So let me be clear on this. I will not sign a bill into law that does not lower costs for middle class families.
SANDERS: On the Medicare for All bill, premiums are gone, co-payments are gone, deductible
All out of pocket expenses are gone. The overwhelming majority of people will save money on their healthcare bills. But I think it is appropriate to acknowledge that taxes will go up. They're going to go up significantly for the wealthy and for
virtually everybody, the tax increase they pay will be substantially less, substantially less than what they were paying for premiums and out of pocket expenses.
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Source: October Democratic CNN/NYTimes Primary debate
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Sep 12, 2019
No deductibles or co-payments; $200 a year for prescriptions
Q [to V.P. Biden and Sens. Sanders and Warren]: Are single-payer plans such as those by Senators Warren and Sanders pushing too far?SANDERS: Every study done shows that Medicare for All is the most cost-effective approach to providing
health care to every man, woman, and child in this country. I intend to eliminate all out-of-pocket expenses, all deductibles, all co-payments. Nobody in America will pay more than
$200 a year for prescription drugs, because we're going to stand up to the greed and corruption and price-fixing of the pharmaceutical industry.
Vice President Joe BIDEN: Anyone who can't afford it gets automatically enrolled in the Medicare-type option we have. But guess what? Of the 160 million people who like their health care now, they can keep it.
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Source: September Democratic Primary debate in Houston
Kamala Harris on Health Care
: Jul 31, 2019
Medicare-for-All with 10-year transition and private option
Q: This week you released a new health care plan which would preserve private insurance and take 10 years to phase in. Vice President Biden's campaign calls your plan "a have-it-every-which-way approach" and says it's just part of a confusing pattern of
equivocating about your health care stance. What do you say to that?HARRIS: I have been spending time in this campaign listening to American families, listening to experts, listening to health care providers, and what I came away with is a very clear
understanding that I needed to create a plan that was responsive to the needs of the American people, understanding that insurance companies have been jacking up the prices for far too long. I listened to the American families who said four years is
just not enough to transition into this new plan, so I devised a plan where it's going to be 10 years of a transition. I listened to American families who said I want an option that will be under your Medicare system that allows a private plan.
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Source: July Democratic Primary debate (second night in Detroit)
Joe Biden on Health Care
: Jul 31, 2019
Public option under ObamaCare covers vast majority for $750B
BIDEN [critiquing Sen. Kamala Harris' plan]: You will lose your employer-based insurance [under Medicare-for-All]. NYC Mayor Bill DE BLASIO: I don't know what the vice president is talking about. There's this mythology that folks are in love with
their insurance in America. The folks I talk to say that their health insurance isn't working for them.
BIDEN: ObamaCare is working. The way to get to [ten million uninsured Americans] immediately is to build on ObamaCare. Take back all the things
that Trump took away, provide a public option, meaning every single person in America would be able to buy into that option if they didn't like their employer plan, or if they're on Medicaid, they'd automatically be in the plan. It would take place
immediately. It would move quickly. And it would insure the vast, vast, vast majority of Americans. In the meantime, what happens? Did anybody tell you how much their plans cost? My plan costs $750 billion. [Medicare-for-All costs] $30 trillion.
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Source: July Democratic Primary debate (second night in Detroit)
Kamala Harris on Health Care
: Jul 31, 2019
Cover everyone; don't leave out 10 million Americans
HARRIS [to V.P. Biden]: Our plan will bring health care to all Americans under a Medicare for All system. Our plan will allow people to start signing up on the first day. Your plan, by contrast, leaves out almost 10 million Americans. So I think that
you should be reflective and understand that the people of America want access to health care and do not want cost to be their barrier to getting it.BIDEN: The plan costs $3 trillion [annually]. Ten years from now, after two terms of the senator
being president, after her time. Secondly, it will require middle-class taxes to go up, not down. Thirdly, it will eliminate employer-based insurance. And fourthly, what happens in the meantime?
HARRIS: The cost of doing nothing is far too expensive.
We are now paying $3 trillion a year for health care in America. Over the next 10 years, it's probably going to be $6 trillion. We must act. My plan is about immediately allowing people to sign up and get into coverage.
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Source: July Democratic Primary debate (second night in Detroit)
Kamala Harris on Health Care
: Jul 31, 2019
Huge profits for insurance; pharma on backs of families
Sen. Joe Biden: Thirty trillion dollars [the cost of Medicare-for-All] has to ultimately be paid. And I don't know what math you do in New York, I don't know what math you do in California, but I tell ya, that's a lot of money, and there will be a
deductible.Kamala Harris: Let's talk about math. Let's talk about the fact that pharmaceutical and insurance companies last year profited $72 billion on the backs of American families.
Under your plan, you do nothing to hold the insurance companies to task for what they have been doing to American families. Today diabetes patients, one in four cannot afford insulin.
For those people who have overdosed from an opioid, there is a syringe that costs $4,000 that will save their life. It is immoral. It is untenable.
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Source: July Democratic Primary debate (second night in Detroit)
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Jul 30, 2019
Get rid of all for-profit health insurance companies
Q: Your opening statement? DELANEY: We [should not] go down the road that Senator Sanders wants to take us, which is with bad policies like Medicare for all.
Q [to Sanders]: He previously has called Medicare-for-All "political suicide that will
just get President Trump re-elected." What do you say to Congressman Delaney about whether it's "bad policy"?
SANDERS: You're wrong. Right now, we have a dysfunctional health care system: 87 million uninsured or underinsured; 500,000 Americans every
year going bankrupt because of medical bills.
DELANEY: We can create a universal health care system [without] telling half the country that their health insurance is illegal.
SANDERS: Tens of millions of people lose their health insurance every
single year when they change jobs. If you want stability in the health care system, if you want a system which gives you freedom of choice, a system which will not bankrupt you, the answer is to get rid of the profiteering of the drug companies.
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Source: July Democratic Primary debate (first night in Detroit)
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Jul 30, 2019
Comprehensive care including dental, hearing aids, & eyecare
Rep. Tim RYAN: This Medicare-for-All plan that's being offered by Senator Sanders will tell Union members that they're going to lose their healthcare because Washington's going to come in and tell them they got a better plan.SANDERS: It will be
better because Medicare-for-all is comprehensive -- it covers all healthcare needs. For senior citizens it will finally include dental care, hearing aids and eyeglasses.
Rep. Tim RYAN: But you don't know that, Bernie.
SANDERS: I do know it;
I wrote the damn bill. And many of our union brothers and sisters are now paying high deductibles and copayments when we do Medicare for all, instead of having the company putting money in to healthcare, they can get decent wage increases, which
they're not getting today.
RYAN: Senator Sanders does not know all of the union contracts--the only thing they have is possibly really good healthcare. And the Democratic message is going to be, "we're going to take it and we're going to do better."
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Source: July Democratic Primary debate (first night in Detroit)
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Jul 30, 2019
Healthcare as a human right includes immigrants
Rep. Tim Ryan: Everyone else in America is paying for their healthcare. I don't think it's a stretch for us to ask undocumented people in the country to also pay for healthcare.
SANDERS: I happen to believe that when I talk about healthcare as a human right that applies to all people in this country, and under a Medicare for All single payer system, we could afford to do that.
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Source: July Democratic Primary debate (first night in Detroit)
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Jul 28, 2019
Medicare for All: higher taxes but lower healthcare costs
Under Medicare for all, similar to what Canada has, people are not going to pay any premiums. They're not going to pay any deductibles. They are not going to pay any co-payments. I do believe that, in a progressive way, people will have to pay taxes.
The wealthy will obviously pay the lion's share of those taxes. People will be paying, in some cases, more in taxes, but, overall, because they're not going to pay premiums, deductibles, co-payments, they will be paying less for their health care.
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Source: CNN "SOTU" 2019 on 2020 candidates
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Jun 30, 2019
People will spend less money on Medicare for All
It's not a question of paying more taxes or not, it's a question of not paying any premiums. Let's say you're self-employed and you're spending $15,000 or $20,000 a year on out-of-pocket expenses, premiums and so forth. And I said, you're going to pay
$7,000 or $8,000 more in taxes but you're not going to have to pay your premiums. You're probably going to say where can I sign up? People are going to spend less on Medicare for All.
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Source: ABC This Week 2019 interview series
Bernie Sanders on Abortion
: Jun 27, 2019
Medicare-for-All will protect women's constitutional right
Q: What is your plan if Roe is struck down in the court while you're president?SANDERS: My plan, as somebody who believes for a start that a woman's right to control her own body is a constitutional right, that government and politicians should
not infringe on that right, we will do everything we can to defend Roe versus Wade. Let's face this, Medicare for All guarantees every woman in this country the right to have an abortion if she wants it.
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Source: June Democratic Primary debate (second night in Miami)
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Jun 27, 2019
Medicare is most popular health insurance so let's expand it
Q: Senator Bennet, you want to keep the system that we have in place with ObamaCare [instead of Bernie's single-payer system]. Why?Sen. Mike BENNET: Bernie has said over and over again that this [single-payer Medicare-for-All plan] will make
illegal all insurance except cosmetic--I guess that's for plastic surgery. Everything else is banned under the Medicare-for-all proposal.
Sen. Bernie SANDERS: You know, Mike, Medicare is the most popular health insurance program in the country.
BENNET: I agree.
SANDERS: People don't like their private insurance companies. They like their doctors and hospitals. Under our plan people go to any doctor they want, any hospital they want.
We will substantially lower the cost of health care in this country because we'll stop the greed of the insurance companies. On this issue we have to think about how this affects real people.
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Source: June Democratic Primary debate (second night in Miami)
Bernie Sanders on Tax Reform
: Jun 27, 2019
Medicare-for-All raises taxes on middle class, but net gain
Health care in my view is a human right. And we have got to pass a Medicare for all, single-payer system. Under that system the vast majority of the people in this country will be paying significantly less for health care than they are right now.
People who have Medicare for all will have no premiums, no deductibles, no copayments, no out-of-pocket expenses. Yes, they will pay more in taxes, but less in health care for what they get.
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Source: June Democratic Primary debate (second night in Miami)
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: May 19, 2019
Medicare-for-All will lead to stability, not disruption
Every time somebody loses their job, every some -- every time some employer changes health insurance policy, there is disruption. That impacts tens of millions of people. When you have Medicare for all, you will finally have stability.
Everybody in the country will have comprehensive healthcare, covering all basic healthcare needs. We will save taxpayers, we will save the citizens of this country, on healthcare, substantial sums of money.
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Source: Meet the Press 2019 interview of 2020 presidential hopefuls
Howie Hawkins on Jobs
: May 19, 2019
Guaranteed jobs; guaranteed income above poverty
A VOTE FOR THE GREEN TICKET IS A VOTE FOR:AN ECONOMIC BILL OF RIGHTS- A Job Guarantee
- A Guaranteed Income Above Poverty
- Homes for All through Public Housing and Universal Rent Control
- Medicare for All
- Free Public Education from Pre-K
Child Care through College
JUSTICE- Appoint Public Defenders to the Federal Judiciary
- Fully Fund the Legal Services Corporation
- Empower Racially Oppressed Communities and Disempower Institutional Racism
- Open Borders--Fair Trade
Zones with Free Travel for Work, Shopping, and Recreation
- Legalization of Undocumented Immigrants with a Timely Path to Citizenship
- Abolish Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
and Replace with a New Agency Committed to Open Borders Administration
PEACE- No First Strike
- Nukes Off Hair-Trigger Alert
- Negotiations Toward Complete Nuclear Disarmament
- Deep Cuts in Military Spending on the order of 50%
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Source: 2020 Presidential Campaign website HowieHawkins.us
Kamala Harris on Health Care
: May 12, 2019
Supports Medicare for All, even undocumented aliens
Q: What about Medicare-for-All?A: I support Medicare-for-All, and the vision of what it will be includes an expansion of coverage. Medicare-for-All will include vision. It will include dental. It will include hearing aids.
Q: You support giving universal health care to people in this country illegally?
A: I'm opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education, or public health, period.
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Source: CNN SOTU 2019 interview of presidential hopefuls
Joe Biden on Health Care
: Apr 25, 2019
Expand ObamaCare, but not Medicare-for-All
Biden has signaled that he is open to adding onto the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law while he was vice president. "The Affordable Care Act was a big step ... but we need to build on it.
What we can't do is blow it up." Biden has spoken out against Republicans' efforts to repeal and replace the ACA. He hasn't publicly supported Medicare for All.
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Source: Axios.com "What you need to know about 2020"
Marianne Williamson on Health Care
: Apr 14, 2019
Make Medicare for All a public option
I'd like to see a Medicare-for-All type of plan that's presented as a public option. I think a lot of people would gravitate to that. In addition, if people want private insurance, if they like their private insurers, or want to augment it, then they
should be able to. The issue is why are we going to do that. The reason we are going to do that is because you are a citizen of the United States. No citizen in the richest country of the world should have to be worrying about this.
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Source: CNN Town Hall 2020 Democratic primary
Marianne Williamson on Health Care
: Apr 14, 2019
Supports "Medicare-for-All model"
Supports a "Medicare for All model,"
according to her campaign website.
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Source: Axios.com "What you need to know about 2020"
Marianne Williamson on Health Care
: Apr 8, 2019
Medicare-for-all plus lifestyle and nutrition support
The biggest problem with America's health care system is that it is not a health care system so much as a sickness care system. It reflects an outdated perspective on health & healing, in which far too little attention is given to the actual cultivation
of health and prevention of disease. I will robustly support high-quality universal coverage for every American, including a Medicare-for-all model. In addition, my administration would champion the following policy changes: Require our healthcare
system to reimburse medical professionals for a broader array of lifestyle and nutrition support, focused on preventing disease and/or addressing root causes. Provide patients with more robust ongoing support from nutritionists, health coaches,
therapists and mental health, exercise specialists, and other peripheral lifestyle treatment providers. Fund programs in all our educational systems designed to teach nutrition and lifestyle skills to help cultivate long-term health.
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Source: 2020 presidential campaign website Marianne2020.com
Kamala Harris on Health Care
: Jan 21, 2019
End private health insurance with Medicare for All
- Health care: Move to universal, government-run health care, or "Medicare for All."
- Harris backs the "Medicare for All" bill sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
- That bill would establish government-run health care system that
allows every American to have access to care and end private health insurance as it currently exists.
-
The bill would pay for that system in part with a 6.2 percent charge on employers, a 2.2 percent fee on most families that would vary at some income levels, increased marginal tax rates for incomes $250,000 and higher, increased taxes on capital gains,
and an increased estate tax for the wealthiest.
- Harris has also introduced bills to increase access to mental health care and address high maternal mortality rates for black women.
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Source: PBS News hour on 2020 Presidential hopefuls
Donald Trump on Health Care
: Oct 10, 2018
Medicare for All is really Medicare for None
Throughout the year, we have seen Democrats across the country uniting around a new legislative proposal that would end Medicare as we know it and take away benefits that seniors have paid for their entire lives. Dishonestly called "Medicare for All,"
the Democratic proposal would establish a government-run, single-payer health care system that eliminates all private and employer-based health care plans and would cost an astonishing $32.6 trillion during its first 10 years.In practice, the
Democratic Party's so-called Medicare for All would really be Medicare for None. Under the Democrats' plan, today's Medicare would be forced to die. The Democrats' plan also would mean the end of choice for seniors over their own health care decisions.
Instead, Democrats would give total power and control over seniors' health care decisions to the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.
Delaying reform will make it worse. Half of America skimps to pay for health care. The only fix is to cut waste.
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Source: USA Today OpEd (press release by 2018 Trump Administration)
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Nov 15, 2016
Focus healthcare on health instead of profits
The United States must join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to every man, woman, and child through a Medicare for All single-payer system.It has never made sense to me that our health care system is primarily designed
to make huge profits for multibillion-dollar insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals, and medical equipment suppliers. Health care is not a commodity. It is a human right.
The goal of a sane health care system should be to keep people well, not to make stock holders rich.
Our current system is the most expensive, bureaucratic, wasteful, and ineffective in the world.
While the health care industry makes hundreds of billions a year in profit, tens of millions of Americans have totally inadequate coverage, and many of our people suffer and die unnecessarily.
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Source: Our Revolution, by Bernie Sanders, p. 318-319
Jill Stein on Health Care
: Oct 9, 2016
Early diagnosis and intervention for mental illness
Q: What will you do to reduce the human and economic costs of mental illness?JILL STEIN: As part of a Medicare for All universal health care system we need a mental health care system that safeguards human dignity, respects individual autonomy,
and protects informed consent. In addition to full funding for mental health care, this means making it easier for the chronically mentally ill to apply for and receive Supplemental Security Income, and funding programs to increase public awareness of
and sensitivity to the needs of the mentally ill and differently abled.
We must ensure that the government takes all steps necessary to fully diagnose and treat the mental health conditions resulting from service in combat zones, including post-
traumatic stress disorder. We will also release prisoners with diagnosed mental disorders to secure mental health treatment centers, and ensure psychological and medical care and rehabilitation services for mentally ill prisoners.
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Source: ScienceDebate.org: 20 questions for 2016 presidential race
Jill Stein on Health Care
: Aug 8, 2016
Healthcare for all including contraception
- Establish an improved "Medicare for All" single-payer public health program to provide everyone with quality health care. No co-pays, premiums or deductibles. Access to all health care services, including mental health, dental, and vision.
Include everyone, period.
- Allow full access to contraceptive and reproductive care.
- Expand women's access to "morning after" contraception by lifting the Obama Administration's ban.
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Source: Stein-Baraka platform on 2016 presidential campaign website
Bernie Sanders on Health Care
: Jan 25, 2016
Medicare for All: insure 29M people beyond ObamaCare
Q: You have branded your single payer health program as "Medicare for All", Why would people support your program with ongoing Medicare problems?SANDERS: I think people will support my Medicare-for-All program because the United States today is the
only major country on Earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a right. I think the Affordable Care Act has done a lot of good things. But yet we have 29 million people without any health insurance. There are seniors today who cannot
afford the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs because in America, we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Last year, while one out of five Americans cannot afford the prescriptions their doctors write, the three
major drug companies made $45 billion in profit because they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions. I believe, as a principle, everybody should be entitled to health care as a right, comprehensive health care.
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Source: 2016 CNN Town Hall Democratic presidential primary debate
Donald Trump on Health Care
: Oct 16, 2015
1998: For universal coverage; have to take care of people
[Reviewing Trump's stances from 1998]: Q: Health care?TRUMP: [I'm] liberal on health care, we have to take care of people that are sick.
Q: Universal health coverage?
TRUMP: I like universal, we have to take care, there's nothing else. What's the country all about if we're not going to take care of our sick?
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Source: Snopes.com Fact-Check on 2016 Presidential Hopefuls
Jill Stein on Health Care
: Jul 6, 2015
Tort reform becomes unneeded under Medicare-for-All
OnTheIssues: What about tort reform, i.e. limiting medical malpractice damage awards?Stein: The answer is a Medicare-for-All system. Much of what motivates large settlements is the need to pay for a lifetime of chronic care. With healthcare as a human
right, you no longer need to go to court to assure coverage.
OnTheIssues: How would you implement that, given that ObamaCare is here to stay?
Stein: New Zealand uses no fault malpractice insurance--there is no requirement to find intention or fault--
and no need to create a villain when dealing with just statistical risks--and they have much smaller settlements. That is something we might want to look into, but the definitive answer is Medicare-for-All. Court settlement is an important safeguard
against abuse and incompetence--that right should not be curtailed--but no-fault and Medicare-for-All is the main answer. If there are to be any changes in the way the courts work, the focus should be on speeding up the process.
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Source: Phone interview on 2016 presidential race by OnTheIssues.org
Jill Stein on Drugs
: Feb 6, 2015
End the racist war on drugs and school-to-prison pipeline
We will lift up the bold solutions the American people are calling for:- Health care as a human right, not a means tested entitlement like Medicare, not a subsidized profit center for predatory insurance like Obamacare, but a Medicare for All
system to provide quality care for all while saving trillions by streamlining the massive health insurance bureaucracy;
- Quality free public education as a human right, and an end to runaway school privatizations and closings, to high stakes testing,
and student loan debt.
- A welcoming path to citizenship for immigrant residents, and an end to predatory trade deals and political interventions that created the surge of immigration to start with
- An end to the racist war on drugs and
school to prison pipeline. And a end to the militarized police, surveillance and prison state, and radical reduction of America's prison population
- An end to Wall Street bail outs and "too big to fail' banks
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Source: 2016 presidential campaign website, Jill2016.com, "Announce"
Jill Stein on Health Care
: Jan 25, 2012
Right to quality health care: Medicare for All
My administration will honor the right to quality health care through an improved Medicare for All program. This will provide comprehensive care for all. It will be free to consumers at the point of delivery, but will save money overall by reducing the
massive wasteful health insurance bureaucracy and by stabilizing medical inflation. And it restores freedom of choice so you pick your health care provider, and your care is decided by you and your provider- not by a profiteering insurance executive.
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Source: Green Party 2012 People's State of the Union speech
Joe Biden on Health Care
: Sep 13, 2007
Start paying for universal coverage with $100B in redundancy
Q: Do you favor universal coverage for everyone without exception?A: Yes, I do.
Q: How would you pay for it?
A: I would pay for it by three ways. 1) I start off dealing with going into a prevention-and-treatment mode here that required us to
simplify and modernize the system. That could save $100 billion a year in redundancy that goes on right now. 2) I would immediately provide for catastrophic health insurance for all Americans, and I'd immediately move for insuring every single child in
America. That would cost less than what the top 1% tax break costs, $85 billion a year. 3) Then what I would do is I would move to insuring everyone through one of two vehicles. Either a system we work out among the stakeholders, an agreement that
everyone essentially gets Medicare from the time you're born or a system whereby everyone can buy into the federal system. Those who don't have the means to buy in, then you subsidize them into the system. I would pay for that by direct revenues.
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Source: Huffington Post Mash-Up: 2007 Democratic on-line debate
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