California Democratic Sen.
Kamala Harris,
speaking during a town hall Monday night, vowed to eliminate all
private health care insurance for approximately 150 million Americans if
she is elected president.
Asked by CNN host Jake Tapper if
people who like their current health care insurance could keep it under
Harris' "Medicare for All" plan, Harris indicated they could not -- but
that, in turn, they would experience health care without any delays.
Her
statements appeared to be a full-throated call for single-payer health
insurance, as opposed to merely expanding Medicare, and a dramatic
embrace of the kind of proposals advocated by Vermont Independent Sen.
Bernie Sanders.
"Well, listen, the idea is that everyone gets
access to medical care. And you don't have to go through the process of
going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going
through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require," Harris told
Tapper.
"Who among us has not had that situation?" she continued.
"Where you got to wait for approval, and the doctor says, 'Well I don't
know if your insurance company is going to cover this.' Let's eliminate
all of that. Let's move on."
President Barack Obama famously
repeated several times throughout his presidency, in seeking to promote
the Affordable Care Act (known as "ObamaCare"), that "If you like your
health care plan, you can keep it."
SF MAYOR SAYS HE HAD AFFAIR WITH HARRIS, HELPED HER CAREER
The fact-checking website Politifact eventually named that statement its "Lie of the Year," noting
that several million Americans received cancellation notices from their
providers because of ObamaCare. Politifact also said the Obama
administration was aware from the outset that its promise was
unsustainable.
"Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on."
— California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris
Harris
appeared unwilling to follow Obama's example on Monday night, and
instead stuck to her answer as she jokingly told Tapper to move onto the
next question.
During a speech to officially launch her 2020 run
earlier this month, Harris declared that "health care is a fundamental
right" and vowed to serve her constituents by supporting "Medicare for
All."
In August 2017, Harris became the first Senate Democrat to
support Sanders' "Medicare for All" bill. The program, if implemented,
would cost
tens of trillions of dollars over a decade, experts say.
Several
independent studies
have specifically estimated that government spending on health care
would surge by $25 trillion to $35 trillion or more in a 10-year period.
A study released over the summer by the Mercatus Center at George Mason
University, for example, estimated that Sanders' program would
cost $32.6 trillion — $3.26 trillion per year — over a decade.
By comparison, the federal budget proposal for the fiscal year 2019 was
$4.4 trillion, the
Congressional Budget Office states.
FILE - In this Jan. 16, 2019, photo, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.,
reacts during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington.
“Medicare-for-all” makes a good first impression, but support plunges
when people are asked if they’d pay higher taxes or put up with
treatment delays to get it. AP
Analysis by The New York Times in
2017 showed at least 74 million Americans who currently benefit from
Medicaid would potentially face higher taxes under "Medicare for All."
Sanders
and New York Democratic Rep. Ocasio-Cortez have countered that while
spending would necessarily increase in the short-term, fundamentally
restructuring Medicare would ultimately yield sustained economic
benefits by reducing administrative inefficiencies, cutting perscription
drug costs, and encouraging young people to put more money into the
economy.
But Charles Blahous, a senior strategist at the Mercatus Center and an author of the study, has said Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders would need to make unrealistic assumptions to come to that conclusion, because increased demand for healthcare would potentially offset any such administrative gains.
He
criticized the two for making comments that "appear to reflect a
misunderstanding of my study" after they cited his work as proof that
'Medicare for All' would, in fact, necessarily save money. Numerous
fact-checkers, including The Washington Post and FactCheck, concluded that both liberal politicians had misread the paper's conclusions.
Speaking
separately in response to a gun rights question at Monday's town hall,
Harris urged a ban on "assault weapons," without defining the term.
"There
is no reason in a civil society that we have assault weapons around
communities that can kill babies and police officers," Harris said to
applause. "Something like universal background checks -- it makes
perfect sense that you might want to know before someone can buy a
weapon that can kill another human being, you might want to know have
they been convicted of a felony where they committed violence? That's
just reasonable. You might want to know before they can buy that gun if a
court has found them to be a danger to themselves or others. You just
might want to know. That's reasonable."
Harris also defended her
record as attorney general in California, saying she enforced the death
penalty in the state despite opposing the practice. Likewise, she said
she chose not to take a public position in 2015 on legislation to
require her office to investigate all police-related fatal shootings
because her office would write the law and enforce it.
The town hall event marked Harris' first public appearance in Iowa since announcing her candidacy last week.
