Can Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) use his Medicare-for-all plan to propel him higher in the polls, now that he is trailing frontrunner former Vice President Joe Biden for the Democrat presidential nomination by double digits?
Sanders is betting on it. Today, he plans to unveil his Medicare for all plan, which is said to include government-sponsored healthcare insurance for undocumented workers, as well as subsidized insurance for a wide swath of Americans.
Each of the veteran politicians is hoping their healthcare plans will turn their political tides. Both have been here before, running for president. While Biden's support in the latest Hill-HarrisX poll of Democratic voters has fallen below 30 percent, his lowest mark in the survey so far, he still has 16 percent over Sanders.
Biden introduced his healthcare plan – an Obamacare 2.0 program designed to expand the Affordable Care Act -- to a group of AARP members yesterday, telling them: “If you like your private insurance, you can keep it.” The promise restated nearly verbatim former President Obama’s Affordable Care Act promise of 2013.
At the heart of Biden’s health-care plan, which senior campaign officials said would cover more than 97 percent of Americans, is a proposal to let people choose a government-run health system like Medicare if they aren’t happy with private insurance. Obama initially included a public option in his ACA legislation, but later backed away under political resistance over costs.
The former vice president would also bolster other parts of the ACA designed to help people buy insurance. It would get rid of the income limit — 400 percent of the federal poverty level — used to determine who qualifies for tax credits that help Americans pay insurance premiums.
Biden’s plan would also circumvent the resistance by many Republican-led states to accepting the expansion of Medicaid, a program for low-income and disabled Americans. In the 14 states that have not expanded Medicaid as allowed by the ACA, Biden’s proposal would let people who otherwise qualify for assistance buy into the public option without premiums.
In contrast, Biden’s message on Medicare-for-all? It is “totally risky” and would leave millions without insurance, the former long-time Delaware senator predicted at the AARP event in Des Moines yesterday.
Sanders isn’t buying it. He is slated to unveil his Medicare-for-all vision for America today. He told picketers and supporters who were protesting the closure of Philadelphia’s Hahnemann University Hospital yesterday that his plan, which is still short on details, would reduce for-profit hospital closures and minimize coverage gaps between the rich and poor.
The cost differentials between the Biden and Sanders plans are likely to be marked.