Sanders set to mount vigorous defense of ‘Medicare for All’
The
"You can't change a corrupt system by taking its money," Sanders will say during a speech at
The remarks come amid an intensifying fight among Democratic presidential candidates over how to best provide health care for Americans. It's pitting Sanders, with his push for a single payer system of health insurance, against former Vice President
Sanders and Biden have been engaged in an increasingly bitter dispute over the issue in recent days and Wednesday's speech could further escalate tensions between the two campaigns.
During a live-streamed discussion on Tuesday, Sanders dismissed Biden's criticisms of Medicare for All and said the nation should have "a health care debate on the facts and not on fear-mongering."
"Medicare is a popular, well established program," he said. "All that we are doing, despite all that the health care industry is going to expend trying to lie about what we're doing, what my opponents will talk about, all we're doing is expanding Medicare. Not so radical really, after all."
Slipping in some public polling and outraised by some of his 2020 opponents, Sanders has been increasingly willing to go on the offense against Biden on the issue of health care, one that has sharply divided
On Monday, Biden released a proposal to expand the Affordable Care Act , warning that it would be dangerous to eliminate it and replace it with Medicare for All. Biden's proposal would create a public option that would allow people to sign up for a government-run health system like Medicare if they were unhappy with private insurance.
This week in
"Medicare goes away as you know it. All the Medicare you have is gone. It's a new Medicare system," Biden said at a presidential candidate forum held by the
He also raised the prospect that some people could see temporary gaps in coverage, a notion that Sanders has bristled at and called "obviously absurd."
On Tuesday, Sanders said the plan that Biden has pitched did not go far enough in ensuring that Americans have the coverage they need.
"I have helped write and defended the Affordable Care Act," Sanders said during an interview with The
Nine years after the Affordable Care Act was passed under the Obama administration, Americans are still more likely to support than oppose the law, 48% to 30%, according to an April poll from
A central question in the debate over Medicare of All is how the cost of such a plan would be covered. Sanders has said taxes would increase on middle-income earners. Sen.
"The rules have been written against the middle class and working families for far too long, and it is not necessary that they'd be taxed even more to achieve what is achievable, by recognizing that that they don't have to pay more to receive a benefit they deserve which is access to health care," he said.
The roaring health care debate also is likely to further draw in the full Democratic field. Beyond Harris, several other leading 2020 candidates, including
Among them is
In an interview with The Associated Press as he campaigned in
"If you're gonna stand up and commit the Democratic Party to taking away from 180 million people, you'd better be clear on what the nuances are because when you're running against
Follow Summers on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jmsummers .
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