Five U.S. Senators are now championing a bill for socialized medicine in the United States of America. “What we want is to have as many people as possible, everybody, covered, and I think that’s something that we all embrace”.
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As the name implies, the measure would make a Medicare-type government system available to all Americans.
Nowhere is this clearer than on health care.
The latest Democratic senator offering support is Kirsten Gillibrand of NY. When Republican Senator Steve Daines offered an amendment that would have made such a system a reality, not one Democrat voted for it.
In any case, the first thing Democrats have to acknowledge is that if this is going to be their goal, they have a challenging persuasion task ahead of them. “Brown and Franken, and has long supported”. The party had control of the White House and Congress and their top priority was health care reform.
Overall, 33% of the public now favors such a “single payer” approach to health insurance, up 5 percentage points since January and 12 points since 2014. The bill was signed by Obama in 2010.
Instead, Casey was more supportive of crafting a public option plan that would compete with private insurance plans. So far, their attempts to roll back the health care law have been unsuccessful. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in introducing a Medicare-for-All bill to the Senate Wednesday, according to a report from The Hill. The legislation would allow all Americans to buy into Medicare.
Booker’s announcement comes after other high-profile Democrats said they would cosponsor the bill.
Taxes could rise for individual households, but might be offset by lower premiums and health-care costs overall.
Casey – who faces re-election next year – told reporters Tuesday he won’t take a position on Sanders’ proposal until he has seen the bill, adding that he views it as a concept that would require public hearings.
“Health care should be a right for every single American, not a privilege reserved for the healthy and the wealthy”, Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, said in a statement.
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The notion that Gillibrand is doing this for political gain is nothing new. “It will be such a huge popular issue… that even if it’s not successful the first time, it will eventually be”. “A hardworking single mother in New Mexico deserves the same quality health care for herself and her family as a multimillionaire CEO. Once we address the short-term stability of the market, we should look at all ideas to fix the long-term problems facing our health care system”, he continued. It’s time for something better. Just to give you an idea, Medicare and Medicaid now run close to $1.3 trillion a year, and that only covers senior citizens and the poor.
