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Vice President Harris seems to be singing a distinct tune on the subject of making certain “Medicare-for-all,” in comparison with when she ran for president in 2019.
A marketing campaign official informed Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy that Harris won’t push the topic of single-payer or “Medicare-for-all” this go round, as she seeks her first time period as commander-in-chief.
In 2019, Fox News spoke to Harris within the hallways of Capitol Hill, asking about her plans for offering well being care.
“How important is it to your health care plan to get rid of private insurance companies? Because there is some confusion about that,” Doocy requested Harris on Jan. 30, 2019.
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Vice President Kamala Harris’s camp says she doesn’t plan to run on “Medicare-for-all.” (Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein)
“I’m glad you asked. Yeah. So, the bottom line and the most important is that everyone have access to health care,” Harris stated. “That is the goal. That is the purpose for me supporting the policy of ‘Medicare-for-all.’
“If Congress votes in a approach that displays the values and needs of the American individuals, then Congress will vote for a coverage that offers everybody entry to well being care,” she later said.
On July 29, 2019, Harris published a piece on her campaign website about her plan to provide “Medicare-for-all.”
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According to the Harris campaign, “Medicare-for-all” won’t be pushed. (iStock)
She wrote, “There is probably no extra sophisticated or extra private situation for Americans than well being care.” Harris also wrote that the American health care system is “a patchwork of plans, suppliers and prices” that frustrates people and leaves them powerless against the insurance companies in charge.
Her proposed solution was to provide “Medicare-for-all” because “Medicare works” and “it’s standard.”
“‘Medicare-for-all’ will cowl all medically vital companies, together with emergency room visits, physician visits, imaginative and prescient, dental, listening to aids, psychological well being, and substance-use dysfunction remedy, and complete reproductive well being care companies,” Harris wrote. “It may even permit the Secretary of Health and Human Services to barter for decrease prescription drug costs.”
But her plan in July was different from what she proposed in January that year, because it would allow private insurers to offer Medicare plans to their clients.
In an interview with The Hill in October 2019, Harris said she knew she would be called “a flip-flopper” after she backed away from her initial support of “Medicare-for-all,” and developed her own health care plan.
Her plan in January 2019 called on eliminating private insurance. Then in July 2019, she chose to include a role for private insurance companies to privately administer Medicare plans, though under strict rules.
Even in 2017, Harris backed a single-payer plan proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., proposed a single-payer health care plan in 2019. (Screenshot/CBS/LateNightStephenColbert)
Harris told constituents at a town hall in Oakland on Aug. 30, 2017, that she planned to co-sponsor Sanders’ forthcoming “Medicare-for-all” bill, explaining that it was “simply the suitable factor to do.”
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“It’s not nearly what’s morally and ethically proper. It additionally is sensible from a fiscal standpoint,” Harris said at the time.
Harris had previously stated that she supported the single-payer system as a “idea,” but that lawmakers needed to “work out the small print.” Her announcement to co-sponsor Sanders’ bill was the first time she had publicly supported a single-payer plan.
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Under this European-style health care system, the government is solely responsible for covering health care costs. Sanders rolled out an earlier version of his proposal during the Democratic presidential primaries in 2016.
The plan was first estimated to cost $13.8 trillion over the first 10 years, but that ballooned to $32 trillion and required an average annual tax increase of $24,000 per household.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
