Bernie Sanders-Style Health Plans Have Reached a Saturation Point

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- It took Bernie Sanders about a minute and a half into his opening remarks at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 2020 Public Service Forum to start talking health care. “I want to thank AFSCME for supporting the idea of a Medicare for All single-payer program,” the Vermont senator said to cheers at the Aug. 3 event in Las Vegas. He even threw in an “I wrote the damn bill!” for good measure. Sanders enjoys a home field advantage when he speaks to unions. The AFSCME members in attendance responded with more whoops and cheers when he promised to end so-called right to work legislation, which bans mandatory union contributions for workers covered by collective bargaining agreements, and to appoint the strongest worker advocate he could find as U.S. secretary of labor. Talking later with some members of the crowd, however, it was clear that he’s lost some of his edge on Medicare for All. In 2015, leading up to the next year’s presidential primaries, Sanders was considered radical for pushing universal health care. Four years later, 12 of the top 20 candidates for the Democratic nomination have put forward some variation on the idea. While the AFSCME forum attendees were mostly in favor of Medicare for All, not all of them liked Sanders’s version best.

Janelle Fisher, 36, a licensed psychologist from Sacramento, is enthusiastic about single-payer health care. “Oh goodness, that should be a right,” she said. “Everyone should have access to health care that actually fits their needs and doesn’t leave them saddled with all this debt or having to file bankruptcy.” That said, Sanders’s Medicare for All isn’t her favorite version of it. “To be honest, Kamala Harris’s plan stood out to me,” she said. Fisher thought the California senator’s 10-year rollout was more realistic than Sanders’s four-year timetable. “At the end of the day, Medicare for All is such a huge, gargantuan plan to enact, and it’s not gonna happen overnight. But little by little, it can be something really fantastic.”

Ken Edmonds, 42, works for the state of Nevada as a support technician assisting those who work with the developmentally disabled. He’s also a two-time cancer survivor and was celebrating four years in remission. “Thank god I’m on the backside of it,” Edmonds said. The first time around, his insurance covered more of his treatment. This time he was on a high-deductible plan, and the providers available to him didn’t provide the same level of care. “It was like they just herded people in,” he said. “This person is doing chemo in this corner, there’s someone in a chair just getting their port flushed.” Medicare for All “sounds like a good plan,” he said, but once Congress takes it up, “you just never know.”

Kathryn Lybarger, 52, is a gardener at the University of California at Berkeley who’s been a union leader and activist for more than a decade. She said she’s heard people asking what would happen to private insurance under Medicare for All. “What about union members who have negotiated fantastic health plans? Will they be able to keep that? Here’s the thing,” she continued. “It would be nice to actually take the question of health care—something that’s a basic human right—off the table and not have to negotiate it anymore.” With so many candidates offering universal coverage proposals, Lybarger said she has plenty of good choices. “There’s a really strong field here,” she said. “I think most all those candidates would do a fantastic job.” 

“Health care is on my mind for a lot of reasons,” said Robin Timoszyk, 57. She works for First 5 Yuba County Children and Families Commission, allocating money from tobacco taxes to serve mothers and young children in rural California. The area has only one hospital to cover three counties, she said. “If people need specialty care, you drive out of the area for three or four hours sometimes.” Timoszyk said she’s wary of Medicare for All and hadn’t heard any of the candidates talk about access to care in rural communities. The closest was Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado, who at least said he was interested in it, but didn’t go any further than that.

Dominick Finley, a 29-year-old Ph.D. student in psychology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, likes the idea of Medicare for All, but he has serious questions. “I just want us to make a plan that allows America to acclimate to it,” he said, instead of “walking in blind. I want it to be more than just talk. I want it to be actionable and something that’s set up for the long road.” Nevertheless, he said, “I’m Bernie all the way. Just because I have all of these little issues with it doesn’t mean I don’t think he’s the best for the job. My whole thing is, like my mom said—it’s almost like a joke: ‘I hope he can live long enough to do all of this.’ Because that’s the best candidate we have so far. I’m just worried about his age.” 

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jillian Goodman at jgoodman74@bloomberg.net

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