Warren Backs Down on Medicare for All, Now Says It’s a ‘Choice’
Warren Tempers Medicare for All Rhetoric, Calling It a ‘Choice’
(Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is starting to back away from a full-blown Medicare for All plan on the campaign trail, as she faces increased questions about whether her support for the proposal hurts her electability.
After pushing the swift creation of a government-run health care system that would cover all Americans and eliminate private insurance, Warren is now emphasizing her calls for a transition period that would make it optional for most of her first term in office.
During a three-day bus tour through Iowa, she increasingly stressed the word “choice” in her interactions with voters, saying the three-year implementation period would let Americans keep their existing coverage or try out Medicare for All.
“We’re going to push through health care that’s available to everyone,” Warren said during a town hall in Clinton, Iowa, on Saturday. “You don’t have to, but it’s your choice, if you want to come in and get full health care coverage.”
Warren insists she’s sticking to her long-term commitment of creating a government-run health care system. Yet last month, she unveiled the transition plan after criticism on the campaign trail and at debates by rivals including front-runner Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, who both favor building on the existing system while offering a separate public option.
Although Medicare for All remains popular with the Democratic base, some have worried that the government-run health care system envisioned by Bernie Sanders and adopted by Warren would hurt Democrats in the general election against President Donald Trump. Union members and millions of other Americans who have health insurance are reluctant to give it up.
With fewer than two months until the first nominating contest, the Iowa caucuses, Warren’s emphasis on choice appears to be an effort to reassure those voters. She insists that if they try Medicare for All, they’ll like it.
“And then when people have a chance to try it, when you’ve had the choice -- nobody has to but -- when you’ve had the choice and tried full health care coverage, then we’ll vote,” Warren said in Washington, Iowa. “And I believe America is going to say, ‘We like Medicare for All.’”
But some of her Democratic rivals, including Buttigieg, have criticized her for using the word “choice” to describe a single-payer health care plan that would take that choice away after three years.
Health-care policy has consumed the Warren campaign in recent months and led to a dip in the polls after she struggled to answer questions about the financing and cost of Medicare for All.
While she had surged to second place in many national surveys, she then began to lose ground. Her national polling average has fallen from 23.4% in mid-October to 16% on Monday, according to Real Clear Politics, while Sanders, her progressive rival, and Buttigieg have gained.
A Quinnipiac University poll published Monday showed Biden with a strong lead, with 30% support, followed by Warren at 17% and Sanders at 16%. Buttigieg had 9%.
Under pressure from her rivals, Warren released a Medicare for All plan in November with a price tag of $20.5 trillion over 10 years -- $10 trillion less than most estimates -- paid for with a series of new taxes on the wealthy and corporations that are unlikely to pass Congress.
A few weeks later, she released the transition proposal. She said that would be in effect until the full program had been passed, by her third year in office.
Warren’s signals last month about a three-year timeline for Medicare for All sparked a rally among health insurers. UnitedHealth Group Inc., Humana Inc. and Centene Corp. have all outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index since Nov. 14, the day before Warren floated her timetable.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts Stephen Tanal and Grant Hesser wrote in a note on Sunday that the delay in implementation was good news for markets and the private health insurance industry.
The “risk of 2020 continues to be Medicare for All proposals that would ban the sale of private health insurance,” Tanal and Hesser said. “While the outcome of the 2020 election will matter for the stocks, the outcome of private insurance being banned carries low probability while other more moderate proposals do not represent substantial risk.”
If elected, Warren said she would ask Congress to “fast-track” a Medicare for All option that would immediately cover children under 18 and families making less than $51,000 a year, and provide an option for expanded Medicare for people older than 50. In the first three years, anyone else could buy into Medicare for All at a “modest” cost, Warren said, before it eventually became free.
Her transition proposal, at least at first, ended up looking much like those of her moderate rivals, Biden and Buttigieg: Expanded government-run insurance without mandating it for everyone. But Warren says the plans aren’t alike.
“Pete Buttigieg’s plan is not offering full health care coverage to anyone. His plan is still about high deductibles, about fees, about co-pays and about uncovered expenses,” Warren told reporters in Ottumwa, Iowa, Sunday. “What I’m offering is full health care coverage and middle class families don’t have to pay a single dime to make this happen.”
Sean Savett, Buttigieg’s communications director, said in a statement that his “Medicare for All Who Want It” plan would also provide universal access to coverage.
“The difference is Pete’s plan also preserves health care choice for all Americans,” Savett said. “It’s a difference not just in policy, but in approach to governing. Pete’s offering a way forward that rallies Americans together to accomplish bold goals, rather than more Washington style my-way-or-the-highway politics that drives us apart and keeps us from acting on our urgent challenges.”
(Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)
To contact the reporter on this story: Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou in Washington at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, John Harney
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