Democrats’ Healthcare Debate: Clinton and Sanders Are Both Wrong
January 25, 2016
News Article
Republicans aren’t the only ones who want to repeal and replace ObamaCare. Count Bernie Sanders in as well. Sanders is calling for single payer health care system, which he also calls “Medicare for all.” Hillary Clinton doesn’t just reject that idea, she is attacking it. And that’s a rarity for a Democratic candidate for president. A Kaiser Foundation poll finds that 81% of Democrats favor “Medicare for all.”
Even before last night’s debate, the two were duking it out. “My view is, we shouldn’t be ripping up Obamacare and starting over,” Clinton says. “If you’re going to say free healthcare… you owe it to voters to say this is what it will cost,” she adds. Sanders is dismayed. “Now she’s attacking me because I support universal healthcare,” he complains.
Even Chelsea Clinton has gotten into the feud, sounding surprisingly like a Republican in her attacks on Sanders.
So who is right? Hillary or Bernie?
They’re both wrong.
Clinton is wrong in her defense of Obamacare, which will continue to have huge problems, even with her recently proposed tweak. Readers can find an explanation of the worst problems in Obamacare and how to fix them in my book, A Better Choice: Healthcare Solutions for America and in the summary of the book at the Health Affairs blog. I won’t repeat all that here.
