Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota went after Sen. Bernie Sanders during Thursday night’s Democratic debate on his Medicare For All position.
“And while Bernie wrote the bill, I read the bill,” Klobuchar said during the debate, referring to Sanders’s health care plan, which involves dinging private health care insurance in exchange for universal health care. Klobuchar went after the Vermont senator for doubling down on the idea of eliminating private insurance.
She added: “And on page eight — on page eight of the bill, it says that we will no longer have private insurance as we know it. And that means that 149 million Americans will no longer be able to have their current insurance. That’s in four years. I don’t think that’s a bold idea, I think it’s a bad idea.”
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks during the Democratic Presidential Debate at Texas Southern University’s Health and PE Center on September 12, 2019 in Houston, Texas. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Sanders has routinely campaigned on his plan to nationalize the U.S. health care system and provide so-called “free” health insurance to every individual. The plan is estimated to cost more than $32 trillion over the next decade. (RELATED: Bernie Sanders: Medicare For All Would ‘Absolutely’ Cover Illegal Immigrants)
Sanders’s health care bill is cosponsored by other Democratic presidential candidates, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Kamala Harris. Sanders, a self-avowed socialist, introduced his universal health-care plan called “Medicare for All of 2017” in September 2017.
Former Vice President Joe Biden also leaned in on Sanders’s position.
“And if you notice, nobody’s yet said how much it’s going to cost the taxpayer. I hear this large savings, the — my friend from Vermont says you’re going to give back, got a cut in wages because you got insurance,” Biden said during one part of the Houston debate.
“They’re going to give back that money to the employee?” he said. “For a socialist, you have a lot more confidence in corporate America than I do.
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