Listen to “Public Option = Government-Run Health Care” on Spreaker.
Former Vice President Joe Biden is once again staying very close to President Obama, this time billing his health care plan as Obamacare 2.0 and even promising once again that Americans who like their private health coverage can keep it.
The Obama-Biden administration repeated that promise over and over as part of the debate over the Affordable Care Act. Due to the regulatory changes of the law, plans could not stay the same. Americans were forced into more comprehensive plans and some carriers dropped their customers altogether.
As a result, Politifact named “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” the Lie of the Year in 2013.
Biden is now positioning himself as a moderate in the Democratic field for 2020. He says a Medicare for All approach that would abolish private insurance and leave the government in complete control is a bridge too far. Instead he is pushing a public option – a government-run plan that would compete with private coverage.
“If you like your plan, your employer-based plan, you can keep it. If in fact, you have private insurance, you can keep it,” said Biden on Monday.
But what Biden labels a moderate approach Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner sees as a mere stepping stone to government-run health care that kills private sector health coverage.
“The federal government has unlimited calls on taxpayer dollars. It can write the rules that everybody has to comply with. Private plans will not be able to compete, so people will inevitably lose their private plans simply because they will go under,” said Turner.
Listen to the full podcast to hear Turner explain in greater detail how a public option would ultimately force private insurers out of business, what approach she believes is far better than a public option or Medicare for All, and how Americans are approaching this critical debate.
