1/17/16 Democratic Presidential Debate
As the Iowa Caucuses draw near, candidates made their final attempts to sway voters in the fourth Democratic primary debate. Bernie Sanders had the most notable use of this tactic, releasing his “Medicare for All” plan only two hours before the debate began, causing many to wonder how this new plan would be discussed in the debate.
The basic concept behind paying for the plan is to rely on employers paying income-based health premiums of 6.2% and households contributing a 2.2% payroll tax. Sanders’ plan claims to save $6 trillion over 10 years and is estimated to cost $1.38 trillion annually.
The topic of healthcare was very prominent in Sunday’s debate, as both Clinton and Sanders mentioned health care as a top priority when asked what would their priorities be in their first 100 days in office. It was then opened as its own topic of debate when Hillary Clinton was asked whether she thought it was fair to say Sanders wanted to “kill Obamacare.”
Throughout the debate, Clinton continued to support Barack Obama’s actions while in office, such as his nuclear deal with Iran and his leadership of the country out of the Great Recession. When it came to healthcare, Clinton yet-again supported Obamacare, stating “That [Obamacare] is one of the greatest accomplishments of President Obama, of the Democratic Party, and of our country.” However, Clinton spent a large portion of her speaking time claiming that Sanders was anti-Obamacare. She stated that she wanted to continue to improve on the current ideas of Obama, but Clinton ultimately spent much of her time claiming Sanders wanted to scrap Obamacare and start from scratch, rather than expand upon her briefly-mentioned ideas: to model current state healthcare plans, and improving Obamacare.
In contrast to Clinton’s claims, Sanders stated that he would be “moving on top of that,” and to move forward to a place where the 29 million people in America who do not have access to healthcare will be able to afford it. Sanders states that he wants to stand up to the private insurance and healthcare industries and make Medicare or Medicare-type programs available and affordable to anyone.
Martin O’Malley, the third candidate on the stage, was also able to chime into the discussion, as he mentioned that he wants to build on the Affordable Care Act: an idea Clinton supported. However, Clinton mentioned that Congress was unable to get the necessary votes for the 2010 Public Option Act, allowing US citizens to buy their way into Medicare by paying premiums. Under that plan similar to Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan, anyone could get Medicare by paying premiums. Clinton’s point refutes the entire idea of Sanders’ new bill—if they couldn’t get the votes six years ago, it will be even more difficult to get them now.
If Sanders’ new health care plan was released two hours before the debate in order to create buzz, then it has done its job. Whether the plan is actually viable for the United States is another question altogether.