9 Senate Democrats on whether they'd be willing to get rid of private health insurance

[DonViejo]

Medicare For All means eliminating almost all private insurance. That makes Senate Democrats nervous.

By Tara Golshan Mar 29, 2019, 8:10am EDT

The 2020 Democratic presidential primary has begun with a debate over abolishing (most) private health insurance.

Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) Medicare-for-all proposal holds that private health insurance has to be eliminated for almost all medical care. In a CNN town hall, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) emphatically agreed with the idea, saying it’s time we “eliminate all of that,” though she’s expressed openness to more incremental proposals as well.

But other top Democrats have been more cautious. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), who’s weighing a presidential campaign, has called Sanders’s plan “a bad opening offer.” Interviewed on Meet the Press, Bennet warned, “Remember when President Obama said, ‘If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance.’ And then a few people in America actually lost their insurance because of the way that the plan worked. Now what the Democrats are saying is, ‘If you like your insurance, we’re going to take it away from you.’”

Even Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who co-sponsored Sanders’s bill, sees some role for private insurance companies. “Even countries that have vast access to publicly offered health care still have private health care, so no.” he said.

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https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/29/18283875/senate-democrats-medicare-for-all-bernie-sanders

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. A BIG part of the problem of Health Care are the Insurance companies.....

Health Insurance companies are banking billions collectively by NOT paying claims that are legitimate. THEY are the ones who get between a Doctor and his/her patient deciding what they will and will not cover. 7 out of 10 Bankruptcies in this country are not from overspending, but from Medical emergencies that take up most of the money people have.

So getting rid of the money hungry Health Insurance companies that pay their CEOs MILLIONS annually with cushy Stock options, is the right thing to do. Employ the administrative sector to a Federal system such as a Medicare for all. Making millions off the sick is IMMORAL. How many more yachts do these CEOs need to water ski behind?

[rgbecker]

2. We are subsidizing the Millionaires running these private healthcare insurers.

Private health insurance provided by private employers is a tax scam just like a religion.

How is it employers can pay for their employees health insurance benefiting them with an income equivalence tax free? Meanwhile those of us in the “free, Market based healthcare system” pay taxed dollars as premiums to private, for profit insurance companies or pay fees directly to healthcare providers.

Simple answer is the power of private insurance companies in Congress to get tax law, and health insurance law to benefit the for-profit private companies, run by millionaires.

As Bernie and others have stated: We need a complete change to the system to remove the skimming of 10%-20% of every healthcare dollar by these “Capitalists”.

Even Labor Union leaders have fallen into the system, fighting for health insurance companies as they seek benefits for their members. I guess, given their mandate they should, but in the end they are getting tax benefits from their fellow countrymen and they are benefiting millionaires who are providing a service the government is already set up to do in the Medicare system.