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 The Sanders plan, similar to his 2017 proposal that languished in
the Senate, would largely eliminate private insurance and shift all
Americans into a Medicare-based government-run healthcare plan that
Republicans have criticized as too costly and radical.
The bill has 14 Democratic co-sponsors in the Senate, including four
of his presidential rivals - Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, Kamala
Harris and Elizabeth Warren. The other White House contender in the
Senate, Amy Klobuchar, supports universal healthcare and expanding
Medicare but has not committed to plans that would eliminate private
insurance.
A similar measure in the House of Representatives has more than 100
co-sponsors.
"The current debate over Medicare for All really has nothing to do
with healthcare; it has everything to do with greed and
profiteering," Sanders said at a Capitol Hill event to roll out the
proposal, where he was joined by Gillibrand.
"This is a struggle for the heart and soul of who we are as the
American people," he said.
Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont who mounted an
unsuccessful 2016 White House run, has turned the proposal, once
dismissed as too fringe, into a centerpiece of the Democratic
Party's agenda heading into the 2020 White House race.
At least 10 other Democrats vying for the right to challenge
Republican President Donald Trump in 2020 have backed some similar
form of government-run healthcare, and every Democrat supports
taking at least smaller steps toward achieving universal coverage.
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Other prominent Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
have urged the party to focus on protecting and strengthening the
Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, which Trump and
Republicans have vowed to dismantle.
The Sanders proposal, which has little chance of passage in the
Republican-run Senate, expands on his old bill to include coverage
of home and community-based long-term care services for people with
disabilities.
Sanders does not put a price tag on the proposal, but would raise
revenues to help pay for it through a combination of taxes on
employers, individuals, businesses and the wealthy. He suggests that
healthcare spending and administrative costs would decrease and
costs for consumers would be reduced.
The liberal Urban Institute estimated the earlier Sanders plan would
cost $32 trillion over a decade, with the additional taxes raising
about $15 trillion.
Republicans have criticized the bill as a socialist pipe dream that
would be too costly and weaken the U.S. healthcare system. They have
promised to make it a key election issue in 2020.
"It's the same tired, debunked logic that Washington, D.C., knows
best and the American people can't be trusted to decide what's best
for themselves and their families," Senate Republican leader Mitch
McConnell said.
(Reporting by John Whitesidess; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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