Kamala Harris under fire after calling for abolition of private health care plans: ‘That’s not American’
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., came under fire on Tuesday for calling for private health care plans to be abolished – the latest plank is what is becoming an increasingly left-wing platform from the California Democrat.
Harris, who announced her 2020 bid for the White House last week, was asked by CNN host Jake Tapper Monday night if people could keep their current health care plan under her “Medicare-for-All” plan. She indicated that people could not, suggesting she wants to move toward a single-payer system rather than a mere expansion of Medicare.
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"Well, listen, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care. And you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require," Harris told Tapper.
"Who among us has not had that situation?" she continued. "Where you got to wait for approval, and the doctor says, 'Well I don't know if your insurance company is going to cover this.' Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on."
The claim is a significant shift from the famous promise made by former President Barack Obama who, in promoting the Affordable Care Act (known as "ObamaCare") promised: “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it” – a promise that came back to haunt him when Americans started losing their plans. Harris appears to have abandoned that completely, in a move that would have enormous implications for the health care industry and the approximately 217 million Americans the 2017 Census says have private plans.
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Democrats are increasingly calling for Medicare-for-All plans and it is unclear what room would be left in those plans for private insurance. Some single-payer health care systems in other countries, such as Britain’s National Health Service, allow for optional private health care insurance. It is unclear if Harris would seek to abolish that option in the U.S., or if she merely seeks to make them unnecessary.
The announcement was met with immediate criticism by her political opponents. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who is mulling a 2020 run as an independent, declared that abolishing private insurance is “not American.”
“That’s not correct. That’s not American,” Schultz said in an interview with CBS News' "This Morning," adding “What’s next? What industry are we going to abolish next? The coffee industry?"
Sauce: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kamala-harris-under-fire-after-promising-to-abolish-private-health-care-plans-thats-not-american