Obama renews push for health care public option as he endorses Biden
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Former President Barack Obama’s making a fresh pitch for a government-run public health care option where millions of Americans could obtain their insurance.
“We have to protect the gains we made with the Affordable Care Act, but it’s also time to go further. We should make plans affordable for everyone, provide everyone with a public option, expand Medicare, and finish the job so that health care isn’t just a right, but a reality for everybody,” Obama said Tuesday in a video in which he endorsed Joe Biden for president.
OBAMA MAKES IT OFFICIAL, ENDORSING BIDEN FOR PRESIDENT AFTER REMAINING ON SIDELINES
Biden, who served eight years as Obama’s vice president, is now the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee. And a key part of his platform is a public option, modeled after Medicare.
A public option was originally part of then-President Obama’s wide-ranging health care reform plan, which was proposed in 2009. But Obama dropped it due to a lack of legislative support ahead of a crucial Senate vote on ObamaCare early in 2010. The lack of a public option in the resulting Affordable Care Act, which was passed into law, was always a sore point for progressives.
In 2016, during the waning months of his second and final term in the White House, Obama renewed his push for a public option just days after then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton spotlighted her support for the proposal.
Fast forward four years and now Biden is also pushing for a public option. The proposal’s been a key part of his domestic agenda since he launched his campaign a year ago. Health care has been a leading and divisive issue in the Democratic presidential primaries from the start of the campaign last year.
Sen. Bernie Sanders – who was Biden’s last remaining rival for the nomination until he suspended his bid last week and endorsed the former vice president on Monday – has long advocated for a government-run «Medicare-for-all» health care system. The proposal’s been the signature issue in Sanders’ back-to-back 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.
BIDEN – REACHING OUT TO LEFT – CALLS FOR LOWERING MEDICARE ELIGIBILITY AGE TO 60
Last week, the day after Sanders suspended his presidential campaign, Biden showcased a new proposal to lower Medicare eligibility from the current age of 65 to age 60 – as well as to forgive student loan debt for low-income and middle-class families – as part of a pitch to woo Sanders and his legions of progressive and younger supporters.
In unveiling the plan, Biden credited the populist firebrand from Vermont and his supporters for his embrace of the proposals.
«Senator Sanders and his supporters can take pride in their work in laying the groundwork for these ideas, and I’m proud to adopt them as part of my campaign at this critical moment in responding to the coronavirus crisis,» Biden said.
The move is a step toward Sanders’ «Medicare-for-all» proposal, but it doesn’t go as far as the senator’s plan, which calls for phasing in all Americans over a four-year period and phasing out private health insurance plans.
Obama – in his video on Tuesday – spotlighted his former vice president’s progressive credentials.
The former president emphasized that “we have to look to the future. Bernie understands that. And Joe understands that. It’s one of the reasons that Joe already has what is the most progressive platform of any major party nominee in history. Because even before the pandemic turned the world upside down, it was already clear that we needed real structural change.”
