Bernie’s plan would create a federally administered single-payer health care program. Universal single-payer health care means comprehensive coverage for all Americans. Bernie’s plan will cover the entire continuum of health care, from inpatient to outpatient care; preventive to emergency care; primary care to specialty care, including long-term and palliative care; vision, hearing and oral health care; mental health and substance abuse services; as well as prescription medications, medical equipment, supplies, diagnostics and treatments. Patients will be able to choose a health care provider without worrying about whether that provider is in-network and will be able to get the care they need without having to read any fine print or trying to figure out how they can afford the out-of-pocket costs.

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As a patient, all you need to do is go to the doctor and show your insurance card. Bernie’s plan means no more copays, no more deductibles and no more fighting with insurance companies when they fail to pay for charges.

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We outspend all other countries on the planet and our medical spending continues to grow faster than the rate of inflation. Creating a single, public insurance system will go a long way towards getting health care spending under control. The United States has thousands of different health insurance plans, all of which set different reimbursement rates across different networks for providers and procedures resulting in high administrative costs. Two patients with the same condition may get very different care depending on where they live, the health insurance they have and what their insurance covers. A patient may pay different amounts for the same prescription depending solely on where the prescription is filled. Health care providers and patients must navigate this complex and bewildering system wasting precious time and resources.

The New York Times
March 27, 2008

Q: Let’s talk for a minute about the formulation of your plan. I’m interested in how seriously you considered proposing a single payer system and at what point in that discussion did you decide to propose an individual mandate?

MRS. CLINTON: You know, I have thought about this, as you might guess, for 15 years and I never seriously considered a single payer system. Obviously, I listened to arguments about its advantages and disadvantages, and many people who I have a great deal of respect for certainly think that it is the only way to go. But I said, as you quoted me, that we had to do what would appeal to and actually coincide with what the body politic will and political coalition building was. So I think if you look at most public opinion surveys, even from groups of people who you would think would be pretty positive towards single payer, Americans have a very skeptical attitude. They don’t really know that Medicare is a single payer system. They don’t really think about that. They think about these foreign countries that they hear all these stories about, whether they’re true or not, which they’re often not. And so talking about single payer really is a conversation ender for most Americans, because then they become very nervous about socialized medicine and all the rest of this. So I never really seriously considered it.

Q: Last question. You talked earlier in the interview about how your plan maintains the private insurance system. But in October, at the forum of the Kaiser Family Foundation, you were asked whether your plan to make government insurance, a Medicare-type plan, available to all was a backdoor route to a single payer system, and you said, “What are we afraid of? Let’s see where the competition leads us.” So is it okay with you if the market ultimately dictates that the U.S. system sort of morphs into a single-payer system? And if so, doesn’t that arm the Republicans with exactly what you were talking about, this claim that it’s socialized medicine?

MRS. CLINTON: No, because I think what we would be offering would be a Medicare-like system, which is something people are familiar with, and you know whether we would call it Medicare 2.0 or whatever we would call it. And we’d see whether people want that or not. And where it morphs to, I think this whole system will morph. I mean, look at where Medicare started and where it is today. In large measure, some of the problems we have are because of the way it evolved. But I think from my perspective, having this Medicare-like alternative really does answer the desires of people. And there’s a significant minority who want quote a single-payer system. It at least gives them the feeling it’s not for profit, they’re not paying somebody a billion dollars for raising their premiums 200 percent and all the rest of the problems that we face with the for-profit system. You get the costs of overhead and administration down as much as possible. I believe in choice. Let Americans choose and what better way to determine that than letting the market have some competition and you know see where it does lead to.

Q: And if the choice is a single-payer system, that’s fine by you?

MRS. CLINTON: You know, I think that would be highly unlikely. I think that, you know, there’s too many bells and whistles that Americans want that would not be available in kind of a bare-bones Medicare-like system but I think it’s important to have that competition.

Taniel Verified account @Taniel

More Taniel Retweeted Gideon Resnick

so, to be clear, Sanders wants to tackle Medicare-for-All and climate change in his first 100 days but is also hesitant to touch the filibuster?

as I said when Gillibrand & Booker made similar comments, it matters whether substantive parts of platform match the procedural ones.

Taniel added,

Gideon Resnick Verified account @GideonResnick

"I don't see it as one piece of legislation," @BernieSanders tells @chrislhayes when asked what his first legislative priority would be. Says it'll be about minimum wage, M4A, climate change in the first 100 days

7:05 PM - 21 Feb 2019