I didn’t watch the Democratic debate, but the Los Angeles Times has a story about a testy exchange between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders regarding Medicare for All (M4A). This video shows Sanders touting his plan. This video shows Biden touting his plan, criticizing Sanders’ M4A, Sanders’ response, and then the testy part.
Biden’s criticisms of M4A were the cost and “ending private insurance could upend the lives of millions of Americans who have negotiated their healthcare costs with their employers” per the LA Times story. So regarding ending private insurance Biden states explicit concern only for unionized workers. He doesn’t mention non-unionized employees who have insurance via their employers. He doesn’t mention Medicare Advantage, which is private insurance that covers 20 million or so people. He doesn’t mention Medicare supplement (Medigap) policies, also private insurance, which 30 million or so people pay for to cover substantial medical costs that original Medicare doesn’t.
Why doesn’t Biden (and other politicians and the media) question Sanders about eliminating Medicare Advantage, and Medigap policies, and Medicare prescription drugs insurance like I wrote about here? Also, note that Sanders does not mention them in the first video above. Why doesn’t Biden (and other politicians and the media) question Sanders about job-related health insurance for government employees like I wrote about here? Until he answers these questions in some detail, his proposed Medicare for All is a floating abstraction, based on little more than comparing other countries’ healthcare spending as a percent of GDP to the U.S.’s. On second thought, there is also his moral outrage. His moral code is coercive altruism, with government looting and edicts as permissible means.
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