Some people noted that Harris had previously endorsed banning personal health insurance as Democrats crowned her as the likely choice for the presidency over Joe Biden, a occurrence that occurred without a single ballot being cast. When Jake Tapper asked her in January 2019 about the single-payer costs by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that she co-sponsored, which among other things would abolish personal insurance, Harris said the following:
Also, talk, the thought is that everyone gets access to medical care. And you do n’t have to go through the steps of getting approved from an insurance company, having approval from them, or going through the paperwork yourself. Who of us has not had that situation, where you’ve got to wait for approval, and the doctor says,’ Well, I do n’t know if your insurance company is going to cover this?’ This remove all of that. This move on.
Harris ‘ series of statements ( really, flip-flops ) on this issue proved one of the reasons her desultory 2020 presidential campaign cratered so badly. And while Harris ‘ plan would generally have the same results as Tapper’s query, most if not all people who enjoy their current health insurance could not afford it. The whole history is more complicated than the brief clip from January 2019.  ,
Social Controversies Throughout Keeping Personal Insurance
Following the discussion her first comments generated, Harris undertook a series of” corrections” about whether single-payer should sustain a role for personal protection. She argued in a follow-up discussion with Tapper that she did n’t intend to outlaw all private insurance four months after her first interview with CNN. She tried to claim she wanted to “get rid of all the administration” and” all of the waste”, but retain a responsibility for personal plan.
Additionally, she asserted that the Sanders bill would keep secret insurance, a claim that even Tapper himself found to be receptive to. The Sanders bill would just allow exclusive insurance coverage for the select few things that the government-run plan does not cover, such as plastic surgery, according to Tapper, who was right. After being sucked into a part, Harris suddenly acknowledged that the idea of unions losing their favorite health plans was a “legitimate problem,” a condescending way to acknowledge an issue without addressing it.
Just before a Democrat political argument, Harris released a single-payer plan outline shortly after her second round with Tapper regarding the banning of private insurance two months later. None other than Joe Biden’s plan attacked the plan as a “have-it-every-which-way strategy”.
Banning Employer Programs
The specifics of Harris ‘ plan show that the majority of Americans would lose the protection they currently have, despite her stated desire to leave a position for private insurance. Take into account this section of her strategy:
Next, we will set up an expanded Medicare program, with a 10-year phase-in phase. During this transition, we will quickly engage newborns and the unemployed into this new and improved Medicare system, grant all doctors day to get into the system, and offer a common path for employers, employees, the underinsured, and others on federally-designated programs, such as Medicaid or the Affordable Care Act exchanges, to transition. This will increase the number of Americans who are insured and establish a new, affordable public system that guarantees universal coverage. The overall cost of the program will also be reduced by expanding the transition window. ( Emphasis mine. )
The last two words of the second sentence,” to transition”, mean that practically all existing forms of insurance coverage outside Medicare — from employer-based coverage to Medicaid and the Obamacare Exchanges — would be abolished. So much for,” If you like your current plan, you can keep it“.
As if the idea of” transitioning” hundreds of millions of Americans was n’t enough, Harris ‘ plan included a second significant caveat: She claimed that “private plans in the new Medicare system will be held to stricter consumer protection standards than they are now, such as receiving reimbursements less than what the Medicare plan will operate cost.” Even if the federal government did n’t explicitly outlaw them, this language raises the possibility that federal bureaucrats could create a regulatory framework that would make private plans impossible to operate in reality.
Harris wanted this” transition” to take place over 10 years, or longer than two presidential terms. Once fully implemented, she claimed that moving the effective date until after she left office would not “lower the overall cost of the program” but it would mean she could potentially make difficult decisions about how to pay for the entire program or how to kick people off of their current insurance.
Big Winner: Undocumented Immigrants
Harris has n’t veered off on one topic despite taking almost every position on the subject of private coverage in a single-payer program. In her May 2019 interview with Jake Tapper, she made clear that she supports full taxpayer-funded benefits for individuals in the United States unlawfully:” I’m opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education, or public health, period”.
In taking that position, Harris stands far to the left of 1993-era Hillary Clinton, who testified before Congress:
We do not believe that those who work without documentation and are illegal aliens should receive comprehensive health care benefits. We are against promoting more illegal immigration into this nation. As it stands, we now know that there are too many people seeking medical care. We do not want them to enjoy the same advantages that Americans do.
The contrast between Harris ‘ position and that of traditional Democrats should serve as a “border czar” who actually solves the border crisis, as the Congressional Budget Office recently reported that the migrant” surge” will result in tens of billions of dollars in new federal spending on health care entitlements. She also has no desire to let Americans continue to enjoy their health insurance, just like she does.
