A 'Medicare For All' Question Backfired At Bernie Sanders’ Fox News Town Hall

During a reside the town corridor hosted by means of Fox News on Monday evening, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) replied to a query about why he needs the government to offer medical insurance for everybody with the standard arguments in prefer of a device he calls “Medicare for All.”

He informed the in large part supportive target audience in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, that Medicare is already operating smartly for seniors, and that extending it to all of the inhabitants is solely a logical reaction to issues within the non-public insurance coverage marketplace.

Bret Baier, a Fox News anchor co-hosting the city corridor, adopted up by means of asking the target audience what number of people these days obtain well being care protection from non-public insurance coverage thru their process. A majority of other folks, together with Sanders and Baier, raised their arms.

Then, possibly hoping to turn that a transition to public insurance coverage would come across skepticism, Baier requested the target audience what number of of the ones other folks would wish to transfer to Medicare for All.

Nearly everybody within the room who had raised their arms raised them once more.

Given the chance to elaborate on why he used to be no longer fascinated with requiring other folks to supplant their non-public insurance coverage with Medicare for All, Sanders famous that folks frequently transfer insurers involuntarily once they alternate jobs or when an employer switches to another plan.

“This is not new,” he mentioned.

Of route, a unmarried the town corridor target audience isn’t essentially consultant of nationwide public opinion. In contemporary years, Medicare for All ― single-payer well being care ― has attained majority give a boost to in nationwide polls. But a January ballot confirmed that give a boost to for the theory dropped considerably when other folks realized that it could require them to surrender their non-public insurance coverage.

That could also be one explanation why Sanders stands nearly on my own in his single-minded dedication to enacting single-payer well being care and the bluntness of his contempt for the non-public medical insurance trade. 

Although the 4 senators competing with Sanders within the Democratic presidential number one have co-sponsored his Medicare for All invoice, they have a tendency to emphasise extra incremental steps, like introducing a Medicare buy-in or reducing this system’s eligibility age.