Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton said last week that “the numbers don't add up” in her opponent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' single-payer health plan, and it's “a promise that cannot be kept.”
In the first Democratic debate since Sanders' overwhelming win in the New Hampshire primaries, Sanders said his Medicare-for-all plan would work if the federal government had the courage to stand up to pharmaceutical, insurance and medical-device companies.
Clinton said she has a history of standing up to those industries and does not want to have another contentious national debate about healthcare that would risk undermining achievements under the Affordable Care Act.
Sanders said he would not get rid of the ACA, but Clinton countered that a Medicare-for-all plan would, by definition, not include the law, which was built on the existing employer-based insurance system. She said Americans would be worse off under his plan than they are now.
Multiple analyses of Sanders' health plan have found he is likely overestimating its cost savings and the amount his proposed taxes would raise to pay for it.
