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Pelosi says she's 'not a big fan of Medicare-for-all,' cautions against promoting it in 2020
By Sam Dorman
Published November 01, 2019
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., shared her concerns Friday about a government-run "Medicare for all" program, saying that she wasn't a "big fan" of the idea.
"I'm not a big fan of Medicare-for-all. I mean, I welcome the debate. I think that we should have health care for all," Pelosi said during an interview on Bloomberg's "Balance of Power."
"I think that the affordable care benefits is better than the Medicare benefit but we have invited advocates for it to testify in Congress ... being respectful of the point of view," she added. "But it is expensive. Who pays is very important and what are the benefits that come in there? So, I would think that hopefully, as we emerge into the election year, the mantra will be more 'health care for all Americans' because there is a comfort level that some people have with their current private insurance."
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Pelosi's comments touched on a long-running debate within the Democratic Party over whether 2020 candidates should advocate for a single-payer system or a health plan that would allow people to maintain their private insurance.
During her Bloomberg interview, Pelosi appeared to say she favored the Affordable Care Act, which she helped pass with former President Barack Obama.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have backed "Medicare-for-all" during the Democratic primary campaign, but some prominent Democrats, like former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have warned such proposals could damage the party's political prospects. Pelosi said Friday that "Medicare-for-all" would help increase turnout in her own very liberal district but "that's not what we need to in order to win the electoral college."
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She speculated that as Democratic candidates continued campaigning, they would likely get more voter feedback and "something will emerge that connects more directly with the aspirations and concerns that people have."
On Friday, Fox News reported details of Warren's "Medicare-for-all" plan, which would cost roughly $52 trillion over the next decade.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/pelosi-medicare-for-all-2020