Bernie Sanders Says Biden ‘Is Sounding Like Donald Trump’ on Medicare for All
Independent Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders compared rival Joe Biden with President Donald Trump, saying that the former vice president “sounds like Donald Trump” on the issue of Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan.
On Thursday, The New York Times published an article in which Sanders takes a hard shot at Biden over the rollout of his health care plan, which Sanders says distorts his own Medicare for All plan.
“I am disappointed, I have to say, in Joe, who is a friend of mine, really distorting what Medicare for All is about,” Sanders told the NYT Wednesday, adding, “And unfortunately, he is sounding like Donald Trump. He is sounding like the health care industry in that regard.”
Biden name-checked M4A in his health care rollout video, in which he says he “understand(s) the appeal” of the bill, but says “it means getting rid of Obamacare, and I’m not for that.”
And at an Iowa AARP forum on Monday, Biden told the crowd, “I think the transition from having roughly 60 million people … on Medicare now, to add another roughly 300 million people in one fell swoop, … Medicare goes away as you know it,” adding “All the Medicare you have is gone, it’s a new Medicare system.”
Biden went on to say that Medicare for All “may be as good, you may like it as well,” but added that the transition to such a program would be “kind of a little risky at this point.”
What’s fascinating about Sanders’ counter-attack on Biden is that it may have been hatched from an unlikely source.
On Tuesday, former Hillary Clinton senior adviser and current CNN analyst Jess McIntosh made an observation that was nearly identical to Sanders’ attack on Biden.
McIntosh told the hosts of New Day that Biden was coming “dangerously close to using Republican talking points when talking about Medicare for All.”
“There was a lot of ‘Medicare as you know it will go away, seniors will be left with nothing,’ that sounds suspiciously like Donald Trump,” she said, and added “As long as Biden is trying to appeal to the Democratic base during the primary, they are not going to like him engaging with this topic using that kind of language.”
As Sanders himself has pointed out, Medicare for All would replace the current program with more comprehensive benefits, but as Biden and even supporters of the plan like Senator Kamala Harris have pointed out, would entail a significant transition.
Watch Biden’s remarks about Medicare for All above, via AARP.
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