Georgia’s Presidential Primary: Biden And Sanders On Health Care

The COVID-19 Pandemic

The coronavirus outbreak that continues to spread around the world has become a key focus of Biden and Sanders’ health care conversations. The issue was front and center at their recent debate.

Both candidates have used the opportunity to try to set themselves apart from President Donald Trump, whose response to the pandemic they’ve criticized.

Sanders has used the situation to highlight what he sees as the general failures of our current system–mainly, the lack of access to affordable health care for people. He’s said his “Medicare for All” program would help address those problems.

Biden has countered that even countries with similar health care systems, such as Italy, have been no more able to hold off the coronavirus.

Just What Is “Medicare For All”?

Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan would create a national health insurance program that would provide universal coverage (i.e., cover all Americans). The system would be single-payer–the U.S. government would handle all the money.

Under such a system, a person going to the doctor would no longer need to figure out which providers took their insurance. It would eliminate insurance networks. 

As proposed, everyone would receive the coverage, which could be welcome news to the nearly 14% of Georgians who don’t have health insurance, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The plan would eliminate co-pays for doctor visits and monthly premiums. Instead, the system would be funded through taxes.

How Much Would’ Medicare For All’ Cost?

That’s a hard question to answer because it depends on how the program would be set up. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying.

The New York Times tried to crunch the numbers based on estimates from economists and think tanks across the political spectrum. Some said it would raise U.S. health care spending; others said it would lower it. All agreed patients would pay a lot less out-of-pocket but were likely to see tax increases. 

So, under such a plan, which would remake the entire American health care system, Georgians would likely see higher taxes. The question is whether those would be offset by decreased costs elsewhere.

Affordable Care Act 2.0

Joe Biden was vice president when the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010. And his health care plan is all about protecting and expanding the landmark piece of legislation, which has been under attack ever since.

The biggest thing Biden wants to add to Obamacare is a government-run public insurance option. That’s a program, such as Medicare or Medicaid, that people could buy into if they wanted to, say if they didn’t receive insurance through their employer.

While Biden sells his plan as a more moderate option to Sanders’, it’s a sign of how far the conversation has come. A public option was initially included as part of the ACA but was later dropped for being too radical.

Non-Medicaid-expansion States

Biden also wants to take steps to deliver on some of the original parts of Obamacare that have been chipped away in the last decade, among them, the promise of a Medicaid expansion to more low-income Americans.

When the law was first passed, expanding Medicaid was not an option. However, the U.S. Supreme Court later ruled states could make the call whether to expand or not. (Georgia is one of a handful of states that declined.)

Biden wants to give people who would have been covered by Medicaid expansion the chance to get coverage through his public option insurance program, essentially undercutting states such as Georgia that chose not to expand.

The Fate Of The ACA

Biden and Sanders’ health care pitches come as the Affordable Care Act is facing an existential threat. 

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a suit brought by a number of Republican-run states (including Georgia) looking to overturn the law. The court’s decision could cause chaos in the U.S. health care system.