Bernie Sanders' Health Care Pitch
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You're looking at an industry which has spent in the last 20 years hundreds of millions of dollars on campaign contributions.</s>RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): His campaign also releasing a video accusing Joe Biden of lying about Medicare for All.</s>SANDERS: We won't mention his name, but it might be a former vice president of the United States.</s>NOBLES: Sanders was responding to Biden's claim that the transition to Medicare may leave some without coverage. Biden wants to build on the Affordable Care Act, proposing a public option to allow people to buy into a Medicare-like program. But he warned that Medicare for All goes too far too fast.</s>JOSEPH BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Now there are a lot of people running in the party who want to get rid of Obamacare and start over something new. Well, folks, I'm not for that.</s>NOBLES: The future of Obamacare is at the core of the debate over health care. Kamala Harris, who supports Medicare for All, believes the single-payer system does not dismantle Obamacare.</s>QUESTION: So it is more moving on from Obamacare?</s>SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And making improvements on it. And President Obama himself said that there are improvements to be made.</s>BIDEN: If that's Kamala's position, she thinks you're able to keep Obamacare and Medicare for All, well, then that's maybe something I'm unaware of. I didn't know that was the case. I don't think it's possible.</s>NOBLES: But, unlike Sanders, Harris argues Medicare for All can be implemented without a tax hike on the middle class.</s>HARRIS: I'm not in support of middle-class families paying more taxes for it.</s>SANDERS: My guess is that people in the middle class will be paying somewhat more in taxes, but they're going to be paying significantly less overall in health care.</s>NOBLES: And there's some argument that the Democratic primary is just a lot of different shades of the same color. And this health care debate shows that there are some stark differences. And that's part of the reason that Bernie Sanders is giving this speech here today. And, Jake, we should also point out that Joe Biden was asked multiple times this week to respond to Sanders' claim that he's lost about Medicare for All. Biden either refused to comment or just flatly did not answer the question -- Jake.</s>JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: All right, Ryan, thanks so much. Appreciate it. So, Abby, let me start with you. Or Biden lying, or is there an argument to be made that Medicare for All would result in the consequences that he talks about?</s>ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: There's probably an argument to be made. I mean, I think the fact of the matter is that we don't really know. And I think Joe Biden's strategy is predicated on this idea that this is not a policy that come the general election will be advantageous to Democrats, because when you get beyond the Democratic primary, it's going to be harder to convince people that they -- that they are willing to take that kind of risk with their health care, something that's incredibly personal and important to voters as, as per all of the polls that we have seen recently. So it's hard for Bernie Sanders to say, this is absolutely not going to happen, because he really doesn't know. And in the places where it's been attempted, it's not really resulted in the -- actually the consequence is that Bernie Sanders says that it should result in. So I think there's an open question. I think this is going to be Joe Biden's central strategy as he goes forward. He's staking out that middle lane. And if he survives the Democratic primary, we will see whether he's right about the general.</s>TAPPER: And, Jamal, Bernie Sanders accusing Biden of not only lying about Medicare for All, but using -- quote -- "lies straight out of the playbook of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and the health care industry." What do you think of that strategy?</s>JAMAL SIMMONS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yes, there's that quiz that he put up, the online quiz, where he says, who does this sound like? And it's one of those choices that you just named, which is pretty tough. If I were in another campaign, I would be ready for this at the debates, because I feel like the Bernie-Biden debate if they're on the same stage is going to be one that is worth watching.</s>TAPPER: And, Sabrina, Senator Kamala Harris trying to position herself somewhere in the middle here. She says there's going to be -- quote -- "very little role" for private insurance under her plan, but also claiming she's -- quote -- "absolutely not" moving on from Obamacare. Does that offer the clarity that a lot of people have complained Harris has struggled with?</s>SABRINA SIDDIQUI, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think it's trying to have it both ways in some respects. One of the challenges for a lot of the major Democratic contenders who have lined up behind Medicare for All is staking out where they stand on the issue of private insurance. Are they eliminating the role of private insurance providers altogether and moving entirely toward government-run health care? Or are they perhaps supporting some sort of supplemental coverage? And that's where a lot of these contenders are trying to grapple with exactly where they can stake out some ground so it doesn't seem like they're perhaps going too far and, at the same time, they're embracing the more bold or progressive ideas that a lot of the base expects of them. The Obamacare question is interesting, because this also goes back to what Joe Biden is trying to do, which is bank on the popularity of the Affordable Care Act within the Democratic Party. And so for those who are not, like Biden, prepared to embrace Medicare for All, I think the counter to that is, well, embracing Medicare for All would also effectively mean the end of Obamacare, which is something that the party has fought so hard to preserve over the last couple of years. And so it will be interesting where exactly voters land in terms of who they ultimately choose.</s>TAPPER: And, Mary Katharine, you're somebody that has had Obamacare for the last few years. Faithful readers of yours and viewers of the show will know that you have had problems with Obamacare. Does Medicare for All sound like the kind of -- I mean, obviously, you're conservative. So I don't expect you will say yes. But, I mean, there's there's Medicare for All, is that more appealing, because you always talk about how much you don't like Obamacare, which you actually have?</s>MARY KATHARINE HAM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. So the pitch is hard for a couple reasons. One, because it's hard to answer how you finance this without admitting, yes, we're going to have to raise taxes on people. It's hard to answer how it will work without -- with the Medicare reimbursement rates and why people won't go out of business. And it's hard to tell people, as we should have learned during Obamacare and that whole argument, that we're going to make giant regulatory changes to this market, but the market is not going to change and all the people who like what they like will keep what they like. That was not true before. It was a lie. And many people lost the things that they liked. And those people who didn't lose what they liked are very protective of it because their trust has been betrayed on this issue. And they have seen it happen to people. That is not to say that there aren't winners under Obamacare, and that some people like it, but there were losers as well. And there will be losers in any change you make to this market. So you should be honest with people about it. And Bernie is saying, even in this four-year transition period, we have made plans for this, nothing will change. Things will change, because the market will change as a result of you putting this new part, this new mechanism in it. And I would also like to say that Biden using the exact same verbiage as Obama on this just blows my mind, blows my mind.</s>SIMMONS: A lot of Democrats like the idea of this being really another public option. That was something we heard a lot during the Obamacare debate. Where's the public option? And I think for a lot of Democrats...</s>TAPPER: Which is basically optional Medicare.</s>SIMMONS: Right. What they mean is, like, make Medicare available to everybody, so if I don't qualify or don't like one of these private plans, I can get into Medicare and I can use that plan. That's something I think may have real possibility even into the fall general election campaign.</s>TAPPER: And, Abby, Governor Steve Bullock, who let's remind people, the governor of Montana, who is also running for president, he told "The Washington Post" about Medicare for All -- quote -- "If Barack Obama got beat up for saying if you would like your health plan, or you like your doctor, you can keep it, well, who knows what would happen in this instance." Basically, what Mary Katharine just said.</s>PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, this is -- when I say we don't know what's going to happen, it's because, even with our best predictive abilities, the actuaries and the economic analyses of all of these things, the markets might do things that we don't expect. People might lose things that they want to keep. Things might change about the market that these candidates are not preparing people for. And so what he's voicing is probably, having watched the Obamacare debate saying, we shouldn't even bother to go there, because we know that, if that turns out to not be true, we will pay the price, maybe not in this election, but in the next one down the road.</s>TAPPER: And Sanders said today in a tweet -- quote -- "Candidates who are not willing to reject money from health insurance and pharmaceutical executives should explain to the American people why those interests believe their campaigns are a good investment." He's really trying to up the ante here. He's trying to -- basically, he's saying, I want Medicare for All and if you're taking money from pharmaceutical companies, from health insurance companies, you're basically corrupted.</s>SIDDIQUI: Well, this goes back to a lot of what Bernie Sanders has said even in 2016. One of his central points about Hillary Clinton had to do with corporate influence in politics and removing money from politics. So I think you're seeing him kind of revive a lot of the same arguments as he's now trying to hold onto that progressive mantle in a field where he has very much set the agenda.</s>TAPPER: Absolutely.</s>SIDDIQUI: There's no question that he has made his imprint on where these candidates stay in terms of policy, but because of that now, he also has less potential to distinguish himself. And so I think this is another one of those areas where Bernie Sanders is trying to draw a red line and have everyone else line up behind it.</s>TAPPER: And you can watch these candidates battle it out at the CNN Democratic presidential debates. That will be July 30 and 30, live from Detroit, Michigan, moderated by Dana Bash and Don Lemon and me right here on CNN. Coming up, listen up. President Trump's dishonesty pattern, the one word he often says that is usually followed by a whopper. That's next. Stay with us.