Pramila Jayapal Takes On Medicare for All's Critics
“I wrote the damn bill,” Bernie Sanders frequently says. But on Medicare for All, he’s not the only one. Pramila Jayapal, a second-term Representative from Seattle who has rapidly ascended as a progressive congressional leader, wrote the House version of single-payer. The co-chair of the Progressive Caucus has been touring the country to talk about it. She feels Medicare for All has been unfairly maligned during the presidential primary cycle.
“It is very frustrating to have your own party making the arguments of Republicans and insurance companies.” Jayapal told the Prospect in an interview after a health care town hall in Los Angeles. “And they’re not accurate in their representations.”
Jayapal’s bill, H.R. 1384, has 119 co-sponsors in the House, and was the subject of historic hearings in the Budget, Rules, and Ways and Means Committees, the first time Medicare for All has been formally debated in Congress. Jayapal said that Energy and Commerce, another committee with jurisdiction over health care, would hold hearings soon. But as Elizabeth Warren hunkers down to determine the financing for a national health care program, and as Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg attack the concept, the benefits of getting everyone in the nation covered have been pushed to the side.
For Jayapal, the debate comes down to two things: coverage and cost—but not government costs. “It is absolutely absurd to subject Medicare for All to a different standard of scrutiny,” she says. “Instead of saying, ‘Wow, Medicare for All costs too much, how are you going to pay for it,’ the question to every candidate should be, ‘What is your plan to bring down health care costs over the next ten years? And what is your plan to universally cover everybody, because none of the other plans do that.’”
Read more: https://prospect.org/health/pramila-jayapal-takes-on-medicare-for-all-critics/
(American Prospect)
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