Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
'Single-Payer' Is The Hot New Buzz Word. But What Actually Does It Mean?
As Republican efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act continue in the background, some Democrats are starting to eye a new health policy goal: implementing a single-payer system. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a single-payer bill in mid-September with 16 Democratic co-sponsors 鈥 16 more than he got when he introduced the bill two years earlier. But how is the health-care system funded now, and how would 鈥渟ingle-payer鈥 change that? (Soffen, 10/17)
In the midst of the divide and confusion over health insurance鈥檚 future, Minnesota Democrats who would be governor are near united in their prescriptions: Universal and single-payer is the way forward. In a recent debate before a union-member crowd, the half-dozen Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidates gave nods to supporting universal health care, meaning everyone would be covered by health insurance. Four of the six proudly said they supported a single-payer health care model, meaning a publicly financed system. Last week, Democrat Rebecca Otto, the state鈥檚 auditor, came out with a lengthy Minnesota-based plan to finance health care. (Stassen-Berger, 10/17)
And, not all Democrats want to go as extreme as single-payer聽鈥
Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) on Tuesday introduced a bill to add a government-run 鈥減ublic option鈥 plan to ObamaCare, modeled on Medicare. The plan, part of a long-running debate in the Democratic Party about how far to go in expanding government-run health insurance, would move ObamaCare to the left but does not go as far as Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I-Vt.) "Medicare for all" plan. (Sullivan, 10/17)
