Can anyone tell me Elizabeth Warren's views on healthcare?

[Poiuyt]

Single payer, fix Obamacare, etc. Her official website has nothing about what she'd like to do (that I could find). She's got a plan for just about every other issue but nothing on healthcare. Considering that's the top issue for many voters, I would think that she'd have something outlined for us.

[YOHABLO]

1. Interesting that she doesn't say on her website. I think she supports Med-C-for-All in some form.

[BlueMTexpat]

2. Google is your friend.

Here's one article:

http://medicaldailytimes.com/politics/elizabeth-warrens-vision-healthcare/4606/

...

Elizabeth Warren has proposed her own plan that she has called The Consumer Health Insurance Protection Act. In it, she focuses on two of the problems that many people fear. She plans to limit rate increases along with insurance companies changing policies. Far from being a complete reworking of the Affordable Care Act, it will protect many of the things people like about it while at the same time improving those areas that need to be revised.

There are several bold yet common sense provisions that Warren wants to enact. There would be a premium rate limit of 8.5% of one’s income. The enormous rates of prescription drugs would also be capped at $250 or $500 families. This would protect against some of the horror stories of recent years in which costs have gone up by hundreds of percent. Insurance companies would also have to start limiting their profits, and they will have to pay 85% of their profits on settling claims.

Several other big name democratic contenders for president have supports Elizabeth Warren’s bill including Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand and Tammy Baldwin. There are many things that a new Democrat president will have to focus on, and Warren is certainly able to deal with many things at the same time, but her focus on health care is addressing many of the fears voters have on the future of the ACA and their ability to obtain reasonable and effective health insurance.
...

But I too am mystified that it does not seem to be on her campaign website.

Eta: It may not be on her website because she has already introduced it as a bill in the Senate. See https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2019.04.11%20CHIPA%20One-Pager.pdf

[Poiuyt]

3. Thanks

Not what I was hoping for.

[BlueMTexpat]

5. Many have said that

this approach is actually doable.

We WILL get to universal healthcare, but it will not happen all at once!

[Hassin Bin Sober]

6. Yep. 46% of the country can't scrape up $500 dollars in an emergency.

Where are they going to get money for these premiums, deductibles, and co pays?

Working poor are already strapped. So they will go without.

[Honeycombe8]

9. That plan is supposed to "fix" problems w/the ACA, but IMO it doesn't address the problems.

Her plan supposedly fixes problems w/the ACA, but IMO doesn't address the biggest problems:

1. Narrow provider lists. The ins cos narrowed provider lists intentionally (and openly admitted it), for individual plans, as a way of controlling claims. The first year I had the individual ACA plan, I lived in Dallas TX in the middle of an area with five large medical complexes and hospital. There was NO oncologist in the provider list. I verified that w/a phone call.

So although I supposedly had great coverage that covered cancer, and I was required to pay for it, I couldn't actually get treated for it.

So the insureds were being regulated to the hilt, but not the insurance companies, who were gaming the system. And admitted to it. Blue Cross was sued over this. The Obama administration was aware of this problem and did something about it, it said. But it didn't regulate it or anything that made the ins. cos. DO anything. And it certainly didn't fix the problem, since the provider lists got even narrower (although in the future there were oncologists on the list....although not likely to take the bottom level plans).

2. Triple rates for those over a certain age. There is no reason that in a program that is to provide health ins for all, that one group is allowed to be singled out for triple premiums.

What was intended to provide insurance in a fair way to those in need, ended up with the result that someone over 50 or 55, because of the high cost of the premium, could afford only the lowest level plan (always an HMO), with a high deductible (which provides no coverage for ordinary medical care...making it a catastrophic policy without being called that), so that someone else could get much better health ins. at much lower cost and have full coverage. The inequity of it: someone is paying a triple rate for LESS so that someone else, who doesn't pay for it, can have better coverage than the one who is paying the most.

3. Medicare still contains the provision that prohibits the federal government from negotiating drug prices. This is a BIG DEAL. It was put into Part D, when that was passed by Bush (Part D was written by Big Pharma). No administration since has even TRIED to remove that provision. You have to ask yourself why. Why is that? Even Warren isn't calling for that. Why?


Unless these three things are addressed, a candidate is either not serious about "fixing" the ACA, or isn't familiar with the intricacies of it

[BlueMTexpat]

11. Good points! Thanks. eom

[HerbChestnut]

4. This is one of the big mysteries about her campaign at the moment.

As others have already stated, she's introduced health care legislation in the Senate before, but she also co-sponsored Bernie's Medicare for All bill recently. A year or so ago she would have said that M4A was the way forward, but she's waffled on that stance lately. I guess time will tell, but I suspect if she doesn't clarify her position soon it will become a thorn in her side during the campaign.

[Kahuna7]

7. All I ever hear her say is she's for Medicare For All...which

entails the entire restructure of the Medicare program and how it would be funded. I wonder what her plan is for that.

[Green Line]

8. She says she's for medicare for all

I went to her website, there is nothing there about healthcare. I think when people hear medicare for all they think it's free insurance. Medicare is far from free, it only covers 80%, so you need a supplement and a prescription drug plan, on top of the premium for medicare. I wish the candidates who support this would go into specifics.

[Turin_C3PO]

10. I think the idea is

that if everyone was in the Medicare 4 all pool, then costs would go down significantly, so it wouldn’t be anywhere near as expensive as it is now.

As for me idea, I like Medicaid. It’s almost cost free and covers everything. The problem is that it would cost a lot of money and a lot of doctors don’t accept it.