The
Ohio Democrat says he supports preserving private health insurance.
By Hailey Waller | February
18, 2019 at 04:15 AM
Ohio
Sen. Sherrod Brown defended his push to allow Americans over 50 years old to
buy into Medicare, rather than seeking universal government coverage as some
progressive Democrats advocate, and said the odds of him running for president
are about 50-50.
“Probably,
more or less,” Brown said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
“I don’t know, 50-50, 51-49.”
Brown
joined Democratic colleagues Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Sen. Tammy
Baldwin of Wisconsin in introducing a bill Feb. 13 that would allow Americans
over 50 years old to buy into Medicare, the federal health insurance program
that currently provides coverage for those 65 and older.
While
some other leading Democrats are pushing for a “Medicare-for-all” plan with
government coverage for all Americans, Brown said on CNN that’s difficult to
achieve, and “will take a while.”
“I
support universal coverage,” Brown said. “But I want to help people now.”
The
senator said he supports preserving private health insurance under President
Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act and building on it, not repealing it as
Republicans have tried to do for years.
“You don’t
wipe it off, wipe it away and then come up with something new that will take
time and will cause people angst and anguish to move to a different plan,” he
said. “Give people the options now.”
A
majority of Americans support a national “Medicare-for-all” system, according
to a survey by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation released in January.
But larger majorities favor more incremental changes to the health care system
such as a Medicare buy-in program, the survey found.
Brown,
66, has been visiting states with early presidential caucuses and primaries as
part of a listening tour as he considers whether to join what’s already a
crowded field of Democrats seeking to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020.
“I have
been to Iowa, New Hampshire, and we’re going to Nevada and South Carolina in
the next couple of weeks,” Brown said on CNN. “We will have a timetable in the
next couple, three weeks to make a decision.”
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