In a dialogue this week largely focused on defeating efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet dismissed another system elsewhere along the ideological spectrum: government-sponsored, or single-payer, health care.
Bennet, speaking Monday night at a town hall in Greeley, said the existing system should be the focus.
“I think we should have a discussion about how to expand Medicare, so that more people can be part of it or maybe be able to buy it and how to do the same with Medicaid.”
Bennet emphasized that his Democratic colleagues frequently debate a single-payer health care system, but that he was “in the early days of this, myself”. The senator also said he hoped the topic “won’t turn into a litmus test” for Democratic candidates.
There have been attempts in Vermont, California and Nevada to introduce a single-payer system, but they haven’t become law, because it is considered too expensive.
“Maybe there is a way for states to make a decision to do a single-payer and then the rest of us can look and say, ‘Hey, that’s something that we would like,’ ” Bennet said.
In November 2016, Colorado voters rejected a ballot measure that would have created the first single-payer health insurance system in the U.S. The idea remains popular in progressive circles, though.
Bennet was more than once questioned on health care issues in Greeley, where he was received friendly. He noted that people are not happy with the present health care system. “And they are not happy with it because they sense that they have to make lots of choices in their life or about their families’ lives or their children’s lives that no one else in the industrialized world has to make about their lives because of our health care system.
“My view is: I think we should stop talking about the Affordable Care Act – President (Barack) Obama is no longer the president – and we should talk about America’s health care system. What are we doing to make it better and to not force people to have the kinds of choices that people now have to make?”
Bennet said he hoped that Republicans would now be open for talks after they failed to repeal the ACA, or Obamacare, in the Senate.
“I hope what that means is that there are moderate Republicans who now say, ‘OK, my job is to fix health care, not to fulfill someone else’s campaign promise.’ We’ll see whether they do or whether they don’t.”
