May as well have Joe Biden's actual discussion on this topic in this thread:
Bold is the Reporter asking the question, Blue is the Times additional information added after the discussion, and Biden's response is in normal font.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/17/opinion/joe-biden-nytimes-interview.html
JW: Agreed. That’s why I’m wondering how you’re planning to do this with — you had a front-row seat to Republican opposition in the Obama administration.
Biden: Yeah. We still got a lot of things done. Well, I’ll tell you what. I was able to get every Democrat to vote on the floor to make sure we passed Obamacare. Number two, I was able to make —
KK: Which all of your opponents want to change.
Biden: Sure, they want to change. But they don’t want to eliminate it. Who’s out there saying, “I want to get rid of it”? The ones that want to change it, they’re saying, “Look, I know I can’t get mine done for three, four, five, 10 years. In the meantime, what are you going to do? I’m going to take Biden’s plan in the meantime. I’m going to expand Obamacare.”
Come on. Look, part of this is what can reasonably be done that fundamentally changes the dynamic that everybody has access to adequate health care. And the fastest, quickest and most extensive way to do that is my plan to add — take Obamacare, further subsidize it to the tune of another $750 billion over 10 years. Add a public option. Provide for that for anybody who wants it and allow the 160 million Americans who seem to like their hard-negotiated health care keep it if they want it. If they don’t want it, they can buy in and/or if they don’t have the money, they automatically are into the
plan.
Mr. Biden’s health care plan would create a public option open to everyone and restrict pharmaceutical pricing. Unlike Senators Warren and Sanders, he does not support “Medicare for all.”
MC: Now related to this, do you think that the Democratic primary, it’s been a mistake that so much of it has focused on whether or not to blow up Obamacare and in what way?
Times reporters noted that Senator Warren has moderated her stand on Medicare for all in recent weeks.
I mean there are a lot of issues.
Biden: No, I don’t think it’s a mistake because I think if you take a look at the data and just come out with me — I invite any one of you to travel with me when I do these things and watch the audiences no matter where. I mean just open forum. Watch the audiences. Tell me, do you see any support? Do you see any majority support Obamacare for all — I mean, for Medicare for all in the Democratic primary? If you do, I’d like to know what it is. I don’t know where it is. I’ve been saying that from the beginning.
Now there’s a lot of people who in fact really, really support it. I get it.
It’s not a bad idea if you have an extra $35 trillion lying around. And you’re not going to raise taxes on the middle class and you’re only going to do the wealthy.
Look, part of what’s going on here, I think, and I’m sorry to get passionate about this, is that what I find people are most looking for is honesty, authenticity and being able to tell you exactly what they’re going to do and have a chance of doing it. That’s what I find. Now, how many of you in here believe there’s any possibility in the next four to six years raising another
$35 trillion?
The Urban Institute’s estimate put the cost of Medicare for all at $34 trillion over the next decade.
Do any of you think it’s less than that? Do you think maybe $30 trillion in 10 years? And not raise not only taxes for everybody, for the 2 percent tax for the wealthy? That doesn’t even get you even close to paying for it.
So what are you going to do? You’re going to help the middle class, and you’re going to go out there and you’re going to provide Medicare for all. If you wave a wand, everybody sleeps, no problem. But now, you have, look what you’re paying when you have 16 million people on Medicare with withholding? Now you’re going to drop another 280,000 people, million people on it? And taxes aren’t going to go up?
Jeneen Interlandi: Your public option plan has a lot of promising features, but it’s still quite a heavy lift. The public option that was attached to the Affordable Care Act did not get through the Senate. What’s different this time?
Biden: Gigantic difference.
JI: And yours is much more ambitious than that earlier one.
Sure it is. And I’m glad you raised that. Two things.
One, every Democratic president since Roosevelt tried to do what Barack got done.
The last successful attempt at health care reform, before President Obama, was President Lyndon Johnson’s creation of Medicare and Medicaid.
And it was a really heavy lift to get it done. It was a gigantic step forward. But even when it got done, the arguments are, I can say this now publicly, is — between Barack — and I say take a victory lap, man. We got to let people know. We’ve got to let people know what was done because they don’t know it.
I came up here on the Empire State Building when I convinced the president we should spend $100 billion on climate change issues. And we’re talking about new windows and all the things we could do to save energy for public buildings.
The Obama administration proposed the Better Buildings Initiative to provide tax credits and other financing for building owners to retrofit to save energy. The Empire State Building did it before the program was passed, but Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden cited the annual savings of $4.4 million in energy costs from replacing all the windows.
And the one of the leaders of the business community was there said, “You know, my” — I think he said live-in help or wherever it was — “came up to me and thanked me for the raise.” She said, “The raise is what you got, reduction in the take-home pay withholding.” No one knew it was Obama, and no one knew what he did.
JI: Sorry to interrupt you. There’s certainly more public support for the Affordable Care Act now. I think people came around to realize how valuable it was ——
Biden: Why?
JI: Because they tried to take it away.
Biden: Bingo.
JI: But it’s still a heavy lift, and industry is going to be vehemently opposed to it. You’re still going to have to fight a battle, so can you talk a little bit about what your plan is for that?
Biden: That’s right. I’m going to have to fight like hell. Well, my plan is for that is to do what I’ve always done, and that is, be able to convince people. I’ve been pretty good at it. I find it interesting. My opposition says, “Yeah, it’s true. Joe has put together more bipartisan agreements than anybody. Joe is — but that was the old days.” It was three years ago.
With regard to, for example, the Cures Act, which came up after he was elected, and two weeks before I got sworn in, convincing over 200, and I think 398 folks in the House to vote for it, when initially it started with 119 as well as, what did get?
The 21st-Century Cures Act was signed into law on Dec. 13, 2016. It was supported by the pharmaceutical industry because it sped up drug and device approvals. It provided (only) $6.3 billion in total funding. The Senate vote was 94-5. Among the opponents were Senators Warren and Sanders, because it was a victory for the big drug companies.
Eighty-nine senators, 90 senators — don’t hold me the exact number — when it started off with 48. It’s called persuasion. Presidents are supposed to be able to persuade.
And what’s happening now is everybody — look, the carny show’s gone through town once, and they found out there’s no pea under any of the three shells. It’s coming back again, and people are going, “Ooh. I didn’t know that. You mean to tell me they did this and did that?”
Part of it is the president, God love him, Barack, had everything land on his desk but locusts. I mean, everything. Look what’s happened. We were about to go into a major, major depression. I remember getting chastised because I said, “This is the greatest recession in the history of the nation short of a depression.” Biden’s exaggerating — it was. It was.
www.politico.com
