Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden's newly released healthcare plan preserves popular parts of the Affordable Care Act, while offering a new government-run public insurance option.
On Boston Public Radio Tuesday, medical ethicist Art Caplan said the plan — which veers from some Democratic candidates' calls for "Medicare For All" — is aligned toward the political reality of the country, even though it's not the best plan to fix the health care system.
"I'm going to say yes, but not because it's the ideal solution or the best solution," he said. "The country doesn't want [Medicare For All]. It's been oriented toward free market private insurance options forever, it's not going to give them up, so it basically tried to tear down Obamacare which was a pretty, in my view, mild effort to step toward better access. I think Biden's on the right track towards reality. We're not going to 'Medicare For All.' I wish maybe we could, but we're not. We barely sustained modest Obamacare, he's trying to beef up Obamacare."
Caplan, director of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center, haspreviously said that single-payer health care is successful around the world, but America's capitalist-obsessed culture would prohibit its passage.
Progressives have argued that Democratic candidates should aim for "Medicare for All" because it protects the party from settling for a more incremental compromise; Democrats and former President Barack Obama previously supported a public option that would compete with private health plans, before dropping it as part of Affordable Care Act negotiations.
"I understand the appeal of 'Medicare for All,'" Biden said in a video posted Monday morning. "But folks supporting it should be clear that it means getting rid of Obamacare. And I'm not for that."
Caplan told Boston Public Radio there are three standout ideas in Biden's plan that people should pay attention to: Biden would allow negotiating drug prices for people on Medicare, allow for drugs to be imported from outside the U.S., and "for certain drugs that might be monopoly, he might do some price fixing."
Biden's plan puts him at odds with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and others who back a single-payer "Medicare For All" plan, which would eliminate most private health insurance. Sanders acknowledged his plan would increase federal taxes, but claims the burden would be offset by the negligible cost of healthcare to consumers.
