Medicare for All Advocates Rip 'Cynical and Dishonest' Healthcare Initiative as Ploy to Undermine Single Payer

Medicare for All advocates on Wednesday denounced a new healthcare initiative introduced by a bipartisan group of former lawmakers, health policy administrators, and healthcare sector CEOs.

Critics argue that the non-profit, United States of Care, ignores the majority of Americans who back government-run healthcare for all, instead catering to centrist Democrats in Washington who pledge to “ensure that every single American has access to quality, affordable healthcare” while insisting that a universal healthcare program—like the ones that exist in every other industrialized country in the world—is unfeasible.

The group, whose co-founders include former Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who led efforts to privatize Medicare, is ambiguous about its plans for the American healthcare system, vaguely promising on its website to “change the conversation and put healthcare over politics.”

But another co-founder of the new group, former Medicare and Medicaid administrator Andy Slavitt, has been clear about the group’s opposition to a single-payer healthcare program.

“We believe every single American should have access to basic, affordable care,” Slavitt told Modern Healthcare of the organization’s mission. “But we avoid using language like ‘universal coverage’ that is polarizing.”

In fact, single-payer healthcare has more public and political support than ever before, with 53 percent of Americans telling Kaiser Health Tracking, in a survey last year, that they supported a government-funded program.

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) Medicare for All proposal has 16 co-sponsors, including several who are considered likely Democratic challengers to President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

The United States of Care puts forth three guiding principles for a healthcare plan for the U.S., writing that every American should be provided, an “affordable source of care,” “protection from financial devastation,” and a program with “political and economic viability.”

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