During night two of the second round of Democratic debates, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris began fighting about their health care proposals.
Biden threw the first punch in the policy fight. He told the audience that Harris’ “Medicare for All” plan would cost $3 trillion and that people would lose their employer-based insurance.
Joe Biden criticizes Kamala Harris' health care plan: "This is the single most important issue facing the public. And to be very blunt and to be very straightforward, you can't beat President Trump with double talk on this plan" #DemDebate https://t.co/qVnxTglehL pic.twitter.com/gfH4F50zZv
— CNN (@CNN) August 1, 2019
He continued, saying Harris’ plan also requires a middle-class tax hike.
Harris started to fight back, saying that expanding on Obamacare will only cause Americans’ insurance copays to rise. The former vice president, however, immediately combatted her argument, pointing out that copays have to exist in order for Americans to choose their health care.
Biden did not allow Harris to hide from the fact that her health care plan would eliminate private health insurance over the course of 10 years. The California senator claims her plan will include both a public and private option.
She delayed to mentioned that the “private option” would only be allowed if the private health insurance companies followed the public option standards.
READ: Kamala Harris Offers Sanders-Lite In Medicare For All Proposal
If you like your insurance, you should have the right to keep it, and if you don’t like it, you can buy into Obamacare — that was Biden’s basic argument.
Biden continued to harp on Harris’ health care plan. In fact, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet chimed in, insinuating that Harris’ plan, on its front, was lying to the American people.
Biden broke down the biggest problem with Harris’ plan: the skyrocketing taxes that accompany “Medicare for All.”
“The deductible will be out of your paycheck. I don’t know what kind of math that you do in New York, or what kind of math you do in California,” Biden said.
Biden’s campaign announced prior to the debate that he would be ready to fight on the debate stage. And he was.
