Is Medicare-For-All Medicare For None? Administration Official Says So

President Trump announced a plan strengthening Medicare Advantage plans Thursday, saying the Medicare-for-all plans proposed by Democrats would “destroy the American healthcare system.”

Trump signed an executive order during an appearance at the nation’s largest retirement community, the Villages in Florida.

“[Seniors] like what they have, so the president is going to protect it,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said on a conference call with reporters. “Today’s executive order makes very clear his commitment to protecting Medicare.”

The executive order originally was titled, “Protecting Medicare from Socialist Destruction,” but was renamed, “Protecting and Improving Medicare for our Nation’s Seniors.”

The White House said Trump wants to put patients in control of their healthcare by giving them wider choices as well as access to telehealth and new therapies.

Medicare Advantage plans are all-in-one alternatives to traditional Medicare, including hospitalization, doctors' care and prescription drug coverage, plus coverage for vision, hearing and dental care. Under such plans, Medicare pays insurance companies a fixed dollar amount monthly for each subscriber.

Various Democratic candidates have been proposing Medicare-for-all programs, some of which would eliminate all private health insurance, to ensure healthcare coverage for all Americans. Trump and other Republicans have rejected the plans, calling them socialist.

“Medicare for all is Medicare for none,” Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a vocal critic of both the Democrats’ plans and the Affordable Care Act, said on the call. “Proposals like Medicare for All, as well as the public option, they are morally wrong because they would demote American seniors to second-class status.”

“President Donald J. Trump will never allow the left’s radical Medicare-for all to destroy the American healthcare system,” the White House said on a fact sheet issued ahead of the signing ceremony. “The radical far left continues to pus a socialist takeover of our healthcare system and lie to the American people about the devastating impact it would have.”

The highly repetitive statement accuses Democrats of seeking to control consumers’ healthcare decisions and repeated Trump’s critiques of the ACA, a/k/a Obamacare, including promises about keeping doctors and lowering premiums.

“Now, Congressional Democrats are pushing a radical Medicare-for-all proposal that will eliminate private insurance, remove choice, and raise costs,” the White House said.

The White House said Democrats’ plans would eliminate Medicare Advantage and other supplemental policies, leading to longer waiting times and threatening healthcare quality.

Both Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts favor eliminating private health insurance while former Vice President Joe Biden has advocated for adding a public option to Obamacare. The rest of the Democratic field either agrees with Biden or wouldn’t eliminate private health insurance immediately.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was instrumental in pushing the ACA through Congress, has said she is not in favor of Medicare-of-all. Rather, he views align with Biden’s.

“I believe the path to ‘health care for all’ is a path following the lead of the Affordable Care Act,” Pelosi said in a recent CNBC interview. “Let’s use our energy to have health care for all Americans, and that involves over 150 million families that have it through the private sector.”

The Trump administration has been whittling away at the ACA but Republicans have yet to offer a comprehensive plan to replace it. Instead Trump has been issuing executive orders that make it easier to import some drugs from Canada and force hospitals to reveal the discounted prices they negotiate with insurers.