Yes, the 2020 Dems want to take your health insurance away

Following her performance in last week’s Democratic presidential debates, California Senator Kamala Harris once again tripped up over the issue of health care. For a second time, Harris attempted to claim that she would not eliminate private health coverage. In reality, however, virtually all Democrats running for president would enact policies jeopardizing Americans’ health insurance. The candidates differ largely in their level of honesty about their proposals’ effects.

During the debates on Wednesday and Thursday, only Harris, New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said they supported eliminating private insurance. But in an interview Friday morning, Harris claimed she heard the question as asking whether she would give up her insurance, not whether she would take others’ coverage away.

The facts defy Harris’ lawyerly parsing. Section 107(a) of the bill that Sanders introduced, and which Harris, Warren, and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker have co-sponsored, would make it “unlawful for a private health insurer to sell health insurance coverage that duplicates the benefits provided” under the legislation.

In May, Harris claimed that Sanders’ legislation would permit private health insurance to supplement the government-run program. But as CNN’s Jake Tapper pointed out at the time, Sanders’ bill would provide such comprehensive benefits that supplemental coverage could only cover treatments like cosmetic surgery. It raises an obvious question: Who would want to buy “insurance” covering breast implants and Botox injections? Harris’ Hollywood constituents, perhaps, but few middle class Americans.

Other candidates have similarly tried to disguise their intentions when it comes to taking away Americans’ health coverage. During last week’s debates, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand—another co-sponsor of Sanders’ legislation to make private coverage “unlawful”—did not raise her hand when asked about eliminating health insurance. She said she supported a government-run “public option” instead: “I believe we need to get to…single payer. The quickest way you get there is you create competition with the insurers.”