Former Vice President Joe Biden ripped Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders Sunday night over Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal.
Biden pointed out that single-payer healthcare has not stopped the public health crisis in Italy during Sunday’s Coronavirus-centric debate. (RELATED: Here’s How To Prepare For The Coronavirus?)
“With all due respect to Medicare for All, you have a single-payer system in Italy,” Biden said. “It doesn’t work there. It has nothing to do with Medicare for All. That would not solve the problem at all. ”
Biden then outlined an alternative health care proposal to the single-payer plan supported by many Democrats and Sanders. (RELATED: Obamacare’s Most Regressive Provision Is Still Hurting Poor Americans: The Smoking Penalty)
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“We can take care of that right now by making sure that no one has to pay for treatment, period, because of the crisis,” Biden said. “No one has to pay for whatever drugs are needed, period, because of the crisis. No one has to be pay for hospitalization, because of the crisis, period. ”
“That is a national emergency and that’s how it’s handled,” Biden continued. “It is not working in Italy right now.”
Italy has been devastated by the coronavirus, which has overwhelmed the nation’s health care system and led to neatly 2,000 deaths.