U.S. Democrats go on attack against Warren on healthcare, taxes at debate
WESTERVILLE, Ohio, (Reuters) - Several Democratic presidential contenders launched an attack on surging U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren on healthcare and taxes during a debate yesterday, pushing her to explain how she would pay for ambitious proposals including her Medicare for All plan.
At the first debate since Warren climbed into a virtual tie with former Vice President Joe Biden in many Democratic opinion polls, Warren was a repeated target for contenders trying to lift themselves out of the bottom of the crowded Democratic presidential pack.
Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar said Warren was being evasive on her plan for universal healthcare and that it would mean higher taxes.
“I think we owe it to the American people to tell them where to send the invoice,” Klobuchar told Warren. “The difference between a plan and a pipe dream is something you can actually get done.”
Klobuchar pushed back when Warren said critics of her wealth tax wanted to protect billionaires, saying: “No one on this stage wants to protect billionaires,” adding: “Your idea is not the only idea.”
Buttigieg chided Warren, who boasts she has a plan for everything, for not releasing a detailed healthcare plan with an explanation of how she would fund it.
“Your signature, senator, is to have a plan for everything, except this,” he said.
The sharp exchanges were a sign of the heightened stakes among the dozen candidates cramming the debate stage in the electoral battleground state of Ohio. It was the most crowded debate so far in the Democratic race to pick a challenger to Republican President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election.
The debate comes at a critical time, as Biden has seen his once solid lead in opinion polls in the Democratic race diminished by Warren, a leader of the party’s progressive movement, who has steadily risen over the past two months.
Warren stayed calm under the repeated attacks, offering her proposals to end income inequality and level the economic playing field for workers.
She said she would not sign any bill that required a tax increase on middleclass families and promised the Medicare for All proposal, which is also backed by her fellow progressive, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, would lower costs for everyday Americans.
“I have made clear what my principles are here, and that is that costs will go up for the wealthy and for big corporations and, for hardworking middle class families, costs will go down,” she said.
The expansive Medicare for All proposal, based on the governmentrun healthcare plan for Americans over age 65, has sharply divided Democratic presidential contenders. Many other Democratic candidates back a Medicare-based plan as just one option for Americans seeking healthcare coverage.