Sanders secures promises from Clinton on health care
Hillary Clinton, in moves aimed at securing an endorsement from Bernie Sanders, on Saturday highlighted her support for a “public option” in health insurance and proposed additional funding for community-based centers championed by her rival for the Democratic nomination.
Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said in a statement that she would affirm her support for allowing states to offer government-run health plans as part of the Affordable Care Act.
And she said she would support allowing people, 55 and older, to buy into Medicare, a program available to people 65 and older.
Those steps fall well short of the single-payer, “Medicare for all” program that was a centerpiece of Sanders’s presidential campaign. But during a call with reporters Saturday, Sanders praised Clinton for “an important step forward” toward universal health care.
Clinton’s statement also included support for expanding funding by $40 billion over the next decade for primary-care services at community-based centers that serve largely rural areas, a long-standing priority for Sanders, a senator from Vermont.
“Together these steps will get us closer to the day when everyone in this country has access to quality, affordable health care,” Sanders told reporters.
He stopped short of confirming his widely re- ported plans to endorse Clinton at an event in New Hampshire on Tuesday, saying only that “we’ll have more to say in the very near future.”
Clinton’s updated health-care proposal was the second last week that incorporated elements of Sanders’s agenda. On Wednesday, she announced her support for providing free tuition at public colleges and universities to families earning up to $125,000 a year — a major nod to a free-tuition-for-all campaign proposal Sanders pushed that was wildly popular among younger voters.
Sanders was also moving this weekend — with mixed results — to exert additional influence on the Democratic platform, being drafted in Florida.