Humana CEO Refuses to Oppose Medicare for All

Humana CEO Bruce Broussard refused this week to join healthcare industry efforts to oppose the Democrats’ Medicare for All proposal.

As the healthcare industry continues to ramp up its opposition to Medicare for All, Humana CEO Bruce Broussard refused to oppose to the Democrats’ single-payer, government-run healthcare proposal.

Broussard told a representative of the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project (FEP) that he considered a “relative description” and would not comment on any Medicare for All proposals proposed by progressives and most 2020 Democrat presidential candidates.

David Almasi, the National Center vice president who represented FEP at Humana’s annual shareholder meeting, said that Humana remains an outlier to the healthcare industry, most of which oppose the legislation.

Almasi said:

We gave Broussard the opportunity for a do-over – to align Humana with the rest of the health care industry leaders as they try to preserve the best health care system the world has ever seen. We also sought to help him put investors and consumers at ease. He refused the offer. While his peers see the writing on the wall and recognize the existential threat that ‘Medicare-for-All’ poses to American health care, Humana remains an outlier.

Humana helps roughly 23 million Americans through its medical and specialty services.

At Barclay’s Healthcare conference in March, Broussard called Medicare for All amounted to a “great opportunity for the industry to be able to expand the population that it’s coordinating with.”

In 2017, Broussard told the National Center that he had no plans to get involved in the legislative efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare despite rising premiums and deductibles, as well as limited health insurance options.

2020 presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT)  Medicare for All legislation, which most Democrat candidates have endorsed, would reduce private insurers to cosmetic procedures under his plan.

Broussard’s refusal to oppose Medicare for All arises as United Healthcare CEO Dave Wichmann said last week that Medicare for All would have a “severe” impact on the economy, jobs, and would not obtain its goal of increasing healthcare access for all Americans.

Wichmann said the Democrats’ many Medicare for All proposals would amount to a “wholesale disruption of American health care.

“The options are clear between a government-sponsored or government-run system and the one we have to offer,” Wichmann said, adding that Medicare for All’s cost would “surely have a severe impact on the economy and jobs — all without fundamentally increasing access to care.”

Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), meanwhile, has contended that the healthcare industry needs to reform itself or Democrats will win the national conversation over Medicare for All.

“I actually put more of the burden and blame for the issues we’ve had with health care at the industry. They’re the ones that ought to be smart enough to know they got to get with it or they will have one partner only, and that’s the federal government,” Braun told Breitbart News in March.

“The industry can fix it if they get with it. The federal government is just going to be the tool of the Democrats that try to move to Medicare for All,” Braun added.

Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.