Jayapal: Million Private Insurance Workers 'Displaced' with Medicare for All

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said Tuesday that one million private health insurance workers will get “displaced” under Medicare for All.

At a town hall at American University on Tuesday, Jayapal  said that one million private health insurance workers will lose their jobs as a result of her progressive single-payer, government-run healthcare proposal.

“There a lot of people who work in the private insurance industry, we have thought very carefully about how we take care of those folks because we think they are very important. And so, there’s about a million people that we think will get displaced if Medicare for All happens.”

Jayapal’s comments arise as the House Rules Committee held a hearing Tuesday on her and Rep. Debbie Dingell’s (D-MI) Medicare for All legislation. The Washington congresswoman’s comment on Wednesday would suggest that her legislation would significantly disrupt the healthcare industry and displace millions of workers and their families.

UnitedHealthcare CEO Dave Wichmann warned in April that Medicare for All would have a “severe” impact on the economy and jobs.

House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern (D-MA), who backs Medicare for All, claimed Tuesday that Americans will not lose their healthcare, doctors, or hospitals in a message reminiscent of former President Barack Obama’s infamous claim that Obamacare would allow Americans to keep their healthcare plan.

“People aren’t going to lose their health care with Medicare for All; you would actually get to keep your doctors and go to the hospitals you currently have. The only difference is that you wouldn’t deal with insurance companies,” McGovern said.

During the hearing Tuesday, Mercatus Center scholar Charles Blahous said that Medicare for All would cost $60 trillion over the next ten years, $38 trillion of which would include new federal spending.

Blahous mentioned that “doubling individual and corporate income taxes would be insufficient to finance even the lower bound” of the $32.6 trillion in new federal spending.