Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma said Monday that former Vice President Joe Biden’s public option plan serves as a “trojan horse” with single-payer health care “hiding inside.”
Verma said at a speech at the Better Medicare Alliance conference that Biden’s public option plan would crowd out private health insurance and lead to single-payer health care.
“The public option is a Trojan horse with a single payer [health care system] hiding inside,” Verma charged.
Biden’s plan would create a “public option,” allowing a government health insurance option to compete with private health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges.
“It would use the force of government price-setting to crowd private insurers out of the marketplace altogether, and achieve the true policy goal of a government-run single-payer healthcare system,” she added.
Verma has previously attacked Medicare for All; however, this serves as the first public instance the Donald Trump administration official has attacked Biden’s public option.
The Trump healthcare official said that both Medicare for All and a public option will hurt patients’ access to health care.
“The secret of the public option is that it’s only cheaper because it uses the force of government to strong-arm doctors and hospitals into accepting below-market payment rates,” Verma said.
The CMS administrator said, “Access will be compromised for patients, and reimbursement cuts in the public plan will shift more pressure to employer-sponsored plans to make up the difference, driving up costs for 180 million Americans with private insurance.”
Verma’s charge mirrors other Republicans’ belief that Biden’s public option would serve as another method towards single-payer health care.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview last week that Biden’s public option serves as nothing more than a scheme to enroll every American in a “government” healthcare plan.
Scott said with the “Joe Biden plan, basically, they’ll set up a government insurance company and it won’t have to live by the same rules, it’s just a way to get everyone on a government plan.”
Jonathan Allen of NBC News said Monday a public option essentially serves as a “backdoor” to single-payer health care.
“If you do Biden’s plan and what’s going to happen there, they’ll set up the rules where other insurance companies cannot compete so you’ll lose your private insurance, the costs will go [up], the taxpayer is going to pay for this,” Scott added.
“If we go down the same path with this, the plan that Joe Biden wants, the government starts taking it over, I mean there’s no way that we could pay for it,” Scott said. “We can’t pay for it as we do now.”
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
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