Democratic hopefuls continue to clash on health care

Grant Tetmeyer/ Iowa State Daily

Presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar answers questions from moderators Kathie Obradovich and Kay Henderson at the 2020 Presidential Candidate Forum hosted by AARP Iowa and the Des Moines Register July 15 at the Olmsted Center at Drake University. Klobuchar answered questions on health care, mental health and immigration reform. 

Jake Webster

Health care is the single most important issue to American voters.

A YouGov poll released Wednesday found health care in first place when Americans were asked what the most important issue is to them, with 20 percent of Americans saying it is their most important issue. “The economy” followed as the second most important issue at 14 percent. Only six percent of respondents said it is “not very important” or an “unimportant” issue.

Health care has been one of the most discussed issues in the 2020 Democratic primary, taking up time in every debate this cycle. Among Democratic primary voters, health care is a “very important” or “somewhat important” issue for 97 percent of them.

During her latest swing through Iowa on Sunday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren addressed some of the criticism she received from fellow presidential candidates Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar during the Oct. 15 presidential debate.

Speaking in Indianola on Sunday, Warren said she has been working for months on a means to pay for her health care plan, adding “it’s got just a little more work until it’s finished.”

Warren is a supporter of “Medicare for All,” a health care plan that would result in the abolition of private insurance companies and the establishment of a government-run single-payer health care system.

In the past when asked about her health care plan, Warren has said she was “with Bernie [Sanders]” on the issue of health care. Sanders originally proposed the Medicare for All plan, and Warren is a co-sponsor of Sanders’ legislation in the Senate establishing a Medicare for All program.

In the Democratic presidential debates Warren has been repeatedly asked whether she would “raise taxes on the middle class” in order to pay for her health care plan, and each time she has declined to give a yes or no answer when prompted to do so.

during the Oct. 15 debate Warren said, “[C]osts will go up for the wealthy. They will go up for big corporations. And for middle-class families, they will go down.”

Klobuchar said Warren was not being honest with voters about the potential for taxes to increase with her plan.

“At least [Sanders is] being honest here,” Klobuchar said in the debate. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but you haven’t done that yet.”

Sen. Michael Bennet, a presidential candidate who did not qualify for the last debate, said in an interview with CNN that ideas like Warren’s come with a $31 trillion price tag and they “circle the Earth on Twitter really quickly.”

“But by the time they land, they don’t make any sense to living breathing humans in America,” Bennet said.