“[A]s if taking health care choices from patients isn’t bad enough, this bill also hurts seniors, eliminates private health insurance for nearly 180 million Americans, wipes out Medicare Advantage for over 22 million, and harms our economy for generations to come.”

The Trouble With BernieCare

By Joe Grogan

RealClear Politics

April 22, 2019

Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill that would end health care as we know it, and Americans should thank him for letting us see where the Democrats want to take the country. Its central premise appears to be that Washington bureaucrats know better than patients and doctors.

But as if taking health care choices from patients isn’t bad enough, this bill also hurts seniors, eliminates private health insurance for nearly 180 million Americans, wipes out Medicare Advantage for over 22 million, and harms our economy for generations to come. It doesn’t stop there: For good measure, the bill removes critical support for children and service members’ families while providing free care to illegal immigrants.

According to estimates from nonpartisan experts, BernieCare could cost taxpayers more than $32 trillion over the next 10 years. Sanders decided a health care bill is a good place to direct our taxpayer dollars toward illegal immigrants rather than put America First.

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In what appears to be an effort to make sure military families do not receive the special support they deserve, he proposes to abolish Tricare. The military is not the only group targeted by this plan. The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) would also be eliminated under Sander’s vision. And of course, seniors would lose their specialized support as everyone else floods into Medicare and claims scarce resources.

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Medical care has gotten too expensive, but we should be working together to get costs down—not using health care costs as a backdoor to reshape the economy of this great country. We should build on what works and fix what’s broken. That is why President Trump is working to protect people with pre-existing conditions, end surprise medical bills, increase the transparency of medical costs, lower drug prices, expand access to affordable coverage options, increase patient choice, stop the spread of HIV, end the opioid epidemic, transform kidney care, and accelerate therapies for pediatric cancer.

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Read the full op-ed here.