Medicare goes away as you know it. All the Medicare you have is gone. Former Vice President Joe Biden

As a point of fact, the “Medicare” program envisioned under Medicare for All is not the program as it exists today. Unlike what Biden insinuated, however, it would have more generous benefits and little to no out-of-pocket spending. Senior citizens, like everyone else, would be enrolled in a single-payer, national health care program. This attack utilizes classic Republican “Mediscare” tactics designed to foment discontent among older Americans that anyone else’s gains come at their expense. Trump himself published an op-ed last October in USA Today under the headline “Donald Trump: Democrats ‘Medicare for All’ plan will demolish promises to seniors.” In the op-ed, Trump makes a number of false and exaggerated claims about Medicare for All. But it’s this line that’s most in sync with Biden’s rhetoric: “The Democratic Party’s so-called Medicare for All would really be Medicare for None.” “Medicare for None” has become a favored talking point in recent months for Republicans like Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Biden should recognize this fear-mongering strategy because McConnell and others used it extensively when President Barack Obama was working to enact the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 2010 and continued to use it to criticize the law. For a candidate so fixated on protecting Obamacare and an ex-vice president who claims partial credit for Obama’s legislative success on health care reform, it’s jarring to hear him parrot those attacks now. Perhaps worse still was Biden’s suggestion that sick people could be hurt during the four-year transition from the current health coverage system to a new, Medicare for All program. Biden asked members of the audience to raise their hands if they’d ever lost a loved one to a terminal illness. “Every second counts. It’s not about a year, it’s about the day, the week, the month, the next six months,” he said. “The truth of the matter is, it’s likely to be a bumpy ride getting to where we’re going.”

The Democratic Party’s so-called Medicare for All would really be Medicare for None. President Donald Trump