Right now, Democrats are trying to figure out how to expand health-care coverage at the lowest possible cost so everybody is covered. Republicans right this minute are out there trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They’ve got a lawsuit pending down in Texas where they’re trying to roll it back. What they couldn’t do with a vote, they’re trying to do with the courts. [The Department of Health and Human Services] every day is doing what they can to undermine the Affordable Care Act. So when we’re talking about health care in America right now, the first thing we need to be talking about is defend the Affordable Care Act, protection under the Affordable Care Act.

Then Part Two. Let’s make the improvements that are what I think of as low-hanging fruit. For example, let’s bring down the cost of prescription drugs all across this country. We got lots of ways we can do that. We can import drugs from Canada where the safety standards are the same. That would cut costs dramatically. We can negotiate the prices under Medicare. That would cut costs dramatically. And I’ve got a proposal to help bring down the cost on generic drugs, which could be about 90 percent of all prescriptions. So let’s get those costs down. And then you know what you’re going to hear from a consumer advocate, and that is we need to hold insurance companies accountable. And that means no tricking and trapping people on those insurance contracts.

And then when we talk about Medicare-for-all, there are a lot of different pathways. What we’re all looking for is the lowest-cost way to make sure everybody gets covered. And some folks are talking about let’s start lowering the age, maybe bring it down to 60, 55, 50. That helps cover people who are most at risk and can be helpful, for example, to the labor’s plans. Some people say, do it the other way. Let’s bring it up from — everybody under 30 gets covered by Medicare. Others say let employers be able to buy into the Medicare plans. Others say let’s let employees buy into the Medicare plans. For me, what’s key is we get everybody at the table on this, that labor is at the table, that people who have to buy on their own, everybody comes to the table together. And we figure out how to do Medicare-for-all in a way that makes sure that we’re going to get 100 percent coverage in this country at the lowest possible cost for everyone. That’s our job.