White House hopeful Pete Buttigieg Pete ButtigiegBillionaire who donated to Trump in 2016 donates to Biden The Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by Facebook - GOP closes ranks to fill SCOTUS vacancy by November Buttigieg stands in as Pence for Harris's debate practice MORE (D) vowed to implement a “fairer” and “more just” health care system if elected president after a 21-year-old man, Jesimya David Scherer-Radcliff, died in Minnesota after rationing insulin for his diabetes.

“Jesimya is dead because America is the only industrialized country in the world that doesn’t treat health care as a human right. I will fight for a fairer, more just health care system—and I'll do it with Jesy in mind. My condolences are with his family,” Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., tweeted Thursday, highlighting a local news report of Scherer-Radcliff’s death.

Jesimya is dead because America is the only industrialized country in the world that doesn’t treat health care as a human right. I will fight for a fairer, more just health care system—and I'll do it with Jesy in mind. My condolences are with his family. https://t.co/eMa5CcZxoi — Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) July 17, 2019

The tweet underlined the central role health care in general and drug pricing in particular have taken in the crowded Democratic primary field.

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Many of the 25 Democrats running for president have vowed to lower prescription drug costs, saying high prices force some patients to choose whether to treat their ailments.

However, the primary field has produced a bevy of varied health care proposals from a single payer system that would eliminate private insurance to efforts to bolster existing provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

Buttigieg has proposed a “Medicare for All Who Want It” plan that would make available a Medicare-type public option that people can buy into while allowing people to keep their employer-provided insurance if they wish. He says the competition his plan would produce would help produce a path toward “Medicare for All,” particularly if insurers don’t lower their costs, according to his campaign website.