How the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force for Healthcare Affects Biden’s Campaign
On July 8th, Biden’s campaign released a 110-page document entitled the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force Recommendations that included new policies and plans surrounding six different issues. Each issue had its own task force consisting of eight members, four of which were picked by Biden and four of which were picked by Sanders. The members of these task forces were a mix of Biden and Sanders loyalists, politicians, experts, and community leaders, as stated in an article from ABC News. While five of the issues discussed — including climate change, criminal justice, the economy, education, and immigration — are of immense controversy in this country, perhaps the most divisive within the Democratic party is the sixth issue: healthcare.
Prior to this collaboration, Joe Biden represented the opinions of moderate Democrats through his strong stance on healthcare. According to a Niskanen Center article from March 5, prior to Sanders dropping out of the election and the COVID-19 lockdowns, Biden’s healthcare plan focused on building onto the Affordable Care Act and providing a public option for healthcare for those who want it. With a public option, private insurance companies would be forced to keep their prices at a fair rate in order to compete. Thus, healthcare costs would significantly go down whether one chooses the public option or not. While Medicaid is the main healthcare provider for low-income citizens in thirty-six states, Biden’s policies would allow these states to either choose to keep Medicaid or switch to the public option, while giving the fourteen states without Medicaid the public option.
While Biden pushes for optional public healthcare, one of the pillars of Bernie Sanders’s campaign was his Medicare for All policy. Medicare for All emphasizes healthcare as a human right by implementing the same system used in many countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom. By eliminating private healthcare, there would be no deductibles, premiums, copays, or surprise bills and the cost of prescription drugs was promised to be reduced, and even cut in half. Sanders’s Medicare for All would cover all costs surrounding dental, hearing loss, vision loss, mental health, substance abuse recovery, reproductive and maternal health, and prescription drugs.
Unfortunately for supporters of Medicare for All, the Biden campaign has maintained its stance on a public option; however, the task force released new details and recommendations for an improved health care plan. The public option for healthcare remains the same in its automatic enrollment for low-income citizens and basis on a sliding scale of income. However, Medicare eligibility would be moved from 65 to 60 years old, Medicare would expand to cover dental care and vision and hearing loss, as well as offer certain medicines without any out of pocket spending.
The healthcare task force also worked on a plan for COVID-19 relief. For citizens who recently lost their jobs due to COVID-19 and thus lost their healthcare, the task force’s policies would have the government pay the full cost of continuing coverage under COBRA, an act that, under certain circumstances, continues health insurance coverage even after unemployment. Citizens who didn’t have coverage prior to the pandemic would either be able to get a new plan with no deductible at a price determined by their income or get an existing Obamacare plan.
Opinions on this collaboration and plan varied; however, an overall positive outlook was shared by both progressive and moderate Democrats. Bernie Sanders shared his view, stating that “though the end result is not what I or my supporters would have written alone, the task forces have created a good policy blueprint that will move this country in a much-needed progressive direction and substantially improve the lives of working families throughout our country.” Progressive Representative Pramila Jayapal, who acted as the co-chair of the health care task force stated that the acceptance of these recommendations was a “huge achievement,” although it wasn’t quite as progressive as she had hoped.
While the specific policies made in this task force were of great importance, the collaboration of Sanders and Biden supporters represents a meaningful, symbolic effort to unite progressives and moderates into a single Democratic Party. The overarching goal of defeating Donald Trump has led to an increase in cooperation and collaboration, outweighing the division that is often seen in the Democratic party. Biden stated his appreciation for the task force, thanking Sanders “for working together to unite our party.” This collaboration encourages unity within the party, thus acting as an attempt to enforce voting for Biden rather than any other alternatives. On this issue, liberal activist and Medicare for All advocate Ady Barkan stated that “even though he wasn’t our first choice, I don’t think that progressives and Democratic socialists should sit out of the election, or vote third party.” This task force for healthcare, a prominent issue that is heavily debated in the Democratic party, was able to implement progressive ideals into policy without compromising Biden’s stance as a moderate; thus, they made an attempt at unity with a single goal in mind: voting Donald Trump out.
