Why Super-Tuesday Matters to Health Care

Why Super-Tuesday Matters to Health Care:

A look at each candidate’s platform on health care

 

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton’s platform calls for the proliferation of the ACA, while making incremental changes.

These changes would include placing Federal Limits on the price of prescriptions, reducing the costs of premiums while increasing the coverage of insurers, and pushing for the expansion of Medicaid in the remaining hold-out States.

As of publishing, her party has not released detailed plan information to crosswalk how these reforms will be financed.

Bernie Sanders


Bernie Sanders supports a single payer, Medicare for all. His plan addresses the cost-per-capita spending issue of the United States by divorcing insurance from employment, and providing a basic set of Medicare coverage for all citizens.

His estimates place the plan on a course that reduces costs by $6 trillion over the current ACA – Health Insurance Hybrid model.

The plan is financed through a combination of factors including progressive income tax rates, household income tax increases, and employer taxes. While household taxes would increase, his plan estimates to save the average U. S. household $5,000 annually in premium payments, a savings larger than the 2.2% tax increase on average.

Donald Trump


Donald Trump has no plan on his official website, nor does he address health care in his ‘issues’ panel on his site. However, if you sift through his Twitter account and other media outlets, you can glean a semblance of ideas from his speaking engagements. Some of those highlights include:

  • Replace the ACA with a Health Savings Account
  • Reduce the amount of vaccines to reduce / avoid autism
  • Retain Medicaid and Medicare
  • He did, however, when running as a Democrat/Reform party, advocate for Universal Health Care.
  • Wants to allow insurers to sell insurance across State lines. 

Cruz and Rubio?


Cruz makes no effort whatsoever to address health care in his ‘issues’ section of his website. He has advocated for the repeal of ‘Obamacare,’ but has no legitimate plan to replace it.

Senator Rubio wants to either repeal ‘Obamacare’ or at the minimum, repeal the individual mandate. Rubio advocates giving families a ‘$500’ tax credit to pay for health care in any way they see fit.