Joe Biden said having Medicare for All in the United States would not help solve the coronavirus crisis.
“With all due respect to Medicare for All, you have a single payer system in Italy. It doesn't work there. It has nothing to do with Medicare for All. That would not solve the problem at all,” Biden said.
Italy has been put under total lockdown as coronavirus spreads in the country.
Bernie Sanders, who has spearheaded Medicare for All, responded to Biden’s assertion and said experts have said that one of the reasons the US has been unprepared to handle this crisis is "we don't have a system.”
“We’ve got thousands of private insurance plans," Sanders said. "That is not a system that is prepared to provide health care to all people. In a good year, without the epidemic, we're losing up to 60,000 people who die every year because they don't get to a doctor on time."
“It's clear this crisis is only making a bad situation worse,” Sanders said.
Under Sanders' Medicare for All plan, Americans would be enrolled in a national health insurance program, also known as a "single-payer" system, and the federal government would run the program.
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