Hillary Clinton: Warren’s ‘Medicare for All’ Plan Will Never Happen

Appearing Thursday at the New York Times’ DealBook conference, failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton predicted 2020 White House contender Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) $52 trillion “Medicare for All” plan will never become law.

A partial transcript is as follows: 

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Do you think that [Warren’s] Medicare for All plan that we saw last week, you can get behind?

HILLARY CLINTON: I think if it were to go to the Senate — that was the point I was making before, if you had a president who pushed to present it — I would be very much in favor of whatever the debate was.

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: You just don’t think that that plan would ever get enacted?

HILLARY CLINTON: No, I don’t. I don’t, but the goal is the right goal. The goal is absolutely — and compare where we are as a Democratic Party, engaged in a debate about the best way to achieve this goal, where a Republican Party tried to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act with nothing ever introduced to replace it. Not only that, they are in court right now to strick the entire law down.

It could be, unless the judges who are hearing this case decide to hold off for a year, it could be in the midst of this election, you will get a decision sought by the Republican Party, led by Republican attorneys generals from a number of states, to completely declare the Affordable Healthcare Act unconstitutional. And if that happens, it will be the absolute most stark comparison between the Republican Party, that never produced a bill in Congress to replace what they were trying to repeal… and it strikes me that, yeah, we’re having a debate on our side of the ledger, but it’s a debate about the right issue.

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I believe the smarter approach is to build on what we have, a public option is something I’ve been in favor of for a very long time. I don’t believe we should be in the midst of a big disruption while we are trying to get to 100 percent coverage and deal with costs.