Porter: Employees Will ‘Likely’ Contribute to Paying for ‘Free Healthcare’

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Story Is,” California gubernatorial candidate former Rep. Katie Porter (D) said that people should “think about what it would mean to have free healthcare,” but under her single-payer system, “you would likely have employees making some contribution. … Medicare is a single-payer system, the government is the payer, but people chip in. They have co-pays, they have deductibles, they have supplements. So, it would be the same kind of system here.”

Porter said, “[I]n a single-payer system, you would have employers making a contribution to it, and you would likely have employees making some contribution. The money isn’t going to fall from the sky, Elex. It would be funded — the same way with Medicare, people pay for Medicare, Medicare is not free. Our seniors — Medicare is a single-payer system, the government is the payer, but people chip in. They have co-pays, they have deductibles, they have supplements. So, it would be the same kind of system here. People who would come to California will be part of our society, would be contributing to that single-payer system in the same way that we have seniors contributing to Medicare, both while they’re working, but then also when they’re seniors using that care.”

She added, “Tom Steyer’s been really clear in this race about who he’s against, right? He’s against the big utilities, he’s against corporations, he’s against billionaires. But I think what makes me different is what I’m for and what I’m offering to do. So, I just invite California families, think about what it would mean to have free healthcare, to have free childcare.”

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