U.S. Senators pitching diametrically opposing health reform plans

At the same time that Republicans are attempting to coalesce around another attempt to repeal the ACA, Democrats are attempting to gather support for a massive expansion of Medicare that would make it available to all Americans (Source: “Medicare for All or State Control: Health Care Plans Go to Extremes,” New York Times, Sept. 13, 2017).

Several Republican senators, led by Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, are proposing a plan to take money spent under the Affordable Care Act and give it to states in the form of block grants. Under the Graham-Cassidy proposal, money would be distributed to states based on a complex formula. The regional cost of living would be one factor, but the sponsors acknowledged that higher-spending states like Massachusetts would receive less than under current law.

Heading in the other direction is Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the onetime candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, who proposed this week what he called “a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system,” and he said 16 Democratic senators supported it. Those included Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten E. Gillibrand of New York and Kamala Harris of California — all names on the list of possible candidates for president in 2020.