Warren: Everybody Will Transition to Government-Run Health Care Plan

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) discussed her health care plan Friday, outlining a vision where everyone eventually "transitions" to a government health care plan.

"Your Medicare for All proposal would eliminate private insurance, correct? Is that right?" Des Moines Register opinion editor Kathie Obradovich asked Warren at a presidential candidate forum.

Warren, who raised her hand at last month's Democratic debate to indicate she would abolish Americans' private health insurance plans, briefly hesitated before answering.

"What it does is it transitions people to more complete insurance coverage, more complete health care coverage, at a lower cost, which I think is what we all want," she said. "Everyone gets covered, but we do it at the lowest possible cost."

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Warren supports Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I., Vt.) single-payer Medicare for All, which Sanders said last week would cost up to $40 trillion over the next decade. Other Democrats running for president have said there should be a role for private insurance, supplemental care, or a public option to buy into a government-run program.

Polling has shown support dwindles for Medicare for All when respondents are told it would eliminate their private health plans. A poll in February found only 13 percent of Americans wanted a true single-payer system that abolished private insurance.