Agonizing choices as Dems debate shrinking health care pie
ABC News
Democrats are fretting about how they’d divide a shrinking pie amid signs that negotiations over President Joe Biden’s massive domestic policy bill could yield a smaller serving of health care spending
WASHINGTON -- Democrats are debating how to divide up what could be a smaller serving of health care spending in President Joe Biden's domestic policy bill, pitting the needs of older adults who can't afford their dentures against the plight of uninsured low-income people in the South.
“There's always a battle of where you place your priorities,” Rep. Jim Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democratic leader, said Wednesday. “We don’t means-test Medicare, which means that pretty wealthy people will be getting both dental care (and) vision care while poor people will be denied. ... I don’t know that that's a real good choice.”
Clyburn explained that more than 100,000 of his fellow South Carolinians remain uninsured because Republicans in charge of state government have refused to expand Medicaid to low-income working adults under the Affordable Care Act.
Health care is foundational to Biden’s $3.5 trillion domestic policy bill, which touches everything from taxes to climate change, child care to community college.
