One of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s, D-Calif., top aides met privately with health care policy groups to ask them to publicly express worry about providing “Medicare for All,” soon after her party won a majority in the lower chamber, Politico reports.
Pelosi’s senior health policy adviser, Wendell Primus, told about two dozen people at a meeting on November 30 that leading members of the Democratic party were concerned that the popularity of the Medicare for All proposal could distract from the party’s main health care goals. He reportedly dismissed the idea and said that people need to look closer at the details of a single-payer plan.
“I nearly fell on the floor,” said one person in attendance. “People were kind of stunned.”
“It came across as, we need this so we can get on with our agenda,” said another attendee. “Can you help us point out the problems?”
Pelosi spokesperson Henry Connelly denied that Primus was looking to discredit Medicare for All.
“Wendell absolutely did not ask for any kind of one-sided analysis of Medicare for All, and anyone who says otherwise wasn’t actually listening,” he said. “As Democrats, across the entire spectrum, we believe in legislating based on facts, data and honest analysis.”
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