Hillary Clinton on Saturday said she wants to “build” on President Obama’s healthcare law, signaling that were she president she’d try to bring about a further expansion of government’s role in the health sector.
Clinton said it was important to defend Obamacare from an assault by Republicans, noting that it made some necessary reforms, but she said it didn’t go far enough.
“I want to build on and improve the Affordable Care Act,” she said. “I would certainly tackle cost issues, because I think once the foundation was laid with a system to try and get as many people as possible into it, to end insurance discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions or women for example, that yes we are gonna have to figure out how to get more competition in the insurance market. How to get the costs of prescription drugs, but particularly other out of pocket expenses down.”
Obamacare has faced problems as it has struggled to sign up young and healthy individuals to offset the costs of covering older and sicker enrollees. Insurers have hiked premiums and slashed access to doctors and hospitals to try and cut costs.
One tangible change Clinton mentioned was that she wants to have Medicare negotiate drug prices with manufacturers to drive down the cost of drugs. Obama backed off allowing Medicare to negotiate prices in order to secure support of the pharmaceutical industry during the fight to pass Obamacare.
Later in the debate, she pushed back against Sen. Bernie Sanders on the idea of having a fully single-payer system. Instead, she argued, it was important to keep Obamacare and “improve” it.
