Sanders Breaks With Backer AOC On Medicare For All

Politico reports:

Sen. Bernie Sanders broke with one of his highest-profile surrogates Tuesday on his signature Medicare for All proposal, suggesting that his policy proposal is already a compromise. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told HuffPost last week that a worst-case scenario with Sanders in the White House is a compromise on health care that ends up adding a public option.

The Vermont senator told CNN’s Anderson Cooper at a Las Vegas town hall that he loves Ocasio-Cortez and credited her for transforming politics and getting young people involved. “But my view is that Medicare for All, the bill that we wrote, is in a sense already a compromise,” Sanders said. He added that the proposal has a four-year transition period that would bring down the age required for Medicare eligibility from 65 to 55 to 45 to 35.

Bernie Sanders tonight once again threw cold water on the idea that he would support anything less than his full version of Medicare for All (such as a public option as AOC recently floated). Sanders at CNN town hall said that his bill is already a compromise.

— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) February 19, 2020