WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is hitting back against advocates of “Medicare for all” even as the proposal gains momentum among left-leaning Democrats in this election year.
Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, said on Thursday that the administration had a vision for “reforming the American health care system” that would shrink, not expand, the federal role.
In a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Mr. Azar said that Medicare could barely afford to keep its current commitments. “Medicare is running out of other people’s money, and those other people happen to be our children,” he said.
Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was even more pointed in her criticism.
Medicare is meant for “a very specific population,” older Americans and people with disabilities, Ms. Verma said on Wednesday in a speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. Offering it to every American would not only strain the finances of Medicare, but also “run the risk of depriving seniors of the coverage” they have, she said.
“Ideas like Medicare for all would only serve to hurt and divert focus from seniors,” Ms. Verma said, predicting that, “in essence, Medicare for all would become Medicare for none.”
Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont and a leading champion of Medicare for all, dismissed the criticism.
“Medicare has worked extremely well for our nation’s seniors and will work equally well for all Americans,” Mr. Sanders said. “It is extremely concerning that the person charged with administering Medicare would rather throw 32 million Americans off the health insurance they have than join every major nation on earth and guarantee health care as a fundamental right.”
