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Senators Warren, Sanders Under Attack at Democrats' Presidential Debate

Ken Bredemeier

   WASHINGTON - Story updated on July 31, at 12:18 am.

   U.S. health care policies took center stage Tuesday night at the
   Democratic presidential candidates' debate, with more moderate
   challengers attacking Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, the
   leading progressives looking to oust President Donald Trump in the 2020
   election.

   Warren and Sanders have both called for a sweeping end to the country's
   current health care system centered on private company insurance plans
   offered to 150 million workers through their employers. But their views
   were under attack almost from the start of the two-hour debate on a
   theater stage in Detroit, Michigan, the country's auto industry hub.

   "We don't have to go around and be the party of subtraction and telling
   half the country who has private health insurance that their health
   insurance is illegal," former Maryland Congressman John Delaney said.
   "It's also bad policy. It'll under-fund the industry, many hospitals
   will close, and it's bad politics."

   Often political allies

   Warren, a former Harvard law professor, and Sanders, a self-described
   democratic socialist, are friends of long-standing and often political
   allies. They now are both looking for votes from the liberal wing of
   the Democratic Party. Both defended their position calling for a
   government-run health care system.

   "This is not radical," Sanders of Vermont shouted at one point, noting
   that numerous other Western societies already have adopted
   government-run systems. "I get a little tired of Democrats who are
   afraid of big ideas."

   Warren of Massachusetts rebuffed the critics, saying, "I don't
   understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president
   of the United States just to talk about what we really can't do and
   shouldn't fight for."

   But their challengers lobbed multiple attacks at the pair, saying their
   proposals would, over four years or longer, upend the long-standing
   U.S. health care system, including government-subsidized insurance for
   moderate and low-income families under the Affordable Care Act,
   popularly known as Obamacare.

   Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who has called for more incremental
   health care policy changes, said, "I have bold ideas, but they are
   grounded in reality."

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