South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg on Sunday criticized a health care plan by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a fellow 2020 White House hopeful, as a “my way or the highway idea.”
“What is just not true is that hers is the only solution. This ‘my way or the highway’ idea. That either you’re for kicking everybody off their private plans in four years or you’re for business as usual, it’s just not true,” Buttigieg said on ABC’s “This Week.”
{mosads}“The way I would do it, you get to keep your private plan if you want to,” he added.
Buttigieg supports a “Medicare for all who want it” plan while Warren supports “Medicare for All.” The Massachusetts senator unveiled the details of her plan last week.
Asked on Sunday about Medicare for All, which is also supported by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Buttigieg said he thinks it “could very well be the long-run destination.”
But he added that people should get to choose it.
“Let’s put this out there and see if it’s really the best plan for everybody. I think it will be the best plan, but I’m not willing to assume that it is the right plan for you…and order you to take it,” he said.
“If it’s the right plan, then everybody will move to it,” the presidential hopeful added.
The Hill has reached out to the Warren campaign for comment.
She has previously defended the health care plan, saying, “Democrats are not going to win by repeating Republican talking points and by dusting off the points of view of the giant insurance companies and the giant drug companies who don’t want to see any change in the law that will bite into their profits.”
Buttigieg and Warren are among more than a dozen people running for president in 2020.