Dr. Vin Gupta

This has not been prioritized because back in the day, President Obama tried to get this passed, and there was not enough senators to pass a public option.

Now we're seeing, this is what an opening for people running for office right now, and I'd say for any Democrat especially, talk about it.

We're not hearing a lot of people talk about, hey, what are you gonna do when it comes, if you're in Congress tomorrow, what are you gonna advocate for when it comes to healthcare?

It's pretty vague.

This is an obvious thing to rally around, Ben, the public option.

And I know it's something that Governor Newsom and other leaders like him are in favor of, strongly in favor of.

There's no reason not to be in favor of it because up until now, you beautifully said this, people have said, and those senators that are against it have said,

oh it's going to bankrupt the united states of america by the way what hexeth and others are asking for iran 200 billion over the next just three months would easily cover a public option in the united states for years so let's not use that as an excuse anymore number one number two there's many analyses been showing that if we actually had a public option for people

that didn't qualify for traditional Medicare, Medicaid, or were not employed, that would actually save the system money because they'd have primary care.

They'd get timely care if they were sick.

It would save, say, an ICU stay where people come, unfortunately, and see somebody like me.

That costs the system way more money.

So we'd actually be cost-saving while keeping people healthier.

There's no reason not to talk about this.

And I'll lastly just say, Kaiser Family Foundation, leading think tank in healthcare in the United States, just released a survey.

Over one in 10 people have already scrapped their Obamacare health insurance since the turn of the year.

We're expecting many, many millions more to do the same because subsidies are actually increasing.

This was not abstract and just a fear, something that we feared towards the end of last year.

This is happening in real time.

I am seeing, as are my clinical colleagues, the downstream consequences of that, delayed medications, not picking up your medications, not getting critical cancer screenings, ending up showing up to the hospital with flu in a severe form because they didn't go in when it was early, early flu.