Joe Biden recently named his choice for Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
Becerra, a darling of the progressive far left, has been a vocal supporter of government-controlled health care for years.
In 2017, Becerra said, “I’ve been a supporter of Medicare for all for the 24 years that I was in Congress. This year, as attorney general, I would fight for that if we had an opportunity to put that forward in the state of California, because I think what we do is we give people that certainty that they’re going to able to access a doctor or a hospital.”
Becerra added, “[W]hen you give people access to Medicare and talk to seniors who have their Medicare who say keep your hands off my Medicare, I think it would have the same effect for most Americans if they knew they could depend on something like Medicare for themselves as well.”
Not surprisingly, Becerra is also an avid supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). As California’s attorney general, he has led several legal battles to maintain aspects of the ACA that the Trump administration fought to eliminate.
Given Becerra’s devotion to Medicare for All and the powers granted to HHS in the realm of health care rulemaking, it is likely he would double-down on the federal government’s already outsized role in the American health care market.
At this point, more than 10 years after Democrats passed Obamacare, we have learned that more national government intervention in the health care marketplace results in higher deductibles, premiums, and co-pays and lower options for families.
Unfortunately, if Becerra does become the nation’s next HHS secretary, it’s likely these disturbing trends will continue–at least until the federal government takes over the health care industry altogether.
Chris Talgo ([email protected]) is the editorial director and a research fellow at The Heartland Institute, as well as a researcher and contributing editor at StoppingSocialism.com.
