As Polls Tighten, Clinton's Senate Allies Push Bernie's Public Option

With Hillary Clinton looking to shore up support among progressives in her presidential campaign, Democrats in the U.S. Senate are pushing a plan to add a Medicare-like public option to dwindling private choices under the Affordable Care Act.

The public option, pushed by Sen. Bernie Sanders during Democratic primaries, has been adopted by Clinton as well as President Obama as a way to spur competition and increase coverage choices. The public option push last week grew from just five Democratic Senators to one-third of the U.S. Senate by Friday.

The move to create a public option comes as  Aetna , UnitedHealth Group and Humana scale back their participation on public exchanges where individuals buy private health plans. The public option, supporters say, is needed in markets where choices among private plans has dwindled and the lack of competition has allowed insurers to jack up premiums by double-digit percentages for 2017.

“I was outraged when Aetna announced it would pull out of state exchanges in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina, Kentucky, Texas and Illinois,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat in an e-mail Friday to more than one million Progressive Change Campaign Committee supporters. Aside from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, several other liberal groups are part of the coalition including MoveOn.org, Daily Kos and the AFL-CIO.

Clinton's Republican opponent, Donald Trump, is opposed to the Affordable Care Act. Trump said he would ask Congress "to immediately deliver a full repeal of Obamacare."

Insurers could announce as early as this week exactly where they plan to offer coverage on public exchanges for 2017 in preparation for open enrollment for Americans seeking Obamacare.

The Affordable Care Act has expanded health coverage to 20 million Americans, including 11 million who have purchased subsidized private coverage on exchanges. But public option supporters say there are still 29 million uninsured in the U.S. and health disparities among the states, especially since 19 states largely led by Republican governors or GOP state legislatures haven’t expanded Medicaid under the law.

"The Affordable Care Act has made great progress in helping millions of people get access to health insurance,” Sanders said last week.

“But at a time when 29 million people are still uninsured, and 31 million are underinsured, we must continue to make needed healthcare reforms so that the American people can have healthcare as a right, not a privilege," Sanders said. "Insurance companies have shown they are more concerned with serving their shareholders than their customers. Every American deserves the choice of a public option in health insurance.”