Joe Biden

Former U.S. Vice President

• Establish a “public option” that would compete in the marketplace with private insurance.
• Increase tax credits by eliminating 400 percent income cap on eligibility and lowering cost of coverage from 9.8 percent to 8.5 percent.
• End “surprise billing” by barring hospitals from charging out-of-network rates when patients do not have control over which providers they see.
• Allow Medicare to directly negotiate with drug companies over prices, limit drug price increase to inflation rate, and allow consumers to import prescription drugs from other countries.
• Reverse President Donald Trump’s policies on women’s health.

Pete Buttigieg

Mayor of South Bend, Indiana

• “Medicare-for-all who want it.”
• Allow private insurers to compete with Medicare-type plan.
• Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program to include employees of rural hospitals.
• Increase Medicare reimbursement rates in underserved areas.
• Expand community paramedicine programs in rural areas to include preventative care.
• Expand telehealth services by increasing coverage of high-speed internet and help providers purchase technology by doubling Federal Communications Commission Rural Health Care Program budget.

Bernie Sanders

U.S. Senator from Vermont

• Guarantee health care to all people through a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program.
• Proposal includes hospital and primary care, emergency services prescription drugs, mental health, maternity care, dental, audiology, and vision services.
• Finance via a 4 percent increase in income tax for families earning more than $29,000, 7.5 percent tax on employers above $2 million in payroll, and increasing progressive income and estate tax and/or wealth tax.
• Peg prescription drug prices to the median drug prices of other major countries and allow consumers to buy prescription drugs from other countries.
• Allow Medicare to directly negotiate with drug companies over prices.

Elizabeth Warren

U.S. Senator from Massachusetts

• Supports Medicare-for-all, single-payer program.
• Lower cost of prescription drugs by allowing the Department of Health and Human Services to manufacture generic drugs when individual drugs have little or no competition, are in shortage, or when prices are high.
• Hold insurers accountable for providing adequate mental health benefits.
• Invest $100 billion in federal funding over 10 years to fight the opioid crisis.
• Create new Medicare designation to reimburse rural hospitals at a higher rate.
• Increase funding for community health centers by 15 percent per year; create a $25 billion capital fund for rural health.

Mr. Lieber is a medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

Dr. Pour is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai.