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The U.S President Donald Trump stepped up his attack on Democrats over a health care proposal called Medicare for All. He claimed that it would end Medicare as we know it and take away benefits that seniors have paid for their entire lives. Trump, omitting any mention of improved benefits for seniors that Democrats promise, writes in an op-ed published Wednesday in USA Today, “The Democrats’ plan means that after a life of hard work and sacrifice, seniors would no longer be able to depend on the benefits they were promised”. Medicare for All means different things to different Democrats.

The plan pushed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who challenged Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. He would expand Medicare to cover almost everyone in the country, and current Medicare recipients would get improved benefits. Other Democratic plans would allow people to buy into a new government system modeled on Medicare. It would move toward the objective of coverage for all while leaving private insurance in place.

A White House official informed AP and described internal plans. The source said that Trump’s health care attack will be echoed by the Republican National Committee and other GOP groups and that the president will continue to raise the attack during his campaign rallies. As Trump escalates his efforts on behalf of fellow Republicans, he is casting health care as one of an expanding list of choices for the electorate this year while seeking to raise the alarm about the consequences of Democratic control of the House or the Senate. Medicare for All, also called single-payer over the years, was until fairly recently outside the mainstream of Democratic politics. But this year it has become a key litmus test in many party primaries and a rallying cry for progressive candidates.