Washington Free Beacon senior writer Liz Harrington said on Wednesday during an appearance on Fox Business's Neil Cavuto: Coast to Coast that the policies enacted in former President Barack Obama's signature Affordable Care Act paved the way for Democratic lawmakers to support measures such as Medicare for All.
"Obamacare was supposed to solve all these problems and here we are: It didn't solve anything," Harrington said. "And the Democrats, they're not talking about fixing Obamacare or helping it. They're talking about 'Medicare for All.'"
Harrington added that Medicare for All proposes even more government control over healthcare than Obamacare currently exercises.
"They're talking about complete takeover," she said. "They assured us it wasn't going to be that when they pitched Obamacare. Clearly that was the aim."
Healthcare has become a key issue for Republicans and Democrats alike as the 2020 presidential election draws nearer. Presidential contender Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif) showed strong support for eliminating private insurance in favor of Medicare for All during a January CNN townhall.
"Who of us has not had that situation, where you've got to wait for approval and the doctor says, 'well, I don't know if your insurance company is going to cover this?,'" Harris told host Jake Tapper. "Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on."
House Democrats released a Medicare for All bill in late February, which proposed a two-year transition to a single payer system. Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) proposed a similar bill in the Senate.
President Donald Trump addressed the issue on Monday, saying that reforming healthcare would become increasingly important to Republican policy.
"The Republican Party will soon be known as the party of healthcare. You watch," Trump told reporters on Capitol Hill.
Trump's comment came after a filing with a federal appeals court, where the Justice Department agreed with a federal judge in Texas who ruled that Obamacare was an invalid healthcare law.