House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said Sunday she would "love" a single-payer health care system as a way to remedy what Bill Clinton criticized last week about Obamacare.
This is not a new opinion for Pelosi. In 2014, she said she wanted such a measure to improve the president's law.
Pelosi was asked by Meet The Press host Chuck Todd about Clinton's remarks that Obamacare was the "craziest thing in the world" due to its negative effects on middle-class people who didn't qualify for the law's subsidies.
"So you've got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It's the craziest thing in the world," Clinton said.
He walked back the remarks later, saying he still supported the law, and Pelosi claimed the comments were not damaging.
"Do you acknowledge this problem with premiums ... this problem in the middle here with small businesses really struggling?" Todd asked.
"Well, I wanted single-payer," she said. "I mean, I wanted a—I'd love a single-payer, but we're not—I wanted a public option, which would address that. But we've never done anything, whether it was Social Security, Medicare and the rest where we haven't said how does this— let's see how it works, and let's improve it. But no, I wouldn't worry about that."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) advocated a single-payer system during his run for the Democratic nomination, but Pelosi, a Clinton supporter, distanced herself from the idea because Sanders baldly said he would raise taxes to pay for it.
Note: This article has been updated.