The lead sponsor of "Medicare for all" legislation in the House admitted Tuesday night that her proposal would force about a million individuals currently employed by private insurance companies out of a job.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.), who chairs the Progressive Caucus in the House, said her legislation would set aside funds to help the people her legislation would push to unemployment either transition to retirement or get job training to start over in a different field.
"There are a lot of people who work in the private insurance industry," Jayapal said during a town hall at American University captured on video by America Rising. "There's about a million people we think will be displaced if Medicare for all happens."
"We have set aside one percent a year of the total cost of the bill for five years to take care of a transition for employees in the private insurance sector," Jayapal said. "If they are able to retire, that might be one thing, pension guarantees, or job training so they can move into a different system."
Jayapal's bill calls for a complete elimination of the private insurance industry, with everybody pushed into a government-run healthcare system.
"We mean a complete transformation of our health care system and we mean a system where there are no private insurance companies that provide these core benefits," Jayapal said following the release of her legislation. "We mean universal care, everybody in, nobody out."
The legislation was criticized by Vox for it's failure to lay out how the plan would be paid for and how much it would cost. It is impossible to say how much money would be allocated to help alleviate the pain caused to the million individuals who lose their jobs.