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Booker has cosponsored Sanders' "Medicare for all" bill, which is for a single-payer system with everyone on public insurance. How he can possibly finesse those two: the bill allows people to buy supplemental private insurance for things not covered.
In Ontario, for example, we're all on the Ontario government health plan, OHIP. But it generally doesn't cover vision, services or prescription drugs, so I get that coverage privately through my employer.
Sanders's single-payer plan is so comprehensive in coverage that, if implemented as envisioned, there'd be a more limited need for supplemental insurance than there is in Canada. But it's not contradictory to support "Medicare for all" and say private insurance would exist. /end
(This should say "vision, dental services or prescription drugs." Dental isn't covered in Ontario; Sanders proposes to cover it.)
So the thing is...if Sanders's plan was implemented as is, private supplemental coverage would seem unnecessary. He's proposing to cover vision, dental, mental, medications and more; lots of stuff Canadians aren't covered for/have limited coverage for. 1/2
But, in reality, it'd be very expensive to create a US system that covers all of that stuff -- Vermont found it too expensive and gave up -- and it's easy to see the list getting shrunken by cost-wary legislators. Sanders has left the door open to private coverage filling gaps.
IN SUMMARY: "Medicare for all" can mean a lot of things, but even "single-payer" can mean a lot of things.
