Pete Buttigieg releases 'Medicare for all who want it' plan that maintains private insurance

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is rolling out his campaign's health care proposal, which he's referring to as "Medicare for all who want it."

Buttigieg, who in last week's Democratic debate drew a contrast between his position on health care reform and the Medicare-for-all proposals from Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), announced Thursday new details of his plan to offer a public option alongside private insurance.

"If private insurers are not able to offer something dramatically better, this public plan will create a natural glide-path to Medicare-for-all," Buttigieg says on his website. He also touts that his plan "gives the American people a choice." Other details of his proposal include expanding premium subsidies and automatically enrolling low-income Americans who live in states that didn't expand Medicaid.

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In a op-ed for The Washington Post published Thursday, Buttigieg additionally writes that "there's a real difference" between his plan and that of Sanders and Warren, writing that he wouldn't be "flipping a switch and kicking almost 160 million Americans off their private insurance." Vice President Joe Biden's plan is similar to Buttigieg's, as he has proposed adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act.

Buttigieg in his op-ed also argues his opponents are not being "honest and straightforward about the details" of their plans and writes that his, which he says costs $1.5 trillion over a decade, will "bring us together rather than push us even further apart."

The Washington Post's Paige Winfield Cunningham writes that Buttigieg is a "prime example of how most of the Democratic presidential contenders have distanced themselves from the dramatic overhaul envisioned by Sanders," although Vox's Dylan Scott argues the plan is "still ambitious" and "very much reflects the leftward shift of the Democratic mainstream."