Does Andrew Yang support single-payer?

Question

2020 Democratic Presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s website said this on March 9:

With a shift to single-payer, costs can also be controlled directly by setting prices provided for medical services.

Then on April 20, his website said this:

With a shift to significantly more people receiving their care through a public option, costs can also be controlled directly by setting prices provided for medical services.

And now his website just says this:

With a shift to a Medicare for All system, costs can also be controlled directly by setting prices provided for medical services.

So my question is, does Andrew Yang support a single payer healthcare plan? Or does he just support a public option?

If he has changed his view on this, has he addressed what caused the shift?

Answer 1

It seems he's not taken a specific position yet.

Bloomberg ran an article entitled The Democrats Are Fighting for Your Health in 2020 on 14 October 2019. In it they put Yang in the Medicare for All-ish box. Bloomberg describes this in-between option as follows:

Think Medicare for All, but with some private insurance and out-of-pocket costs. This is a viable middle path that may offer many of the benefits of a single-payer system without quite as much disruption.

Specific to candidate Yang, the Bloomberg article notes:

Then, there’s what I would call the vague gang. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang and the other candidates listed above say they support Medicare for All as a goal. They just don’t necessarily agree with that whole getting-rid-of-private-insurance-in-one-fell-swoop thing. None of them have released plans that are detailed enough to give a sense of how much of the current system they’d retain.

Answer 2

Andrew Yang was not in favor of a single payer option nor of a public option. His plan centered around expanding Medicare to more people over time and trying to gradually outcompete private offerings, as per this ABC News article.

Confusingly, his campaign used the term Medicare for All to refer not to the single-payer plans that were proposed under the name, but to the general idea of making healthcare accessible to more people. Here's how Yang described it himself in an interview with MSNBC:

What Medicare for All means to many Americans is universal healthcare that's high-quality and low or zero cost, and that is exactly what I'm championing. We need to provide healthcare to all Americans, but I would not get rid of all private insurance plans immediately, because millions of Americans are on those plans, enjoy those plans, and in many cases negotiated for those plans in lieu of higher wages. The goal of the government has to be to demonstrate that we can outcompete the private insurance plans and squeeze them out of the market over time.