This week, Elizabeth Warren released her plan for paying for Medicare For All (“MFA”). The plan embodies everything that makes me support Ms. Warren’s campaign. The reactions to the plan — especially from the Joe Biden campaign — epitomize the stranglehold the health insurance industry has on the media and too many Democrats. I specifically reject the lies of Mr. Biden and his relentlessly repeated misinformation about M4A.
The plan is worth a careful read. Here are a few excerpts that I like, but I make no claim that these are representative or the most important. They are simply the parts that grabbed me as I read them (emphasis mine):
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All my plans start with our shared values. There are two absolute non-negotiables when it comes to health care:One: No American should ever, ever die or go bankrupt because of health care costs. No more GoFundMe campaigns to pay for care. No more rationing insulin. No more choosing between medicine and groceries.
Two: Every American should be able to see the doctors they need and get their recommended treatments, without having to figure out who is in-network. No for-profit insurance company should be able to stop anyone from seeing the expert or getting the treatment they need.
Health care is a human right, and we need a system that reflects our values. That system is Medicare for All.
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[the Medicare for All Act] leaves open a number of key design decisions that will affect its overall cost, and the bill does not directly incorporate specific revenue measures. While much of this ambiguity results from the reasonable choice to delegate significant implementation discretion to the Executive Branch, it has also allowed opponents of Medicare for All to make up their own price tags and try to scare middle class families about the prospect of tax increases — despite the conclusions of expert after expert after expert that it is possible to eventually move to a Medicare for All system that gives both high quality coverage for everybody and dramatically lowers costs for middle class families.The best way to fight misinformation is with facts. That’s why today, I’m filling in the details and releasing a plan that describes how I would implement the long-term policy prescriptions of the Medicare for All Act and how to pay for it.
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Not every candidate for president supports moving to a system of Medicare for All. Some who support Medicare for All will have different ideas about how to finance and structure it. And everybody knows that there must be a real transition. But you don’t get what you don’t fight for – and my view is clear.
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Over the next ten years, individuals will spend $11 trillion on health care in the form of premiums, deductibles, copays, and out-of-pocket costs. Under my Medicare for All plan, that amount will drop from $11 trillion to practically zero.
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Let’s start with a basic fact: American companies are already paying a lot for health care for their employees. They are projected to pay nearly $9 trillion over the next ten years, mostly on employer contributions for employee health insurance and on health-related expenses for employees under workers’ compensation and long-term disability. My idea is that instead of these companies sending those payments to private insurance companies, they would send payments to the federal government for Medicare in the form of an Employer Medicare Contribution.In fact, it’ll be a better deal than what they have now: companies will pay less than they otherwise would have, saving $200 billion over the next ten years.
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Medicare for All puts a whole lot of money back in the American people’s pockets. One way it does that is by taking the share of premiums employees are responsible for paying through employer-sponsored insurance – that line on pay stubs each week or month that says “health insurance” – and returning it to working people. Congratulations on the raise!
And higher take-home pay for workers also means additional tax revenue just from applying our existing taxes – approximately $1.15 trillion if we apply average effective tax rates.
As I wrote earlier, this is a detailed plan and requires a careful read.
The Joe Biden campaign reacted with this (emphasis mine):
“For months, Elizabeth Warren has refused to say if her health care plan would raise taxes on the middle class, and now we know why: because it does,” said Biden deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield. “Senator Warren would place a new tax of nearly $9 trillion that will fall on American workers.”
This distortion is, at best, a Microsoft-help-style response. You know, where you see a menu in something like MSWord with a command like “Repair document” (or some similarly vague phrase), accompanied by a little help icon. Since the phrase looks like it might make major and unpredictable changes, a user is tempted to open the help icon in hopes of learning what the command actually does. The resulting pop-up says “This command repairs problems in the document”. Literally true and utterly useless.
It is literally true that the employer pays a tax instead of a premium. This literal truth misinforms the listener. The amount of that tax is less than the premium (by about 2%). The employer pays less. The resulting out-of-pocket change to the employee is a net positive because the rest of the health care costs that currently burden the employee are removed. The employer and employee win. The health insurance industry loses.
The employer and employee win. The health insurance industry loses. Joe Biden opposes it. Who do you think Joe Biden actually cares about?
Ms. Warren’s plan transfers virtually ALL health care costs to the government. In so doing, it removes all insurance carrier profits and overhead. The result is improved health care for less money. Less money from each of us, and a lower share of the GDP dedicated to health care. When the rest of the first world has done this or something similar, the result is much improved outcomes.
Americans would pay less, get better health care, and be healthier. The health insurance industry is dismantled. Elizabeth Warren proposes it. Joe Biden opposes it. Who do you think each candidate actually represents?
Joe Biden is once again spreading misinformation in order to benefit the deep-pocketed health insurance industry that he has represented so effectively in his decades of representing Delaware and Delaware’s deep-pocketed big-business executives. Mr. Biden’s campaign would have hundreds of millions of already-suffering Americans pay more and more money for ever-worsening care while a literal handful of insurance company executives benefit from ever-increasing profits and executive compensation.
Elizabeth Warren has presented a substantive and realistic path for moving from where we are to where we need to be.
I join Ms. Warren in her typically pithy rejoinder to the Joe Biden campaign:
The best way to fight misinformation is with facts.
Finally, I think this plan demonstrates how effectively the Democratic primary process is working. We started with a crowded field. Six months ago, there was little daylight between four contenders that currently lead the Democratic pack (Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren). The focus on M4A and wealth concentration is spreading these four apart and therefore making it more likely that the ultimate nominee represents what we Democrats actually believe.
The Democratic primary process is working very well.
I think you need to ease up a bit on Joe Biden’s motives. What confuses me about Warren’s plan is why employers are paying for it. I thought the point of a single-payer plan like M4A was to once and for all get employers out of the health insurance business.
I invite you to offer a more believable explanation for why Mr. Biden would so egregiously mischaracterize Ms. Warren’s plan.
The point of a single-payer plan is to separate the insurance provider from the employer.
It makes perfect sense to me for employers to pay as specified in Ms. Warren’s plan, at least during some longer-term transition plan.
In the long run, I agree that the taxes that support M4A should come out of the general fund, so that employers no longer view health insurance coverage as part of their payroll expenses.
I think we need to walk before we run.
First, it sounds like an overzealous campaign manager is the one who seems to offer a contradictory take. I would ask Biden directly what he thinks and importantly WHY. I’ve learned that interpretations and assumptions can be all over the map on things like this, but I’m also confident Biden’s motives are clean when it comes to what he thinks is the most practically way to expand coverage.
It’s all over the Google news feed from multiple sources. It hasn’t been walked back by either the campaign or Mr. Biden.
I invite you to watch Joe Biden say, himself, on camera, she’s making it up.
She’s not making it up.
He’s desperate and he’s letting the lies of his campaign manager stand as stated.
I find Mr. Biden’s behavior reprehensible. It’s one thing to disagree. It’s something else again to allow a campaign to lie on your behalf. It’s something else again to say “she’s making it up” when she most clearly is not.
If you read the link I put in the thread-starter, you’ll see that the documents describing the proposal are well-documented with links to data, sources, and references (like any other well-constructed brief).
I invite you to find and post anything comparable from Mr. Biden.
Elizabeth Warren devotes a significant portion of the proposal I linked to above to spelling out — item by item — how she proposes to lower cost. She spells out what’s done today, what it costs today, what she proposes to do differently, and what her plan is expected to save from that item. Each is backed up with footnotes, documentation, and references.
She concludes that portion with this (emphasis mine):
That’s about as far from “making it up” as it’s possible to be. Mr. Biden either hasn’t read the proposal or is lying about it. I’m reminded of the Trump administration’s characterization of the Mueller report.
I encourage you in the most emphatic terms to read Ms. Warren’s proposal yourself and then ask yourself if you think she’s “making it up”.
I think Mr. Biden simply doesn’t want to talk about it. Mr. Biden simply ignores how bad things are even under the ACA. He ignores the tens of millions of Americans already suffering from health care expenses even while insured under the ACA.
If he wants to challenge Ms. Warren’s assertions, or present different explanations for the same phenomena, or similarly show her the simple respect her proposal demands then he should do so. Instead, he smugly dismisses it as “she’s making it up”.
That’s the stock-in-trade of losers who won’t address facts and who attempt to dismiss those who do.
I’m obviously not a Biden spokesperson, but I still think a little room for grace is called for with a fellow Dem and give him a chance to explain why he believes there are flaws in Warren’s plan.
When Mr. Biden shows even a tiny bit of respect for Ms. Warren, then I’ll offer more room for grace. So far, Mr. Biden’s campaign has simply lied, and Mr. Biden himself has dismissed Ms. Warren and her plan with a contemptuous “She’s making it up”.
That response — “she’s making it up” — is not a response that merits “grace for a fellow Dem”.
I think Ms. Warren’s initial response is far more appropriate. To paraphrase her — “A candidate who repeats right-wing talking points is perhaps running in the wrong primary”.
Biden is NOT parroting RW talking points! Get back to me when he starts advocating for repeal of the ACA and leaving everyone completely to the mercy of the insurance companies like before.
The immediate reaction of the Biden campaign was quoted in the thread-starter:
That lie — that Ms. Warren’s plan would place a new tax of nearly $9 trillion on American workers — most certainly IS a right-wing talking point.
The GOP has already cut the heart out of the ACA. They did that when they made it non-compulsory. Even while the ACA was in full force, health care costs for people covered by health insurance were rising nevertheless. Yes, rising more slowly than had the ACA not been in place. But still rising enough so that medical expenses from serious illness or injury were still the leading cause of bankruptcy even among families who had health insurance.
Mr. Biden is, in fact, parroting a right-wing talking point. He is, in fact, putting the interests of health insurance companies above the interests of working-class men and women and even middle-class men and women.
I’m sorry if that’s hard to hear, but it is still accurate.
I still think we should hear the reason he believes that and what interpretations or assumptions he is using. I am not ready to call him a liar or a right-winger.
Here’s a response from Biden.
On Warren’s statement:
On his health care plan:
sigh.
Nice job taking quotes out of context. He did not mention Warren or her plan. In fact he acknowledged there are many possible and progressive ways to expand and improve health coverage. His comments were directed rather at the very attitude we have seen on this thread.
His entire post is in response to Warren’s comments. That’s why he wrote the thing. The dig about elitism is directly aimed at Warren.
It’s really something to see the guy only doing major donor events to accuse a grass roots funded candidate of being elitist.
I hadn’t heard that Warren was the one who made the running in the wrong primary comment, but if she did she is dead wrong and I’m disappointed that she would make what seems to be an out of character comment. They both have their strengths and their positions, and both fall well within the meaning of Democrat. Dems need an 11th commandment and stop sniping at each other. It’s possible to like both as I do which is why while Biden is still my first choice, Warren is my strong second.
Here is what she said, as reported by multiple sources:
Perhaps she isn’t talking about Mr. Biden. Does Mr. Biden defend keeping those high profits for insurance companies? Apparently. He certainly has said anything to the contrary, and their profits are certainly high. Does Mr. Biden oppose making the top 1% pay a fair share in taxes? Does Mr. Biden oppose making corporations pay a fair share in taxes? Apparently. He certainly attacks the new taxes in her plan, and those are the new taxes.
I don’t think Ms. Warren is making a personal attack on Mr. Biden. I think she saying — correctly — that the position he has taken on her health care proposal has much more in common with the GOP than with his fellow Democrats.
It seems to me that this is a case of “if the shoe fits, then wear it”. I think her criticism is accurate and fair, given the wild distortions and condescension he has directed towards her proposal.
Here’s reporting from the Times on the dispute.
That’s just a rehash of the Medium link you provided earlier. It is only NYT interpretation (because the press likes conflict) rather than actual evidence or quotes, that suggests that either candidate is specifically criticizing the other.
@Only NYT interpretation:
The link I provided, and the excerpt I quoted, is direct and first-hand.
I agree with you that Ms. Warren does not mention Mr. Biden by name nor does she level any personal insult towards anyone.
I can’t think of any other candidate her statement is relevant to, but I also think her statement is well within the envelope of acceptable discourse.
I am reminded of Adlai Stevenson’s famous quip: “When the Republicans stop lying about the Democrats, I’ll stop telling the truth about the Republicans”.
Notice that Stevenson’s quip was vis-à-vis the other party. We should not apply the implied accusation to each other.
So it sounds to me like people on both sides are doing their best to make generic comments about what they perceive others to be saying, then the other side likewise fires back generically. Maybe what is needed is thicker skin and less assumption about how direct the attack is. I say both candidates have a point, but neither is attacking the other so maybe we should stop seeing personality conflict where none exists.
Unfortunately, this is not true. It’s a belief liberals have – that once we show the facts, we’ll win. It hasn’t worked for 40+ years.
You need better arguments and better organizing to win. Facts ain’t gonna do it. This rollout is the kind of policy wonkishness that liberals love but that is ultimately pointless electorally. It worries me.
Warren also commits herself to PayGo with this, which is one of the worst things Democrats have committed to, and Speaker Pelosi says that it will be a requirement going forward if a Democrat wins. She should lose the Speakership for supporting this awful and dangerous idea.
Where does this plan commit us to PayGo? I’ve read the plan multiple times and see no such commitments — but perhaps I just missed it.
What I do see is an enumeration of places were we are currently squandering federal spending while getting little or nothing in exchange for it. Here are the specific items I mean:
– Cracking down on tax evasion and fraud: We currently have a 15% “tax gap” between taxes collected and taxes owed. Because of systemic underfunding of the IRS, this shortfall primarily benefits the very wealthy. Nearly all IRS audits and similar enforcement mechanisms target the middle and working class — almost no such enforcement activities target the top 1%. Ms. Warren cites third-party experts who estimate that closing this gap from 15% to 10% (bringing us in line with other first-world nations) will generate $2.3 T over the next 10 years.
– Targeted taxes on the financial sector, large corporations and the top 1%. The proposal estimates that the total received from new taxes on large corporations and financial transactions will be $2.9 T over the next 10 years. Eliminating a glaring loophole in how large corporations handle capitalization will generate an additional $1.25 T. Eliminating loopholes that encourage multinational organizations to push money overseas will collect another $1.65 T. Increased capital gains taxes on wealthy taxpayers (households with wealth in excess of $10M) will account for an additional $3 T. Ending special treatment of capital gains income for the top 1% of households gains another $2T. Taken together, these total $10.8 T.
– Immigration reform. Rational immigration reform will generate an addition $0.4T in direct federal revenue
– Reining in Defense spending. The plan proposes to end the “OCO” gimmick that allows the cost of our overseas blundering to be kept off-budget. The plan proposes to end OCO and reduce defense spending, generating a total of $0.8 T.
Those are the four major areas of new revenue that Ms. Warren’s plan proposes to collect. Taken together, they total $14.3 T. The plan proposes to collect an addition $8.8 T from employers who pay the government in lieu of private health insurance carriers. That total — $23.1 T — provides health care for every American over the next 10 years.
If we continue as we are — even WITH the ACA in place — Americans will pay about ELEVEN TRILLION DOLLARS over the next ten years in premiums, deductibles, copays, and out-of-pocket costs. If the ACA is dismantled, that figure will skyrocket.
Under Ms. Warren’s proposal, that $11T goes to essentially zero.
Nowhere in this plan do I find anything about PAYGO.
All of the spending is accounted for with new taxes, that is PAYGO. There is no allotment for any potential deficit spending.
This seems like a potential defense to the GOP saying “we can’t afford it” or “how are we going to pay for it” and now she has to work within a highly detailed and complicated framework. And you know what? The GOP is just going to hammer that it is a $20T tax increase no matter what. The facts of this accounting will not matter in that fight.
Sanders’s plan, too.
@All of the spending is accounted for with new taxes, that is PAYGO.:
I beg to disagree. There is a world of difference between “I take this action because I think it’s the best way forward” and “I take this action because fill-in-the-blank regulation requires it of me”.
Are you arguing that big-ticket items should not be accompanied by guidance about how to pay for them? Really?
@Sanders’s plan, too:
I guess I don’t understand the point of your comment. Mr. Sanders has already said his plan requires new taxes. In Ms. Warren’s proposal, none of those new taxes are paid by working-class and middle-class people. The GOP and disgruntled Democratic candidates may lie about that, but it remains true.
The new taxes in Ms. Warren’s plan are paid by:
– Employers (in lieu of insurance premiums, 2% lower in amount).
– Ultra-wealthy and billionaires
– Large multi-national corporations
I’m not sure Mr. Sanders has provided comparable details. My recollection is that his proposals rely on income, rather than wealth taxes. That’s a completely different kettle of fish.
@The GOP is just going to hammer that it is a $20T tax increase no matter what.:
Apparently joined by Mr. Biden. I share Ms. Warren’s immediate reaction that he seems to be running the wrong primary.
I profoundly disagree with you that facts of this accounting won’t matter.
I think there is a WORLD of difference between taxes paid by the 99% and taxes paid by the 0.1%. I think that’s the core issue in this election. If the electorate truly doesn’t care about that issue, then the election is meaningless and we might as well all stay home because nothing anybody does or says won’t make any difference at all.
I am not that cynical.
I am arguing that extreme detail on plans in a primary is pointless and may be bad politics. The electorate does not care about minute policy details at all. Having some papers on details is fine, doing a big rollout like this seems means she now has to defend small details, not strong moral arguments.
We can perhaps agree that Ms. Warren’s plan is not a “commitment to PAYGO”.
@minute policy details:
Ms. Warren is the only candidate who offers a plan. That, on its own, shows that it is not “minute”. There is no counterpart from any other candidate.
This is a primary election. We are choosing an agenda, an implied set of values and priorities, and a man or woman to embody and advance that agenda, those values, and those priorities. I think that choice is more likely to be correct when it is informed by data, logic, and discipline.
Elizabeth Warren embodies a values-based approach informed by data, logic and discipline. No other candidate comes close.
I think that’s a major difference, and I think it’s a difference the primary electorate most certainly DOES care about. I think that’s why Ms. Warren has been steadily climbing in polls while the other candidates plateau or collapse.
The optimist in me wants her to succeed and wants this plan to pass. The cynic in me tells me that Warren is going to be punished like Harris was for actually being specific and intellectually honest about funding and passing their health care plans.
Like Harris, Warren fell into a lose-lose trap. As a wonky woman, she is under a double standard to actually cost out all her proposals. Part of that is self inflicted from the ‘I got a plan for that’ schitck, part of it comes from the same double standard that felled Harris’ plan.
Angry white guys don’t have to justify how they will pay for things. Bernie has never once been asked how he will pay for his plan, it’s just assumed ‘revolution’ is a good enough answer. Trump has never been asked how he will pay for the wall, other than getting away with saying Mexico will.
She also fell into the trap of having to have an answer for everything. Using data and science to justify Native American ancestry, rather than questioning the questioner in the first place. Using specificity to answer the ‘pay for it’ question instead of questioning the double standard in the first place.
This plan wins her no new voters and potentially loses her many more. It does nothing to convince the Bernie 15 percenters that she’s a candidate as seriously progressive as he is. They don’t want a serious candidate, they want to call themselves socialists and pretend to be radical. It hurts her against Biden and Buttigieg in the primary and against Trump in the general. She is credibly arguing she will now only take away your insurance but tax your small business.
Vox and the Times have pointed out how her plan rewards companies that failed to provide benefits while punishing the companies and unions that do.
Now instead of running against Trump’s misdeeds or running for her more popular plans on college cost and paid leave, she will be playing defense the rest of the campaign. Her policy instincts are fantastic, her political instincts suck.
This is not true. Bernie has been asked and has proposed a Wall Street speculation tax, wealth tax, and much more progressive income and estate taxes. But he has proposed these as major changes for all the new plans, not just specific detailed accounting for one program. He is up front that it will take new taxes, focused on corporations and the wealthy. He gets asked by the press and in every debate and is clear on that. The difference is that he doesn’t lead with a wonky, detailed plan, and instead leads with the moral case. The other difference is that he didn’t spend months evading the question of whether it would take new taxes.
Medicare for All as proposed will not be becoming law in the next for years, and neither will the specific payment prescriptions from Sen. Warren. Liberals fall over themselves to get wonky in primaries and basically none of it will matter.
The direction you want to go and the people’s belief that you will fight for that direction is all that matters now. The white papers don’t help. We’re electing a leader, not a project manager.*
*I really like Warren but this is an example of where I think she does not do well politically. Talking about the rigged system and her commitment to fix it is much more effective than the policy wonk stuff.
You’re correct (as is Sen. Warren) on the policy. I fear doubleman may be right about the politics. Otherwise we would presently be voting on whether to continue the administration President Clinton, not the sloganeering moron who is there now.
Kamala Harris was rightly criticized for taking positions all over the map regarding M4A. Ms. Warren has been consistent from even before her campaign began.
We didn’t lose the 2016 because of bad politics — we lost because of Russian sabotage and FBI interference (the October surprise from Mr. Comey).
To the extent that Mr. Sanders has been specific about his proposals, I think Ms. Warren’s are more likely to succeed, are better documented, and are better supported by third-party data sources.
In my view, the ranking of the various proposals is something like:
First: Elizabeth Warren
Second: Bernie Sanders
The rest of the pack (with a big gap separating them from the two best
Dead last: Joe Biden. The more he says, the more I am convinced that he really IS running in the wrong primary. His public statements since the release of Ms. Warren’s plan show absolutely no awareness of how bad things are now and how bad things were during the Obama administration.
I reject the contention that we should nominate a sub-standard candidate in the belief that said candidate will somehow run a better campaign.
I think we should instead nominate the very best man or woman we can find for the job and then do all in our power to make the resulting campaign powerful and effective.
It was an incredibly winnable race. Bad politics (and a bad candidate) allowed the race to be close so that those other things could make the difference on the margin.
Perhaps more likely to succeed, but I don’t think any will be passing (as proposed) in the next 4 years. While more detailed, I think Warren’s plans are often lesser – like her student debt plan, which has income limits and other requirements rather than being universal, like Sanders. But yeah, I think Sanders would be a mediocre manager. (That’s why I like a joint ticket.)
I absolutely agree. I think the inverse of your top two is the better ranking.
Joe Biden used to be my dead last pick. Now it is Mayor Pete. His careerism and increasing willingness to make bad faith arguments and repeat GOP talking points to undermine progressive goals and other candidates is disgusting. He can take his opportunist centrism back to McKinsey.
I am honestly giving Pete or Harris a second look. Biden looks like a fossil out there, but Warren just shot her campaign in the foot and Bernie will never win the nomination.
I used to be fine with Pete, but his change to taking the centrist lane if/when Biden falters and his willingness to engage in open punditry and horse race discussions (he thinks it’s a race between him and Warren) is gross and shows who he truly is. It’s a game to him. He has no values. He is also one I am confident would get obliterated by Trump.
Harris has done surprisingly bad. She is great on stage but the constant walking back and her terrible comms strategy is too much to overcome. A few candidates have a real reason for running. She doesn’t seem to have one. Apparently she is giving up on NH and letting field staff go.
@the inverse of the top two:
Understood, and I respect your choice. That is, after all, why we have primaries.
I think the brickbats from the GOP and the ultra-wealthy will be directed at whichever of Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren is leading at the time of the attack.
I view such attacks as a sign of our strength and success.
I actually thought Harris had a good middle path easing us in to M4A. She found out the hard way that it makes her too centrist for the liberals and too liberal for the centrists.
@good middle path:
As we discussed earlier, my objection to the “middle path” proposals of Ms. Harris and Mr. Buttigieg is that they simply don’t work. At least in my case, it has nothing to do with “too liberal” or “too centrist”.
Instead, it is that any approach to M4A that is broad enough to be effective also destroys the ability for any private insurer to make money. It is therefore misleading to talk about preserving existing coverage because those policies will be canceled whether or not the government allows them.
When the government is insuring a large portion of the population, then those people and/or employers of those people will have no incentive to pay any health insurance premiums at all. That causes insurance company revenue to collapse, and that causes the insurance company to collapse. As the insurance carriers decline, they will cancel the policies they issue. The most expensive policies for the carrier are the most appealing policies for the consumers. Those are the policies that will be canceled first.
It isn’t “centrist” to advocate for a system that can’t work. It isn’t “liberal” to favor a system than can work over a system that can’t work.
The “leftist” vs “centrist” discussion is a distraction and red herring.
There’s often something to be said for incrementalism, especially politically.
There is a bill in the Senate with another person’s name on it.
I think that choice is more likely to be correct when exemplifying a consistent and strong commitment to justice.
The last few weeks have a slightly different story in the polls. Unfortunately, Biden is not showing many signs of a “collapse,” although he is winning a staggering 2% of voters under 34 in some polls, while winning 2/3ds+ of Boomers.
Each of those above proposals would be a massive fight on their own. Bundle them together as part of Warrencare and its a surefire loser in the Senate.
Sherrod Brown had the right approach (and would have had my vote had he won). Expand Medicare to 50+ and anyone with a precondition while creating a robust public option for everyone else. Pair that with Martin O’Malley’s Allpayer price controls and you might actually bend the cost curve. Take the most expensive people to insure off the exchanges, universalize prices, and then a robust public option that over time will absorb most other people.
I agree with this take 100% and reject the Pelosi hit. We really are turning into the Tea Party of the left over here….
@ we are becoming the Tea Party of the left:
The Tea Party was founded on lies, ignorance, and bigotry. It pandered to the worst elements of our electorate, and the GOP pandered to it.
I reject the assertion that choosing candidates based on truth, information, and substance is remotely similar to the Tea Party.
Humanity has been tempted to govern by mob rule, passion, and raw power for as human culture has existed. The transition from that to the rule of law is literally the narrative of human growth and spiritual evolution.
The revolutionary impact of Hammurabi’s Code was the premise that society is improved when crime and punishment are established separately from the passion and feelings of the aggrieved party.
I fear that our increasing focus on “politics” — identity, pedigree, feelings and passion — at the expense of science, truth, rationality, and facts is a giant step backwards. To the extent that we succumb to that temptation, the Tea Party and Trumpists win.
We faced and failed a spiritual test of our cultural integrity in the aftermath of 9/11. We reacted just as OBL and AQ anticipated, with an explosion of anti-Muslim passion and with a nearly complete abandonment of the core values America proclaimed until then. It was no accident that America invaded Iraq in an illegal invasion supported by lies — that happened in a culture immersed in fears, lies, and ignorance about Islam, the Middle East, and 9/11.
The Dark Side again tempts us in the current behavior of Vladimir Putin and his henchmen.
This really IS a fundamental conflict between the devils and angels of humanity. We must choose between the forces of light, truth, logic, and love and the opposing forces of darkness, lies, passion, and hate.
Rightly or wrongly, this is why I embrace Elizabeth Warren and reject Kamala Harris, In my view, no other candidate comes close to Elizabeth Warren when I spread them on my internal moral and spiritual scale.
That’s why I support Ms. Warren.
My tea party of the left comment was directed towards doubleman’s attacks against Nancy Pelosi, who has masterfully bided her time at least four different times during her leadership in a way that has worked out for the long term interests of the House majority. She waited for Dubya to screw up on social security to get the house, she was willing to sacrifice the house for ACA passage, her 2018 messaging was on point and successful, and she waited until the right time to impeach today. The House is now in a great position to remain Democratic whether or not Trump is re-elected and I thank her for that every day. Primarying her because she correctly says there are not enough electoral votes to pass the Warren plan is idiotic.
It’s exactly the kind of self defeating empirical free logic the Tea Party used to destroy the speakerships of Paul Ryan and John Boehner and waste their majorities. It’s exactly the kind of empirical free nonsense that allowed a Fox News fed primary electorate to nominate Trump. I worry our electorate is becoming similarly unmoored from reality based assessments of what policies and plans are effective.
It’s easy to be Bernie or Corbyn. They win even when they lose. Because their losses are always proof the system is rigged against radicals like them and the revolution they promise is always around the corner. Bernie is a post-math candidate like Trump. The plan doesn’t have to add up for it to be successful. Warren’s approach is that by trying to be the candidate who does all her homework she just showed all her cards to her opponents, while doing nothing to win over Bernie voters in the primary or Obama-Trump voters in the general.
I appreciate your clarification.
Yes, Nancy Pelosi has done smart things to maintain her position. Slow incrementalism while people die is not something to cheer.
I don’t think she should be Speaker because in that most important position she undermines progressive goals, including with PAYGO, which is one of the least reality-based ideas in politics. I also don’t think she should be speaker for things like giving into right-wing racist attacks against Ihlan Omar and helping to put Omar’s life in constant danger.
Yesterday she warned democrats about choosing a left candidate because it would be too hard to win the electoral college. “What works in San Francisco does not necessarily work in Michigan.” Also yesterday – an Emerson matchup poll showing Sanders +14 and Warren +8 in Michigan over Trump.
Because people support Medicare for All and believe there are a number of ways to pay for it (considering that we’re already paying for it plus much more)? Because people are drowning in student debt and the total amount of debt is less than what the GOP got through on a tax cut in about three weeks?
What do you mean by “add up”? It seems like you are defending PAYGO again. Take a look at the recent increase in defense spending, which was supported by many Democrats. Did that “add up”? It didn’t require new revenue or cuts elsewhere because that’s not how government funding works. And yet, it happened. Somehow the same thing that let that defense increase happen can never be used to allow increases in health care spending or on education – and people who say otherwise aren’t being “realistic.”
If you want to use a dumb slur about people committed to justice, that’s on you.
@Because people support Medicare for All … GOP got through on a tax cut in about three weeks:
No on the former and yes on the latter.
I’m pretty sure it is you yourself who claim that expecting a significant expenditure to be accompanied by at least a sketch of how to pay for it is some nefarious “PAYGO” assault on life, the universe, and everything.
The issue with the GOP tax cut precisely IS that:
– It explodes the national debt
– It transfers even more wealth to the already wealthy
– Its support is based on flagrant lies.
You seem to be asserting that Ms. Pelosi is incorrect in her assessment of what will and won’t gain electoral votes in MI. That’s a very thin limb that I would never go out on — if nothing else, there are few if any current elected officials who are as accomplished at accurately perceiving the electorate as Ms. Pelosi.
My criticism of her has been different — I think there are times when moral and existential issues are in conflict with pragmatic politics. I find Ms. Pelosi too willing or even eager to jettison the morally correct answer in favor of the politically expedient alternative.
I agree with you that M4A absolutely must happen. I suspect that Ms. Pelosi is correct that M4A will be a tough sell in today’s MI.
I think that a reason for the resistance to M4A in MI is the lie that it will cost too much. It seems to me that there are three fundamental approaches towards this resistance:
1. Punt M4A in favor of whatever is currently in place.
2. Show that M4A is actually LESS expensive than whatever is currently in place
3. Argue that health is priceless and it’s wrong to ask about cost
It seems to me that Joe Biden, the GOP, and perhaps Ms. Pelosi are advocating #1. Elizabeth Warren and, to a lesser extent, Bernie Sanders are arguing #2. You, especially in your comments about “PAYGO” seem to be advancing #3 (or some variant thereof).
My money is on #2.
The reason I attack PAYGO is that it is a fundamental lie about how the government is financed that results in severe harm to people in this country, especially the least fortunate. It is truly a disaster for policy.
How does one pay for Medicare for All? Exactly like how we pay for everything else. The government pays for it. Revenue does not need to be collected in advance and allotted to the spending – although that’s how we’ve been taught to think about government spending since elementary school. It’s a lie, though.
Sure, talk about new taxes that will offset some deficit spending or, more importantly, that will lead to more equality. Committing to detailed new taxes for a specific plan to account for every dime in advance can serve to constrain the policy and also bind one politically. That is a problem with Warren’s proposal, but the main thing is that it defensively puts us into that incorrect thinking about PAYGO, which is something that Democrats should try hard to defeat.
That is NOT a problem with the tax cut. Your other points are correct. The idea of exploding the deficit or debt is lie both sides like to trot out when the other side does something they don’t like. Unfortunately, Democrats have internalized it to prevent good policy, and the GOP jettisons the idea every time in power in order to give the good stuff to their donors. We should follow their lead but use the federal government to help people and not worry about deficits (except to the extent that they may cause significant inflation).
She may be great at maintaining the caucus but I have not been that impressed with Pelosi’s political prognostications, or some of her electoral work in the House – Like backing Henry Cuellar in a blue district even though he votes with Trump ~70% of the time, or Dan Lipinski who will help sink any choice legislation.
We’re in agreement. She won’t do the work for progressive policies.
Perhaps. It is also likely because of a larger union population with negotiated health care. I would like to see what happened to support after what happened with the UAW when their negotiated health care was promptly cancelled when the membership went on strike.
I think it’s funny how much credit you give to Warren compared to Sanders on M4A. He’s the reason we’re talking about it this year at all, and he’s been doing the heavy lifting on the arguments for it, including that it will cost less than the status quo, an argument he has been making for years and that is core to the promise of M4A. Maybe you don’t like how he regularly discusses that issue in the context of the extraction of profit by insurers and pharma companies?
I am not arguing for some #3. I am generally #2, but I think the moral case is more important. I just don’t think we need to commit to a PAYGO trap and account for every cent in advance. For MI, instead of just focusing on cost, talk about how with M4A you will get care that can’t be cancelled at the whims of your employer. But what won’t help is talking about how 13.7% of the cost of the plan will come from a new tax on X.
@won’t help is talking about how 13.7% of the cost…:
Have you ever been in a union contract discussion? Workers go out on strike about differences of 1% in a cost-of-living increase, or increases of 13.7% in a family out-of-pocket limit.
Perhaps I have a higher opinion of working-class men and women than you. I think the key message that needs to be communicated is something along the lines of:
“You will get better health care than you get today and more money in your net pay on every check. If you have payroll deductions today for an “employee contribution” to your health care coverage, ALL of that will go into your bank account. If you have a health savings account or similar plan, all of that will be available.”
I think the noise about “new taxes” is a dishonest ploy intended to make people think M4A will cost them more, when in fact it will cost them MUCH less than they pay today.
I agree this is the argument we should make. Is this argument compatible with her plan?
@Is this argument compatible with her plan?
I lifted this comment directly FROM her plan.
Has Bernie come out for massive deficit spending? He seems to be vaguely arguing that his tax increases will pay for the whole plan, but he hasn’t costed anything out like Warren just did. Her costs are widely optimistic and rest on several assumptions that unlikely things will happen. At least she costed it out though.
I would respect them both if they just argued that deficits don’t matter and we will deficit spend in the short term to solve our ballooning health care crisis in the long term. I think a similar argument could be made for GND. Pay more up front to avoid the more far reaching human and economic costs of continued inaction.
I don’t see how her plan does that. Her plan just seems to transfer the payments my employer and I presently make to insurers to the government. It is for that reason that it can be accurately portrayed as a tax increase on the middle class or a hiring freeze on small businesses. There are next to no baked in price or cost controls. She just assumes a government takeover will eventually lower costs. She just assumes immigration reform, high corporate taxes, and deep defense cuts will pass.
@She assumes…:
Have you actually read her plan?
She proposes to collect 98% of the current premium from EMPLOYERS. That is a tax increase on employers, not individuals. It is a tax increase that explicitly eliminates a larger existing payroll cost. The employer saves money.
Describing this a tax increase on the middle class is simply incorrect.
@ No baked in price or cost controls:
There are no baked-in price or cost controls on private insurance — as Americans have discovered to our extreme pain over the past decade or two.
@She just assumes a government takeover will eventually lower costs:
She doesn’t “just assume” anything. This is among the most detailed part of the plan. Health insurance is, by construction, overhead. The plan walks through specific aspects, item-by-item, and supports her assumptions with concrete cost data from reliable third parties. That’s not assuming, that’s deriving.
Every other first-world nation with government-operated health care has lower administration and overhead costs compared to the US — generally by about a factor of two.
@She just assumes immigration reform, high corporate taxes, and deep defense cuts will pass:
Her proposed Immigration reform and “deep defense cuts” (they aren’t that deep!) total $1.2 T out of $20.3 T. That’s about 6% of the total. I’m happy to stipulate that the estimate is wrong by 6%. I hope you’ll agree that every comparable proposal from other candidates has a MUCH higher error bar.
Her proposed new taxes on large corporations are proposals, not assumptions. They are no less valid than the comparable proposals from any of the other candidates.
Ms. Warren has given a clear and substantive description of her desired direction. Those aren’t assumptions, they are proposals.
Have you read the proposed plan that I linked to in the thread-starter? I mean actually READ it, not read or listened to alleged summaries of it.
Yes I have read it and have cited center left policy wonks who have issues with its financing. I believe the tax on employers will be felt on employees in the form of lower wages, reduced benefits, and fewer hiring opportunities.
There is a good argument that switching to a single payer plan that eliminates or employer contributions entirely would force employers to compete on wages instead of benefits. Warren’s plan disregards this by effectively punishing the companies that provide benefits by making them pay a head tax to the government, she exempts companies that do not currently provide benefits, and she does not exempt most small businesses. Wal-Mart and Wall Street will have a far easier time absorbing this new cost than Main Street. Her plan does not show how it reduces costs to employers in a manner that offsets the tax increases.
That’s the first pillar of her funding. The second pillar rests on raising corporate taxes higher than they’ve ever been, assuming historically high rates of enforcement, and cracking down on overseas shell companies. This will lead to a substantial repatriation of American companies overseas. Maybe to the new post-Brexit tax haven UK. Or to existing tax havens like Ireland and the Caymans. The third pillar is comprehensive immigration reform and payroll taxes from new immigrants. It seems like linking these reforms will make it harder to pass either, and frankly, immigration reform is a higher priority for the families in my school. Especially those that need to be reunited. Fourthly is the biggest defense cut in modern history, which will be very difficult to pass past an army of defense contractors and lobbyists. With Russia and China on the rise and our cyber capabilities lacking, I also question its wisdom. We should evaluate defense spending on a case by case basis on what protects America, not on how it best funds a health care program.
Her four pillars on their own would be heavy lifts for even the 2008-2010 Democratic trifecta. It spent all its capital and lost its majority on ACA. I don’t want immigrants to have to wait another ten years for reform. I don’t want to have to wait on climate action. Or gun control. Those are all issues that command the support of moderates and independents in addition to progressives. Single payer as she specifically lays it out will not.
@I believe the tax on employers will be felt on employees in the form of lower wages, reduced benefits, and fewer hiring opportunities.:
I think that is so far from reality that it is either a GOP talking point, a health insurance industry talking point, or both. I really don’t see any way at all to describe that as a “center left” response.
Here’s why.
The tax on employers replaces what they are already spending on employee health insurance, minus 2%.
Please explain how reducing a payroll expense line item by 2% will cause an employer to lower wages., reduce benefits, or hire fewer employees.
It just doesn’t make any sense. Those effects — lower wages, reduced benefits, fewer hires — are ways that employers react to increased expenses. That isn’t what this plan does. In fact, this plan does the opposite.
The same with your second paragraph. Repeat after me — slowly, with emphasis:
THERE
IS
NO
NEW
COST
You write:
I am really just dumbfounded that you offer this, particular after you’ve read the plan. There is no tax increase to employers. There is instead a 2% decrease. There just isn’t. It is a lie to say there is. If you’ve read the plan yourself, then why do you repeat it?
I invite you to cite whatever language in the plan you think causes there to be a new cost. If you are talking about the increases applied to large multinational corporations who attempt to evade taxes by parking money overseas, then we can talk about that. That’s got nothing to do with small business on main street, though, nothing to do with payroll costs, and nothing to do with employment.
As far as competing on wages rather than benefits, my reaction is that it’s about time. It’s about time that government put an absolute STOP to the despicable corporate practice of promising health insurance that in practice is absolutely worthless.
In your third paragraph, surely you mean expatriation, not repatriation. We have decades of experience to show that the impact of corporate giveaways that Ms. Warren proposes to end is only to increase shareholder profits. When the current corporate overseas tax giveaways were put in place, corporations did NOT raise wages, increase benefits, or hire more employees. What those corporations did was direct the resulting gains directly into executive and shareholder pockets. Paul Krugman writes about this frequently and at length. The response of large corporations to the huge tax cut the GOP gave them last year was to buy back stock — they distributed the tax windfall directly to their shareholders.
I agree that the cuts in defense spending should be on a case-by-case basis. I think that funding national health care is among the best drivers of that (addressing climate change is another). Out-of-control spending on a military designed to fight the wars of the 20th century is actually a threat to our national security because it squanders the investments we need to make to compete against Russia and China in the 21st century.
Our threat from Russia and China is not their military, it is instead their exploding political and economic influence. China is waging an intellectual property war against us, and all the bullets, planes, and bombs we can build are useless against that. Cyberwarfare is nearly free compared to the things our current defense department budget spends money on — that’s why cyberwarfare is so popular among nations like North Korea, Russia, China, and others who can’t afford to compete in other ways.
I’d like to remind you that Mr. Trump — who gives every indication of being a Russian puppet and asset — is aggressively promoting an expansion of defense spending, specifically on big-ticket items like aircraft carriers. If we assume that he does the bidding of Mr. Putin, then why would he propose that if such spending were good for the US and bad for Russia?
The proposed contributions from immigration reform total $0.4 T over ten years. The proposed defense cuts total $0.8T over the same period. The contemplated total of the overall plan is $23.1 T
I think it’s incorrect to characterize either of those — at 1.7% and 3.5% respectively as a “major pillar” of the proposal. Either or both could be traded away without hurting the big picture.
The economic arguments you cite just don’t stand up to even casual inspection. I don’t doubt that some will make them — I would not characterize those who do as “center left”.
I don’t think immigration reform is tied to this proposal at all. I think Ms. Warren will pursue immigration reform and is more likely to succeed than any of the other candidates.
I think addressing wealth concentration will benefit every other concern and demographic — it is far and away our most immediate crisis.
I think our political climate is very different from what it was in 2008-2010. I think President Warren in 2021 will be more aggressive than President Obama was in 2009. I hope that our financial systems in 2021 are not as close to utter collapse as they were in 2009, and I think that will give the incoming Democratic government far more freedom act and act dramatically.
Most of all, I hope and pray that we provide President Warren with the kind of mandate that put FDR in office. I hope that Ms. Warren takes office with Speaker who is as willing to advance the agenda of that mandate as Mr. Garner, Mr. Rainey, Mr. Byrns, Mr. Bankhead, and Mr. Rayburn were. I also hope that our Speaker in 2021 lives longer than each of the first four (they each died in office).
I often say that politics is a lagging, not leading, indicator. President Warren and our Democratic House and Senate will do what our popular mandate demands that they do.
I expect President Warren to take office with a mandate that Barack Obama did not have. I expect her to take office with an economy that is stronger than the near-disaster that Barack Obama inherited.
My bottom line is that we tried the incremental “pragmatic” approach to health care with the ACA. That approach failed. The ACA is dead. The expanding health crisis is as bad or worse than it was in 2008. My children, today, have fewer health insurance options than they had in 2008. Those options are more expensive and cover less. The care my children receive is more expensive and less effective.
Now that we’ve tried the best “pragmatic” approach we could find (and I think the ACA was that), I think we need to pursue an approach that will work.
We need single-payer government-sponsored health care. We can give it any name we like, but that’s what we need.
Now.
Krugman is more rosy on the numbers and employer mandate than I am, but even he concedes:
David Leonhardt has a wider take on the economics of the plan, he takes on the politics today:
Ezra Klein on the employment provision:
Obviously I want to build on ACA and even support single payer as the destination, I just think this specific plan opens her up to a lot of attacks that will resonate with voters who we need to win to defeat Donald Trump.
@jconway:
I appreciate your clarification of these.
I think these are all aspects that can and will evolve if Ms. Warren is nominated and elected. I agree with the quote you offered from Paul Krugman.
I think that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi opened their 2008 negotiation by taking single-payer and a public option off the table. The ACA was accurately described at the time as “RomneyCare++”. That might have been a political necessity then. I think that Elizabeth Warren will be presented with a very different political landscape in 2021 if nominated and elected in 2020.
In my view, the plan proposed by Ms. Warren is marvelous way of setting agenda and direction for that. It very clearly differentiates herself from Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama. I think that’s a political masterstroke during this primary season.
Part of my admiration for that is the way it has brought out the real Joe Biden.
I think there is plenty of time and room for Ms. Warren to evolve her agenda as she gains the nomination.
I think the experience of other countries shows a government takeover is very likely to lower costs.
True, but those countries started from scratch. They did not absorb a system as expensive and inefficient as ours. I would much prefer to reduce costs first and then take over the system. Having the government set prices on prescription drugs-something even President Trump is allegedly open to-is a no brainer.
So is Warren’s plan to have the government produce generic drugs and have a biotech R&D arm of its own. So is Warren’s idea to expand SS and Medicare to cover 55+. Her universal child care plan is incredibly popular, so would expanding Medicaid to cover more people and to cover kids. Setting an all rate payer system would standardize costs and reduce them. Lastly offering a Medicare buy in or a ten year phase in like Harris. I think all of those things are likelier to pass and likelier to reduce costs than the specific plan she offered. I think she loses more voters with this plan than she gains.
@loses more voters with this plan than she gains:
We’ll see. I think this plan works to her advantage during this stage of the campaign.
I think it gives her the opportunity to embrace the positive aspects of the other Democratic candidates as they drop out under the rubric of “I welcome all good ideas.”.
I think the supporters of Joe Biden will switch to Pete Buttigieg as Mr. Biden digs himself deeper and deeper into his many holes. By the time Mr. Buttigieg concedes (which he certainly will, I don’t think he has a prayer of unseating Ms. Warren), I think he will work with Ms. Warren to very carefully tailor modifications to her proposal to woo his disappointed supporters.
I think Ms. Warren is skillfully navigating a course that will not only get her elected but will also create a mandate that the GOP cannot block.
I think that is true of the donors. Enough big money people are splitting donations anyway among these types of candidates. I’ve seen polling that the second choice of Biden supporters is currently more likely to be Warren or Sanders than anyone else. Everything can obviously change but there is less evidence now that people are ready to jump to Buttigieg than there is for them to jump to the to candidates with the most name recognition (which would be a good thing).
Support for MFA drops when pollsters get into specifics. I give Warren credit for having the courage to get into the weeds which Bernie does not, but her proposal will likely poll poorly and alienate constituencies the party needs to keep or convert in 2020 to avoid repeating 2016’s mistakes.
I agree with you that I would rather we start with a full throttle MFA proposal and then negotiate rather than negotiate ourselves into a centrist corner the right will decry as socialism anyway. There was no need to get into the numbers this soon.
I’d love to know what specifics those pollsters are asking about.
Is anyone, for example, asking people whether they care whether their employer pays the employer’s share of their health insurance costs to a private insurance company or to the government?
Is anyone asking whether employees prefer a plan where they have no deductibles, no premiums, no co-pays, and no out-of-pocket costs over whatever they have today?
Is anyone asking whether people prefer having to think about whether their doctor or hospital is “in-network” or “out-of-network”? Is anyone asking people if they prefer a system where their children are not covered while those children are out-of-state attending college?
Do people really want to get hit with an ambulance bill of thousands of dollars for a two mile trip after their child is hurt on a playground or hit by a car?
Do people really like receiving bills from their doctor for tens of thousands of dollars for procedures where their insurance provider actually pays a few hundred dollars and everybody is happy?
Do people like the same routine procedure costing thousands of dollars in one hospital and hundreds of dollars in another hospital 20 minutes away?
I don’t doubt that polling designed by big-business and the health insurance industry shows people being unhappy.
What I doubt is whether those polls ask people about what they actually care about when it comes to health care.
I wonder if anybody is doing reverse polling — ask people what they want for their health care, and then compare the options using those factors as a benchmark.
I have a hard time believing that people prefer spending thousands of dollars a month on insurance premiums for plans that don’t cover most of the medical bills they get. I have a hard time believing that people want to restrict their provider choices to “in network” providers.
I look forward to a full and open dialogue about health care — the kind of dialogue that we should have had in 2008 and did not.
They ask questions like the loaded “Would you give up your current coverage for a government run plan?”
They do not ask the questions like “do you want a health care plan where you can keep your doctor and have no co-pays, deductibles, or co-insurance?” or “do you want a health care plan that you won’t lose if you change jobs or if your employer decides to make changes?”
The declaration that support “plummets” when you get into the details is tough to square with the types of “detail” questions they ask in these polls. It makes for really good ammo for opponents of health care justice, though.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen polls that ask the questions you want, though I for one would have no problem answering yes to your first questions.
I would answer yes if it lead to cost savings. I have no reason to believe that it will under Warren’s plan.
@ I have no reason to believe that it will under Warren’s plan:
Really? It sounds like you’re arguing against the fundamental value proposition of single-payer government-sponsored health care. Is that really what you intend?
Dingell and Conyers had about 100 years between them in Congress and they would annually introduce M4A bills that went nowhere. Nearly all of Sanders bills have gone nowhere. Criticize the ACA all you want, I have as well, but you go to war with the process you have. So long as we have a Senate, rural communities are going to oppose things progressives want like gun control and single payer. I want single payer too, but I will take the half of loaf that is ACA. I know people that would have died had it not existed, and believe me, a single payer bill would have died in 2009 and we would not have had ACA.
I do agree with the notion of negotiating from a position of strength. I think Bernie’s approach to health care is the best one politically. Ask for the biggest bill and start with a vague outline. I bet you if President Sanders starts that process it ends with something close to what Buttigieg and Biden are proposing, or what Harris is proposing. If President Sanders wants Senator Sinema or Senator Manchin to vote for it, let alone, if we have a GOP Senate there’s no hope for even that.
My fear is that his supporters are not smart enough to see that, and will view Sander’s inevitable compromises as betrayal. I also think the failure to launch single payer in VT will come back to bite him. He had nothing to do with that process (unlike Ted Kennedy’s role in Romney/DiMasicare here), and did little to save it when it faltered. Warrens supporters are also in for a let down-there is no way her plan passes.
So the political question is how do we sell single payer to rural voters who will surely benefit from it.
Nice contempt you have there.
People are fine with compromise, as long as it comes with a real commitment. The pre-compromise and saying “that thing is not possible” is what people hate about politics. A public option died in 2009 because of Joe Lieberman and an unwillingness to actually fight for it.
A M4A bill as proposed will not be passing in the next four years, but a compromise of a very very strong public option, lower Medicare age, expanded Medicare benefits, and drug reimportation and stronger price negotiation power could all happen (assuming a Dem senate). You’re right about where a compromise could end up – similar to the Biden/Pete/Harris plans. If you start with their plans as goals, you’ll end up with 2% tweaks on the ACA.
You act as if Sanders is an all-or-nothing-take-his-ball-and-go-home guy. His very very long record is nothing of the sort.
One would think that the Vermont “failure” would have already come around. People have brought it up over and over again, but it hasn’t stuck. Maybe that’s because of course Sanders wasn’t involved at all. Maybe that’s because the Dem governor doomed it to failure and never tried to make it work. Maybe it’s because single payer is something that can’t really work at a small state level. It’s a program that must be large and federal to work.
Even if Sanders himself is not all or nothing, many of his supporters certainly come across that way.
I’m not blaming him for VT-I am saying critics of single payer have a point that it failed under very favorable headwinds up there due to the funding mechanism and could similarly fail nationwide. I also agree with you and Sanders that it’s better to be vague and go for broke with a maximalist position and worry about paying for it after negotiations have started. Warren did not do this. Her plan is both too specific and too broad to succeed.
My worry is how vocal Sanders supporters (the on twitter especially) currently calling Harris, Biden, and Pete insurances industry shills who want innocents to die can justify supporting the same damn outfit that it’s the inevitable outcome of this legilslation.
To me Tea Party means not accepting anything less than your absolute preference, a fanatical call to purity. IOW attacking Dems who criticize M4A.
I think there is a smart way and a wrong way to attack M4A. The Harris or Pete approach is to argue that incrementalism is better for workers, the economy, or likelier to pass. Biden’s approach is to lie that any new change repeals ACA and to repeat GOP talking points about government taking health care away from seniors. It’s really bad stuff, and it hurts the ability of any potential nominee including Biden to pivot to offense on health care in the general.
I’m responding a comment from jconway here so that it isn’t buried in the nesting.
How do you figure?
I see the predictable and predicted incoming attacks, especially from the ultra-wealthy that she proposes to target.
I don’t see that as any kind of error or blunder though. I wonder what you’re referring to.
I think outside of the liberal bubbles we inhabit, people will dislike this plan. I’m not talking about white people in a diner somewhere in the Midwest, I already heard grumbling from the janitors and lunch ladies at the urban high school I work at. From the math teachers who are skeptical it does not add up. I think the way she communicates appeals to those of us who already care about and know about this issue, but she needs to figure out how to sell it to everybody else.
I’m truly curious about the concerns of the janitors and lunch ladies. I’m less curious about the math teachers, if only because the math is pretty straightforward. It might be interesting to ask them for specifics about what they think doesn’t “add up”.
If you get a chance, I’d really to know what those janitors and lunch ladies are grumbling about.
Higher taxes and higher costs of living. Higher crime in their neighborhoods. How overcrowded the school has become (largely due to an influx of immigrants). The kinds of issues Trump talks about (but does nothing on) and Democrats have a lot of good plans for (that they don’t talk about).
They are pretty satisfied with the health care they get (which is 100% because they are unionized public employees, their private sector peers likely do not enjoy benefits). Warren did better when she was focusing on college costs, housing costs, and increasing unionization. Put workers in a position to bargain for better health care. Talk about living wages. Talk about funding newer and less overcrowded schools. Smaller class sizes. Those sorts of things. The big structural change stuff appeals to the primary voter, it does not help in the general.
The data says that crime rates in Revere are falling, not rising. We’ve already talked about taxes elsewhere on the thread. It seems to me that school spending and overcrowding in Revere is very much a state, rather than federal, issue.
Any Democrat is going to be better than Donald Trump on all of these issues, and especially on immigration and taxes.
Intentionally or not, I think you’ve explained why Joe Biden continues to be strong in communities like Revere.
@The big structural change stuff appeals to the primary voter, it does not help in the general.
I agree with you. We are in the primary season, and I think that’s why Ms. Warren is talking about things that appeal to the primary voter. I expect her to pivot back to her main themes if and when she wins the nomination.
FWIW, here is Politifact’s take on this plan.
We’re still waiting for similarly specific plans from any of the other candidates. I find Mr. Biden’s response particularly offensive. He combines an apparent denial of how bad things currently are with a string of offensive personal insults (“elitist”, “arrogant”, etc.). It leaves me with the distinct impression that Mr. Biden is WAY over his head.
A celebrity within the technology community once said “Plans are worthless. Planning is essential.” We do not drive a car by carefully setting the steering wheel, locking it in place, and then stepping on the gas. We instead constantly adjust the wheel — based on a clear idea of where we want to go and the current roadway.
I assume that any plan offered in 2019 will be different from what actually happens after 2020 (and, for that matter, between now and the election). In my view, the purpose of these plans is to learn how the various candidates propose to move forward.
I think the plan from Ms. Warren very successfully shows the difference between Ms. Warren and her competitors. It seems clear enough to me that the others either don’t have a plan or aren’t willing to write it down, publish it, and talk about it.
Her detailed plans are a large part of why she’s my strong second choice, but I don’t understand why people get all up in arms about Biden’s comments. They were NOT directed at anyone in particular and it’s not appropriate to take them so personally.
Not directed at anyone in particular? Are you kidding? Are you aware of what he’s said and written? For example, the following comes from his own Medium piece (emphasis mine):
Who else was he talking about?
Similarly, CNN quotes him (emphasis mine):
Ms. Warren’s “wrong primary” comment, while harsh, applies equally well to at least four of her competitors — in alphabetical order, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, and Amy Klobochar. She was quite specific about what she objects to and why (from my second link above, emphasis mine):
Joe Biden most certainly IS attacking Ms. Warren personally. “Elitist”. “Condescending”. “Arrogant”. He seems to be trying out the “Professor Warren” meme that worked so well for Scott Brown.
It’s all well and good to defend your current first choice in the primary, but I think it’s important to acknowledge that Mr. Biden did, in fact, spend most of last week attacking Ms. Warren personally at every opportunity.
This week, Mr. Biden not only repeated Republican talking points — he also embraced the slash-and-burn personal attacks that have Republicans love so much. He is literally running Scott Brown’s “Professor Warren” play.
That play won’t be any more successful for Joe Biden than it was when Scott Brown tried it.
From the links provided he did not name Warren, while he is disagreeing with her ideas. Some people come off as elitist, condescending, and arrogant, but Warren does not and I think Biden knows that, which is why when he used that particular phrase I don’t think he was referring to her. You’ll recall I also said that I didn’t think Warren’s comments were as direct and personal as some are making them out to be.
Also, you’ve gone way too far toward purity for my tastes if you think Biden, Buttigieg, Harris, and Klobuchar are in the wrong primary. Are you seriously calling them DINOs?
I have been following this discussion and the links provided, and I stand by my contention that this is largely a media-driven conflict. The Democratic Party IS a big enough tent to accommodate all of our candidates and I for one like it that way.