Declaring that health care is a human right, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) staked out a bold, and indeed risky, position on one of the top issues in the presidential race Wednesday night.
Leaving little room for doubt that she has gone far to the left, Warren fully endorsed the elimination of private health insurance during the first Democratic debate of the 2020 election cycle. Warren was only two of twelve Democrats on the stage who raised their hands to indicate they would go to that extreme. The other was New York City mayor Bill de Blasio.
While Medicare for All is popular in name, the policy itself is a third rail for Democrats. Besides the expense, a true government-run health care system is alien to most Americans, who would prefer to keep their own coverage. Polls show that Americans like the idea of Medicare for All — until they’re told that it would entail eliminating private health insurance.
Veering left
While virtually all Democrats say they support Medicare for All, few have gone so far as Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in seeking a straight-up single-payer system with no private insurance. At the first primary debate Wednesday night, Warren left no doubt that she’s in agreement with Sanders by formally moving to that extreme.
Warren previously endorsed Sanders’ plan, which looks to boot roughly 180 million Americans off of private insurance in four years, but until Wednesday night she remained ambivalent on the details. There is now no doubt where she stands.
After previously hinting at a gradualist approach, Warren came down firmly on the side of eliminating private health insurance, saying that the problem lies with politicians who won’t fight for it, not the system itself.
“Look at the business model of an insurance company. It’s to bring in as many dollars as they can in premiums and to pay out as few dollars as possible for your health care,” Warren said. “That leaves families with rising premiums, rising copays and fighting with insurance companies to try to get the health care that their doctors say that they and their children need. Medicare for All solves that problem.”
Dem divide
Few other Democrats have lurched as far left as Sanders and Warren in advocating single-payer healthcare. Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) made waves by calling to eliminate private health insurance earlier this year, but she has since backtracked and danced around the issue. Other Democrats Wednesday night attacked insurance companies while sticking to a gradualist, reform-based approach.
Just like Democrats still call abortion “reproductive health care,” Democrats who support Medicare for All are banking on the vagueness of that idea. They’re afraid to go after private health care and take on the risk of actually endorsing single-payer health care.
This is not the case with Warren, however. It may be a blessing and a curse of Warren’s that she likes detail. In this campaign, she has not been one to paint in broad strokes. Warren’s many “plans” — to regulate Big Tech, to bring back jobs — may explain her recent surge in popularity. Voters like a leader with ideas.
But Warren’s position on health care could hurt her further down the line. In the seemingly unlikely event that she wins the nomination, Trump could use Warren’s criticism from her own party against her. The largely invisible former Rep. John Delaney (D-MD) took a veiled swipe at Warren that revealed a devastating vulnerability, writes John Greenfield in Politico.
“Also it’s bad policy. If you go to every hospital in the country and you ask them one question, which is how would it have been for you least year if every one of your bills were paid at the Medicare rate? Every single hospital administrator said they would close. And the Medicare for All bill requires payments to stay at current Medicare rates. So to some extent we’re basically supporting a bill that will have every hospital closed,” Delaney said.
Risky radicalism
Warren is currently duking it out with Sanders for supremacy in the populist lane, so maybe she felt that she needed to prove her progressive bona fides. But her far-left position could hurt her chances in the general election. Generally speaking, primary contests are more ideologically driven, since candidates are working hard to curry favor with their party’s base.
To be sure, Warren was far from the only Democrat staking far-left, out of touch positions Wednesday night. The debate was full of mumbo-jumbo about men having abortions, and candidates squared off in Spanish for virtue-signaling points. But when the general election comes around, the nominee will have to dial down the agenda and speak to all voters.
While Trump and Republicans have done their utmost to make the “socialism” label stick to Democrats, it’s a much more effective slander coming from other Democrats. Trump could point to Democrats and say, “see, even Democrats agree Warren’s too radical.”
If Warren has proven anything in this campaign, it’s that she’s not afraid to push the party line — on reparations, on changing our electoral system — and now, on healthcare. It may endear her to a small base of progressives. But what about the American people?
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