'Medicare-for-All' as the Wall

'Medicare-for-All' as an issue seems to playing out a lot like Trump's wall.  Both examples serve as good rallying cries for the base, as well as simple ways of declaring one's priorities.  And neither one will actually happen.

It has been suggested that Trump wasn't committed to a literal wall, but that it symbolized his priorities, namely cracking down on illegal immigration and tightening up the border. If that were true it would have been effective symbol, but clearly at this point we can see that Trump has become enamored with an actual physical wall. This is probably mostly because it would serve as a monument to himself. But it's also true he was willing to let it go until Ann Coulter and others started calling him a sell-out. So he's decided to die on this particular hill, and his poll numbers, never great but always stable, are finally starting to sink. He's boxed himself in and politically bleeding out.

Medicare-for-All likewise effectively signals a politician's priorities in a simple, easy to understand way. And, likewise, it will never happen. Not just because of the insurance lobby, but because of the American public. Medicare-for-all polls well... until it doesn't. Until people are told their taxes will go up, and that they will lose the insurance plans they have.  As Jonathan Chait explains:

If you could sit down face to face with every American and calmly talk them through the numbers step by step, you could probably convince them to feeling comfortable giving up employer-sponsored insurance. Since you can’t do that, the only option is passing a bill in a hysterical atmosphere where the insurance industry and conservatives bombard the public with warnings of massive middle-class tax hikes and tens of millions of Americans losing their current insurance to get moved onto a government plan.
If we didn’t have an employer-based system already, it might be politically feasible to build a single-payer system. But the politics of uprooting that deformed tree are extremely imposing. 

This is the reality that some sectors of the left would like to just wave away. I'm old enough to remember all the way back in 2010, when Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate while controlling the House and the Presidency (a combination unlikely to occur again anytime soon), and were only barely able to drag Obamacare, a far less radical piece of legislation, across the finish line. It was excruciating and exhausting. And they paid for it at the ballot box. It was worth it, but they paid for it. To think a newly elected Democratic president would simply be able to wipe out our entire health insurance industry is just absurd.

But like Trump and his wall, at some point there will come a reckoning when reality has to be acknowledged.  At that point the Ann Coulters of the left will scream 'corporate sell-out!' Hopefully our next leader will have more sense than Trump when that day comes and deal with political reality.  Obamacare insured 20 million formerly uninsured people.  Further improvements could insure even more. Insisting on Medicare-for-all will insure zero new people, because it won't happen. But its supporters will at least be able to feel morally superior to everyone else, so...

Class war

Illustration of capital gains being taxed at the same rate as income

As a quick follow up to the last post, this article makes a good point that I alluded to but should be stressed: 'moderation' isn't necessarily the best way to get elected. It depends on the issue. The article argues that the language of class-warfare ('soak the rich!'), regardless what you think of it on the merits, does at least make for good politics. Dems just need to stop talking about 'income inequality,' an abstract concept that most people don't care about, and just talk about making rich people cough up more money. I think this is probably right, and I think it's good policy as well... so let's do it!  

Now, don't get your hopes up that it's actually going to happen.... unless we also elect a House and Senate that are also on board... a much more challenging task. But by all means, raise the battle cry!

Warren 2020