Pirate's Cove

Though, of course, they’re calling it “Medicare For All”

Democrats are united in bashing GOP on Obamacare. Medicare for All could reopen a rift.

Progressives are pushing Medicare for All in some of the Democratic Party’s most competitive Senate primaries next year, threatening the unity the party has found on attacking Republicans over expiring Obamacare subsidies.

In Maine, Graham Platner said he’s making Medicare for All a “core part” of his platform in his race against Gov. Janet Mills, the establishment pick who’s called for a universal health care program. In Illinois, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and Rep. Robin Kelly are both championing the concept — and calling out rival Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi for not fully embracing it.

In Minnesota, Medicare for All has emerged as a key distinction between progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and moderate Rep. Angie Craig, who supports adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act rather than Medicare for All. Flanagan said she “absolutely” expects the policy to define the primary because “it doesn’t matter if I’m in the urban core, the suburbs or greater Minnesota — when I say I’m a supporter of Medicare for All, the room erupts.”

And it’s become a flashpoint in Michigan, where physician Abdul El-Sayed, who wrote a book called Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide, is using his signature issue to draw a contrast with Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who favor other approaches.

What they all fail to mention are detailed plans for how it will work and be paid for. They have lots of slogans, ideas on sticky notes, but, remember, it already failed in Vermont. And studies in California showed it would cost double the current state budget.

But some more moderate Democrats worry that progressives’ renewed push for Medicare for All would undermine the party’s recent united front in fighting for an extension of the Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year, leading to a significant spike in insurance costs for millions of Americans. Their effort initially failed in the Senate, but with the help of four vulnerable Republicans who crossed party lines this week, Democrats have now secured a House vote on an extension in January.

“We have a singular message, which is: ‘Don’t let these tax credits go.’ We have Republicans on the ropes,” said a national Democratic strategist who works on Senate races and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “I don’t think introducing ‘we need MFA’ is the right strategy right now. I think it would be unhelpful.”

Also remember, the original idea of Obamacare was that it would be a bridge towards single payer, and most experts thought it would tank insurance companies. But, instead, Democrats gave gobs of taxpayer money directly to those health insurance companies when they started dropping out of the Obamacare exchanges and the cost of premiums was going up an average of 10% per year, and those same companies started giving money to Democrats for elections

Centrists have long dismissed Medicare for All as both a policy pipedream and political albatross for their party — a rallying cry for the left that serves as catnip for Republican admakers looking to broad brush Democrats as socialists. They argue that surveys often fail to present voters with the full picture of how Medicare for All would work, and therefore fail to capture its electoral toxicity.

Ask the question “do you really, truly want the federal government controlling your health care?” and see what the answers are.

Platner has been extolling Medicare for All from the start of his campaign and said it gets the “most raucous” response at his events across Maine, where a recent Pan Atlantic Research poll found 63 percent support for the system (and Platner trailing Mills by 10 points).

Is Politico really using the guy who got a Nazi symbol tattooed on his chest?

And in Michigan, El-Sayed has slammed McMorrow’s call for universal health care with a public option as “incoherent” and ill-informed as the two compete for the same slice of progressive voters. McMorrow has knocked the idea of a single-payer system run by President Donald Trump and his controversial health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And she’s promoted a public option so people who like their private insurance can keep it. Stevens’ campaign says she supports strengthening Obamacare, including through a public option, without endorsing Medicare for All.

I mean, there’s some TDS in there, but, yeah, what happens when the other party is in charge?

Single payer barely works in countries that have it, ones with a lot fewer citizens, with rich folks bolting to the U.S. for care when the governments give them a walking cane instead of a hip replacement. Where procedures, even things like MRIs, can take a year or more. Sounds great, right? Anyhow, you Dems fight it out.