Does their “Medicare for All” pledge at the debates mean anything for the Democrats in 2020?
Remember during one of the debates, this happened:
Well, now this is happening
After rushing to out-socialist Bernie Sanders by unquestioningly embracing Medicare for All, the Washington Post reports that presidential candidates have begun singing a different tune. Kamala Harris might be carrying the melody, but she’s getting a lot of harmony from the rest of the choir…
Simply put, Medicare for All was polling poorly. So for most of the candidates a pragmatic decision is to pull back from it—for now:
…[T]his isn’t about the ACA at all. ObamaCare customers are a relative drop in the bucket in the US population. The problems with Medicare for All are related to the 150 million or so people who get their insurance through their employers, and who have a relatively high level of satisfaction with their coverage. The disruption of that system would be massive, and Democrats are starting to belatedly recognize that it would be massively unpopular too.
The idea of the Medicare for All pledge was to appeal to the base, otherwise known as the far left. And the idea of the reversal, and/or the hedging, is to appeal to what now passes for the moderate wing of the party.
And the overarching idea is that voters have short memories, and that the position switches won’t come back to bite the Democratic candidates. And then, when and if elected, they will do whatever they wish because—in the immortal words of Barack Obama—they’ll have more flexibility because they won’t have to worry so much about the voters’ opinions.
[Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.]
The Tucson AZ Daily Star had a big op-ed piece by a couple of physicians, one a pediatrician and the other a faculty GP. There is no real discussion of the economics of it. Here is the piece.
Point 1: Myth No. 1: Medicare for All will cause Americans to lose their private health insurance coverage.
Fact: yes, but it will be replaced by a comprehensive government-financed (not government-controlled) insurance plan that will cover all Americans and include all physicians.
So much for “Myths”
Needless to say, the Daily News is a hard left paper.
But the NY Post is staunchly right.
Economists have long known that healthcare is an exception to the basic rule that a free-market system is superior to one controlled by the government. Heath care simply doesn’t follow the same rules that we see in other markets. People behave differently…for all the reasons laid out by Kennith Arrow in his seminal paper on the issue.
Unless you’re trying to tell me that Kenneth Arrow is a far-leftist, I think you should re-examine your premise.
In contrast, free-trade works just like the textbook says it should work. That’s why the current anti-trade ideology invading the US represents a much more profound attack on the foundations of American Capitalism.
Come on Republicans, be better capitalists. I’m here to help.
Spread the word, folks.
Manju the concern troll is here to help us be better capitalists.
Oh, and manju:
We do not have “free-market” system here presently. Nor is anyone here advocating (as far as I can tell) a completely free-market system.
Also see this for my personal experience regarding the Canadian and British systems. I’ve written about health care insurance many many many times, but just for a small sampler try this, this, and this.
They are Lucy with the football. Once elected it will be Medicare for all.
It is the job of SuperPACs to make sure that voters remember the positions advocated by the political opposition. In the 2020 election, the Republican party has “an embarrassment of riches” with which to work. So much so that only betrayal of Trump by collaborating with the democrats can explain a failure to incessantly remind voters of where the democrats stand.
Manju, always ready to help us knuckle draggin, ingernt, … Well, how would we thrive without him?
The thrust of the article is, in my opinion, accurate. The Dems will sing a new song for the election and will get away with it, in large part thanks to their best buds in the media who will be happy to let these insane promises be forgotten. I’ve never seen such a bunch of lying fools in my entire life.
From the newspaper article cited by Mike K above:
“…a comprehensive government-financed (not government-controlled) insurance plan…”
That parenthetical is hilarious.
A good model, in my opinion, for US health care reform, is France. Most Democrats pushing Single Payer think France is an example but it is not. The French system is funded mostly by payroll deductions. There is a large tax paid segment because the French economy is so poor, but that is another matter. Ten years ago, before Obamacare, I researched health care systems and decided the French was best for a large country. The NHS is not even supported by a majority in Britain. One problem France has is British retirees who sign up for the segment of French Social Security as if they were poor. Recently, France has tightened up the requirements for such new subscribers.
Anyway, here are my ten year old conclusions on health carte reform. Since the French use price as a way of limiting use, the Democrats would never approve. They prefer “free stuff.”