Medicare for All's Tightrope by Elizabeth Warren

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Warren 's decision to fully embrace the idea of another candidate – particularly on an issue of such disproportionate importance in the 2020 election – the only one in the world. has placed in an unusual position of defense and defense of a proposal that is not only his own. And she made it clear that she did not intend to create a comprehensive health care plan herself during the Democratic Primary Contest.

Warren has put a lot of effort over the last few months to demonstrate his unwavering support for Medicare for All, one of the most obvious signs of the political alliance forged between Warren and Sanders, even though They were fighting for second place behind former vice president Joe Biden. However, Warren fully adheres to Sanders' signature proposal – she's open to the well-known criticism that Medicare for All is too costly, disruptive and unrealistic.

This momentum was fully highlighted during Thursday evening's presidential debate when it was asked – again – if Medicare for All would result in tax hikes for the middle class. Not for the first time, Warren spun.

"Look, it's the families who have to deal with the cost, the total cost," said Warren at the debate stage, without directly answering the tax question. "And the answer is that on Medicare for All, the costs will go up for the wealthier individuals and the costs will go up for the larger companies, but for working families across the country, the costs will go down, and it should operate under Medicare for all in our health system. "

His argument is that, overall, Americans will spend less on health care in a single payer system, which would eliminate premiums paid to health insurance companies, as well as deductibles and co-payments. But questions regarding additional taxes for the middle class will not go away anytime soon and would increase in intensity if Warren wins the Democratic nomination.

An assistant from Warren declined to comment on whether she was planning to publish a health care proposal herself – during the primary or general election campaign – as well as on middle-class tax hikes under Medicare. All, referring to CNN instead Warren's remarks after Thursday's debate.

Reassurance for progressives

If Warren faces his colleagues' criticisms of his ideological right, the decision to take an unequivocal stance on Medicare for All has also had the effect of reassuring some progressive admirers. In interviews with CNN, activists who are backing Medicare for All said that Warren's recent stance "I'm with Bernie" had allayed concerns about her, her more circumspect look at Medicare for All.

Previously, she had referred to "different routes" to Medicare for all and referred to other less ambitious bills that she had co-sponsored in the Senate. CNN's Jake Tapper asked at a city hall in March whether she was supportive of the removal of private health insurance, as would Medicare for All. Warren replied that Sanders had "a track for that."

"I think we are bringing everyone together, and that's what we will decide," she said. "I've also co-sponsored other bills, including extending Medicaid to another approach we use."

Waleed Shahid, director of communications for Justice Democrats, the group best known for helping launch the successful 2018 campaign of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for a congressional seat since New York, said Warren's comments " I am with Bernie "marking" an extremely important moment for her campaign. "

"I think a lot of progressives were a bit confused and were getting mixed signals from her about Medicare for All," Shahid said. "It was a great moment for her to go out, loudly for what is in the bills of Bernie and the state of Washington, Pramila, Jayapal, which is a single payer system."

When asked if Warren should roll out his own version of Medicare for All, Shahid argued that such an approach could be counterproductive – both for Warren and for the single payer move.

"I do not think she has to develop her own plan or anything like that," he said. "In fact, presenting one's own plan would be seen as competing with existing bills that people are mobilizing and working very hard on."

Adam Green, of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, one of Warren's most outspoken outsiders, acknowledged – on the evening of June, she told him – that Warren's statement "I am with Bernie "on the stage of the debate" was for the benefit of anyone giving priority to this issue.a permission structure to vote clearly for her ".

Michael Lighty, Medicare for All advocate and former director of public policy for National Nurses United, the first major union to support Sanders in 2016, was part of the campaign to strengthen Senate support for Bill 2017, Medicare for All.

This included a sales pitch in Warren's office, which, he said, initially looked at him with some skepticism.

"Her staff has paid the same attention to this policy that she applies to everything, which is really a scrutiny," said Lighty, who again supports Sanders in 2020. However, ultimately, Warren passed the bill . the room next to his Vermont colleague when it was finally unveiled at Capitol Hill.

Still, said Lighty, there's a nagging question in the back of her mind.

"You have to ask, if Bernie is not there, what will she do?" Because she says: "I'm with Bernie", and if Bernie is not not here, what will she do? " he said. "So, I think you have to ask these questions.I do not think I would consider that his commitment and his political approach are based on medicare for all."

Another front in the battle

Skepticism among some dedicated Medicare for All activists is also rooted in a less publicized healthcare battle.

Warren, along with his countryman, Democratic Senator of Massachusetts, Ed Markey, asked, in early 2018, the repeal of the medical device tax of the Affordable Care Act, an industry with a hub in the United States. State of the bay. The tax, which Republicans often targeted during the Obama-era legislative clashes over the health care law, was supposed to help offset some of its new costs.

Warren's assistant told CNN that his support for the repeal of the tax depended on legislators finding an appropriate source of alternative income.

Since then, she has increasingly criticized big drug and insurance companies for billions of dollars in profits, while millions of Americans can no longer afford life-saving medicines or blankets.

And in a video published last week In her recent health care conversation with Ady Barkan, a 35-year-old ALS activist, Warren went one step further by assuring the toughest advocates of the single-payer system. Barkan noted that Warren seemed to have become increasingly "outspoken" in his support for Medicare for All.

"My observation is that your philosophical policy approach to a system failure is not usually to expand the size of the public sector, but to strongly regulate private sector players and overcome their greed," said Barkan. "Was this the source of your initial hesitation on the issue of getting rid of private insurance, or was it something else?"

Warren gently pushed back, saying that his concerns had more to do with the "transition than on (the) end point."

But she went on to point out that, for a candidate who so often claims that well-regulated markets can overcome corporate excesses, this is tantamount to a remarkable admission that health care is different.

"There are areas where markets just do not work, and a lot of health care is part of it," Warren said. "So, the idea that we would have some regulations in place, and everything will be fine – everything is going to work out, that's just not true for health care."

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