Of all the candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for\npresident, I think Elizabeth Warren is the best choice to challenge Trump. She\nhas bold plans to address the nation\u2019s structural problems and she has a\ndemonstrated ability to generate enthusiasm on the campaign trail. But I\u2019m\nincreasingly puzzled by her insistence on pushing a Medicare-for-All plan that\nplays right into the GOP\u2019s scaremongering tactics and that probably has little\nchance of getting through Congress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our health care system is undoubtedly broken and comprehensive\nreform is urgently needed. However, reform efforts need to reckon with the fact\nthat most people are risk-averse when it comes to their health care. They may not\nlike their current coverage (if they even have any), but current polling shows\nthat they\u2019re also not\nenthusiastic about a dramatic transition to a single-payer system<\/a>. The same\npolling also shows that Americans overwhelmingly support a public option that\ncould serve as an alternative to individual or employer-based coverage. At a\ntime when people\u2019s trust in government is already at abysmal levels, Warren\u2019s\nstrict adherence to a mandatory single payer plan ignores political realities\nand paints her into an ideological corner when she should be trying to grow her\nappeal. If the whole point of her campaign is to win the presidency, why push\nfor a policy that is already unpopular and could become even less popular in\nthe run-up to the general election?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of you reading this may accuse me of being a mushy\nmoderate on this issue. Fair enough, but I think people are forgetting that the\nAffordable Care Act\u2014a comparatively modest set of reforms\u2014was fiercely opposed\nby conservatives and is still\nbeing challenged in court<\/a> nearly a decade after its passage. A fight to\npass Medicare-for-All would be an epic struggle that would likely exhaust all\nof President Warren\u2019s political capital and failure could close the door on\nfuture reforms for years to come. A public option has its own implementation\nproblems<\/a>, but it already enjoys wide support and could improve people\u2019s\nlives sooner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m hopeful that Warren will show more flexibility on health\ncare reform if she becomes the nominee. Trump will have plenty of strategies\nfor attacking the eventual nominee. We should be careful about supplying him\nadditional ammunition. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Of all the candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for president, I think Elizabeth Warren is the best choice to challenge Trump. She has bold plans to address the nation\u2019s structural problems and she has a demonstrated ability to generate enthusiasm on the campaign trail. But I\u2019m increasingly puzzled by her insistence on pushing a Medicare-for-All […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"New blog post: Unsolicited Advice From A Wannabe Political Strategist","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-care","category-politics","category-25-id","category-18-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Iwau-1ee","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4726"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4727,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4726\/revisions\/4727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}