Why 'Medicare for all' is easy to say and near impossible to do

It's lovely to dream about 'Medicare for all.' But the reality might be a nightmare.

What dangers await?
(Image credit: iStock)

When House Republicans euthanized their unloved and unlovable American Health Care Act moments before a scheduled floor vote on Friday, they handed the Democratic Party its first real victory in ages. ObamaCare's defenders should savor the moment and gleefully Instagram a thousand pictures of this delicious revenge platter. But embedded in Friday's well-deserved GOP humiliation is an important lesson for future Democrats, too: Don't let your politics get too far ahead of policy reality. One will eventually catch up with the other.

Speaker Paul Ryan's microphone was still cooling Friday afternoon when leading progressive voices urged Democrats to start fighting for single-payer health care, a reminder that Democrats are hardly more united about health policy than Republicans. While 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton ran on a platform of tweaking rather than abandoning the Affordable Care Act, Bernie Sanders premised his primary campaign in large part on a radical promise to ditch Obama's signature legislative achievement in favor of extending Medicare to all Americans. His pitch proved appealing to a party base that settled for the certainty of the ACA in 2010 but still pines sorrowfully for the public insurance option that died in Joe Lieberman's cynical hands.

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David Faris

David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. He is a frequent contributor to Informed Comment, and his work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Indy Week.