The American Medicare for All Conundrum

The New York Times is now calling Medicare for All what it always was, a divisive, undoable, and ultimately unpopular proposal that might very well cost the Democrats the election in 2020. Study after study has documented that the versions of Medicare For All proposed by various Democratic candidates are very unpopular with a majority of the voters, and are especially unpopular among swing voters, and particular swing voters in the battleground states. (This is exactly the same analysis I published three months ago, for which I was rounded excoriated.)

Unfortunately, the damage has already been done. The association between Medicare for All and the Democratic party is now firmly embedded in the national consciousness, and Democratic candidates will have to choose between angering their progressive-liberal-left wing supporters by walking back their Medicare for All proposals or making themselves unpalatable to a majority of the mainstream voters.

Elizabeth Warren’s campaign has already experienced the backlash against her Medicare for All proposals, with the negative reactions being quite obvious in her poll numbers and her fundraising totals. Her Democratic opponents (and Bernie Sanders) correctly criticized her proposals for greatly underestimating the costs while her plan to tax the assets of the rich rankled strict constructionists who can find no…