Brookings' Bill Galston: Elizabeth Warren's Health-Care Hara-Kiri

[highplainsdem]

This op-ed is in the WSJ, but Galston is a liberal Democrat who was an assistant to Bill Clinton and worked for both the Gore and Mondale campaigns.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/elizabeth-warrens-health-care-hara-kiri-11572997998

Is the country ready for the “big structural change” that Sen. Elizabeth Warren is promising? Would the Democratic Party be wise to bet that it is? The answers to these questions will shape the outcome of the nomination contest and the general election.

Now that Ms. Warren has released her long-awaited Medicare for All plan, there is no longer any need to discuss this issue in the abstract. She has zoomed past the last offramp and is now fully committed to a plan that would revolutionize the way health care is financed and delivered in the U.S. She can’t run on this plan in the primaries and then shift to something more modest in the general election, even if she wants to. If Ms. Warren is the nominee, Medicare for All is what she’ll take to the country. Given the centrality of health care in our political debate, this plan will be much of the basis on which she is judged.

Since Ms. Warren made her plan public, analysts have sharpened their pencils and gone to work. Many believe she has underestimated the cost of her program and overestimated the revenue from the measures she would use to pay for it. But on one point there can be no doubt: Medicare for All would enroll everyone in the same government plan, whatever their preferences.

-snip-

We need not conjecture about the current state of opinion among Democrats. In its most recent survey, Kaiser found that 55% of Democrats prefer a candidate who would build on the existing Affordable Care Act, compared with 40% who want to replace the ACA with Medicare for All. Several additions to the ACA would be broadly popular across party lines: Seventy-three percent of Americans favor expanding the ACA market to include a public option, 75% favor allowing people who don’t get employer-based insurance to buy health insurance through their state Medicaid programs, and 77% support creating a Medicare buy-in for Americans age 50 to 64. These last two proposals enjoy support from more than 60% of Republicans.

-snip-

Ms. Warren insists that if Democrats are willing to put up a fight, they can get Medicare for All done. As I recall, the Light Brigade was full of fight, but its charge into enemy lines still yielded an epic catastrophe.

Ms. Warren should be commended for the wealth of detail in her plan, which allows voters to judge it for themselves. This said, she may well have penned the longest suicide note in recorded history. There’s no reason for the entire Democratic Party to sign it.

[evertonfc]

1. Let me be Blunt

I am much closer to Warren than Biden politically buy she will have immense trouble beating Trump. In fact, I think Biden will best Trump easily. I'm not on a suicide mission for progressive purity. I just want to beat Trump. Biden will

[Kahuna7]

15. Do we really need to sacrifice congress like we did to get the ACA passed? And

lose the White House too??? And a multitude of state houses??? Warren wasn't in the ACA fight. She doesn't have the scars.

[crazytown]

2. Breaking: Wall Street doesn't like Warren

ho-hum

[highplainsdem]

3. Galston isn't Wall Street. And you know that if you read the OP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Galston


https://www.brookings.edu/experts/william-a-galston/

[crazytown]

4. DLC

[highplainsdem]

5. He's a liberal. You don't have to be far left to be a liberal.

[crazytown]

6. What I know is it's a hit piece

"epic catastrophe", "charge of the light brigade:, "longest suicide note in history"

This is a partisan polemic, not a contribution to debate. It belongs in the WSJ, on the breakfast tables of private equity managers.

[highplainsdem]

8. Partisan? Galston's party is Democratic. You're apparently taking the position that no one

can express any strong opinions (other than approval) about Warren's plan without it being a "partisan hit piece" and "not a contribution to debate."

This is exactly the sort of attitude by some Warren supporters that comes across as treating policy criticisms as lese majeste.

Lots of Democrats disagree with Warren's MFA plans.

For that matter, lots of Warren supporters dislike her support of MFA, and some here have expressed their hope she'll back away from it, at least for the GE and ideally earlier.

But I believe Galston's correct in saying it's too late for her to disavow MFA.

Now the party has to decide whether to tie itself to her plans for MFA.

I agree with Galston's analysis.

And I think it's significant that even Warren backers like Krugman and Klein have admitted she won't be able to get MFA passed. And they've admitted her numbers in her funding plan are questionable.

What Galston is saying here isn't outre for a Democrat at all, so please stop acting as if he's the enemy.

[crazytown]

10. One can be partisan in a primary contest.

'Longest suicide note in history' is trumpian hyperbole; I've had a gutful of this Scheisse passing as debate.

[highplainsdem]

11. Trump couldn't have written that intelligent an opinion piece if his life depended on it.

And Galston isn't the only person who thinks Warren's done a lot of damage to her own campaign by backing MFA and coming out with this funding plan.

As you're well aware from lots of posts here.

I described it as a large anchor she'd soldered around her neck.

Again, lots of Warren supporters don't like her support of MFA either, and have hoped she'd find some way to get away from it.

But Galston's right that with her funding plan she's now gone too far to back away -- zoomed past the last exit, as he put it so brilliantly.

If you want to defend her plan, please do so.

But don't try to take away other Democrats' right to express their opinions of it.

And please don't try to do so by belittling the writing of someone with Galston's resume and background working for the party.

[BannonsLiver]

22. It's a big problem

Which is why some of her supporters are hyper sensitive about it. That being said, her supporters, and supporters of other cNdidates who want m4a aren’t wrong for wanting something better. I think we are all in agreement on that.

[Perseus]

16. If the country thinks like Bill Galston does then we are in deeper trouble than we thought

"I love my current insurance" meme must be working if people are not willing to look at Warren's proposal, what a shame and it really shows how ignorant the country is.

One more thing, Bill Galston's article is just his "humble opinion", nothing more.

[INdemo]

7. Did Debbie Wassermann Shultz write this OP?

The DLC’s favorite Congresswoman?

[highplainsdem]

9. What part of "Brookings' Bill Galston" didn't you undeerstand?

And see reply 3 for links to more info on his background.

[LeftTurn3623]

12. This is what I find so annoying

This clip " Since Ms. Warren made her plan public, analysts have sharpened their pencils and gone to work. Many believe she has underestimated the cost of her program and overestimated the revenue from the measures she would use to pay for it"

No one cared where Trump was getting the money for his tax cuts to the rich or how those numbers were overestimated - no one cares about all the money going to miltary spending that is not paid for

But when it comes to Medicare for All or other heath care programs then the money has to be exactly right down to the last penny.


With that said I do wish that EW would have taking Pete's idea of Medicare for All for those that want it idea. Yes, the end result is Medicare for All but the country is not completely ready. Let the people decide and eventually they will go with the public option and you could move to a Medicare for All program easy when America is ready.

[sop]

27. The reason they can find money for endless wars, and justify trillions in tax cuts for the wealthy?

Because these things increase corporate profits. The ACA passed because it increased profits for private health insurance companies, M4A would largely eliminate the for-profit health insurance industry. These special interests will do anything to prevent that from happening.

[ritapria]

13. The author worked for the Gore and the Mondale Campaigns

That worked out real well .…..

[highplainsdem]

14. Gore won the popular vote, and if the Republican-controlled Supreme Court hadn't stopped the

Florida recount, he'd have won the electoral college as well.

Your point?

[brush]

18. That has nothing to do with whether Dems/Americans will vote for a 30 trillion...

Last edited Wed Nov 6, 2019, 03:26 PM - Edit history (1)

dollar health plan that will lose 200,000 jobs.

Let's get our head on straight and think pragmatism, not magical ponies for everyone. If Warren was smart she'd get elected first then go for MFA when she has the power to do it.

[peggysue2]

21. Ding, ding, ding!

This about winning an election first. Why would anyone believe that tying an albatross around your neck would be a good thing for your own electoral chances, let alone the Democratic Party's need to hold the House and the win the Senate in 2020?

This is otherwise know as political malfeasance.

Elizabeth Warren had the choice of making a pragmatic argument for Medicare-4-All as the ultimate goal. Thus far, she has offered a back-engineered funding program merely to prove her premise that the middle-class would pay no tax increase. The fact that her funding program sags under careful scrutiny is not the fault of Republican framing but numbers that simply don't work.

Interestingly, Warren has suggested she will roll out a transition program because by her own words a National Healthcare Program will be neither quick nor easy. No kidding. Any why wasn't this offered up before? And what exactly will that transition look like?

Public Option, anyone?

As I've said before, the whole Medicare-4-All question--its cost, funding and political practicality--is Warren's Achille's Heel. That vulnerability remains and is only getting worse.

The truth is? You cannot Out-Left Bernie Sanders. He's been at this for decades.

To his credit, Sanders has been far more truthful in the tax liability (without real numbers, of course) on the American public and in the overall expenditure (32-34 trillion depending how you configure) aligning himself to the various cost estimates already out there.

Sorry, but just because a proposal is Bold doesn't mean that it's Good. And that's the dilemma Elizabeth Warren has fashioned for herself. Can she wriggle out of it? At this point in time, I have serious doubt.

[brush]

25. She's weakened herself with this. Too bad as she was doing well with the plans for everything.

Last edited Wed Nov 6, 2019, 04:43 PM - Edit history (1)

She should've submitted, as you said, a transition plan for MFA first.

This IMO is her first major screw-up. She had a minor one during the first debate when she raised her hand to agree Americans won't be able to keep their healthcare plan even if they want to under MFA.

That misstep was correctable, going all-in on MFA for her campaign and the DEM platform is not.

You do that once you're elected.

[BannonsLiver]

23. They were nominees, which is something Bernie will never be.

[Cha]

31. ...

[Hangdog Slim]

17. Oy

Please explain that to parents who bankrupt themselves trying to save their sick child. I have seen the jars full of change and dollar bills on the counters of convenience stores with a photo of a child with a life threatening illness asking for donations because even though the suffering child's parents work and have insurance, it's not enough. There's plenty of money in this country. It's just in the wrong place - namely the pockets of the uber wealthy and powerful. Folks that read the OP-ed pages of the WSJ.And by the way, once working for Bill Clinton does not make one a liberal and frankly I get a little tired of those "but he's a Democrat" memes. Progressive taxation on the very rich has served this country very well in years past. I'm tired of Wall Streeters running the country!

[dansolo]

20. That is irrelevant as to whether M4A is feasable

Pushing for a plan that won't ever pass does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the parents with a sick child.

[Happy Hoosier]

26. I have been leading towards Warren.

I probably still am. But I do feel like she has fumbled this issue badly. If she can't make a believable case to Democrats, then it's a DOA proposal, IMO.

[sop]

28. "A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth, some obvious truth (s)he isn't supposed to say." -

(Michael Kinsley) Elizabeth Warren only "fumbled the issue" by confronting the problem and telling the truth, not falling back on the typical politicians' weasel words.

[Happy Hoosier]

30. I disagree....

I do think her financing plan was weak. It’s simply not realistic, IMO. I wish she would stop being afraid of saying taxes will go up and just put it all out there.

[Hoyt]

29. We'll get to MFA quicker with Public Option. One reason is Democrats can get elected on that.