Despite Medicare for All
Support 'Spreading Like Wildfire,' Pelosi Shrugs, Says Dems Will 'Evaluate'...
If They Win
One critic offered this
translation: "My pharmaceutical and health insurance donors hate the idea
of Medicare for All, but just vote me back in and, honest, we'll 'look' at
it."
Despite mounting
evidence that support for Medicare for All is "spreading like
wildfire" and has become a winning issue for Democratic
candidates, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is drawing ire from
progressives following a press conference on Thursday where she told reporters
that she is open only to "evaluating" the idea if the party wins
control of Congress in the mid-terms.
According
to the Center for Responsive Politics, Pelosi has taken more than
$200,000 in donations from the health sector in the 2017-2018 election cycle.
Far from being a fringe issue,
Medicare for All now has the support of
51 percent of Americans polled by the Washington Post and Kaiser
Family Foundation.
Several Democratic candidates
running for congressional seats throughout the country—in both blue and red
districts—have won elections in recent months on platforms that proudly support
Medicare for All.
Deb
Haaland is considered likely to win a congressional seat in New
Mexico's 1st district after winning the Democratic primary on Tuesday with a
platform that called for Medicare for All. In Texas and Illinois last month,
universal healthcare proponents Gina
Ortiz-Jones and Sean
Casten also won their Democratic primaries for House seats.
And after sharing with voters
the story of her mother's inability to afford prescriptions while suffering
from cancer, and winning the endorsements of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Medicare for All advocate Kara Eastman beat Brad
Ashford for the Democratic nomination in Nebraska's 2nd district—even as the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) threw its support behind
Ashford.
Several Democratic lawmakers
who are considered potential 2020 presidential candidates have also announced
their support for Medicare for All, with Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.),
Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
joining Sanders in co-sponsoring his Medicare for All bill.
"I've always been for a
public option so I'm always eager to talk about that," Pelosi said at a
press conference. "Some of the other issues that have been proposed have
to be evaluated in terms of the access that they give, the affordability of it
and how we would pay for it, but again it's all on the table."
Pelosi's statement echoed her
support for reinstating rules, aimed at avoiding legislation that adds to
budget deficits, which progressives say undermines ambitious,
innovative new policies.
Pelosi's statement coincides
with her support this week for reinstating pay-as-you-go
rules—a move progressives warn is a direct
attack on the kind of bold and inspiring policies that voters are
demanding.
Contrary to Pelosi's
suggestion that Medicare for All would be prohibitively expensive, Sanders
estimates that his plan would
cost Americans $6 trillion less than the current for-profit insurance system
over the next decade.
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