Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All Promise Is Impossible
Elizabeth Warren got pummeled for trying to face reality. Her rival is promising a fantasy of passing it in the next two years.
Last month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren suffered for trying to find both a politically palatable way to fund Medicare for All and a multiple-step path for its eventual enactment. Warren was assailed by candidates and journalists, slipping in presidential polls after the troubles. Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign has managed to skate by the same obstacles despite making a bigger Medicare for All claim: that he can actually pass the bill during his first two years as president.
If Sanders won the White House, delivering this promise would take a true political miracle. Sanders has his version of that, vowing a “political revolution” will defeat any opposition. Pretending Medicare for All is a real possibility in the short term raises questions of whether Sanders is being honest with his supporters or with himself about the biggest plank of his campaign.
Finding 50 senators who support Medicare for All in principle is just the first step.
