Centrist Dems Watering Down ‘Medicare for All’

In this Majority Report clip, a listener writes in and asks Sam Seder about Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and other centrist Democrats' support for "Medicare for All."

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"The Bernie Sanders “Medicare for All” plan promises rapid, sweeping change to the American health care system, with the elimination of all private insurance and the creation of a costly new government insurance program that will cover everyone and nearly every medical service.

But deep in its back pages is a more modest fallback plan.

The bill, introduced this week, has attracted the endorsement of 15 Democratic senators, including several of the party’s most ambitious liberals. But many more Democrats this week said they’d like to pursue more limited steps to expand health insurance coverage and the government’s role in the system. It turns out that the Sanders bill also has provisions along those lines. Taken together, the bill encapsulates much of the coming Democratic debate about the direction of health care.

In the statements of the bill’s co-sponsors, one can detect an openness to less transformational approaches to health reform. “This bill is aspirational, and I’m hopeful that it can serve as a starting point for where we need to go as a country,” Senator Al Franken of Minnesota wrote in a Facebook post. He described the bill as a “marker” and “one way to achieve universal coverage.”

Centrist Dems Watering Down 'Medicare for All'

30 thoughts on “Centrist Dems Watering Down ‘Medicare for All’

  1. I thought the centrists were too busy defending white nationalist speakers on college campuses to concern themselves with things like healthcare?

  2. Well, there are many kinds of Medicare-for-all which are not accually medicare for all at all, but a watered down milktoast “buy in” incrementalist corporatist friendly plans that will never pacifiy the left. #BrandNewCongress

    • this accusation against Gillibrand “watering down” Sanders bill incorrect. Reading about the actual contents of what she had added to the bill, she didn’t water it down. If anything she strengthened the bill by making it VERY viable with that transitional period that has BOTH the expanding age groups for Medicare Eligibility as well as the option during the entire transition period for anyone not in eligible age groups to Buy In to Medicare.

    • theyre trying to knee cap her so Bernie can win in 2020. Im sorry but Sanders supporters are largely a cult of personality if Barbara Lee was running against Bernie they would not vote for her even though she’s much more progressive than he is.

  3. Of course, here comes the twist with the corporate neo-liberal democrats. They should choose their positions wisely, or they should be voted out ASAP!.! #healthcareisarightnow

    • I’ve searched several times, never had luck. Its hard to find Chris Hayes videos on YT. They get taken down so fast and MSNBC seems to only post Maddow and O’Donnell vids.

    • Am I crazy or is this accusation against Gillibrand “watering down” Sanders bill incorrect. Reading about the actual contents of what she had added to the bill, she didn’t water it down. If anything she strengthened the bill by making it VERY viable with that transitional period that has BOTH the expanding age groups for Medicare Eligibility as well as the option during the entire transition period for anyone not in eligible age groups to Buy In to Medicare.

  4. I have said it before, I’ll say it again: purge out all centrist and corporate and neoliberal Democrats. All of them. A progressive party for the people – all people.

    • callisto
      What if we don’t want a Bernie Sanders socialist government ? I wont vote for Bernie . I think he is a fraud and most of the time doesn’t know what he’s talking about . I don’t think someone who isn’t even a Democrat should be doing purity test on Democrats , that sounds a little fucked up. Members of Congress are elected to serve the people of their state , their constituents , not Bernie Sanders .

    • The Sanders campaign awakened a dormant left-wing Tea Party . Who wants a left wing analogue to the extreme right’s lunacy? But that is what Sanders has unleashed among some of his supporters. In fact, he’s stoking and exploiting it.

  5. I knew it wouldn’t take long for the centrist democrats to begin making accommodations for their corporate donors, corporate centrist democrats are just doing what comes naturally to them, and that’s to sell the people out.

  6. Sam thinks we are getting closer to what? Our politicians will make these decisions for us, whether we like it or not. We have no right to interfere with our representative’s decisions. When will Sam and so many other pundits realize they continue to support a right-wing political system that functions as an autocratic republic?

  7. I like your show, but think there is a misunderstanding about what Gillibrand did here. She didn’t “water down” this bill so that at each stage each eligible stage would only have the option to “buy-in” to medicare. What she did was basically add in an option for the entire transitional period so that until it’s at the final “Medicare for All” stage, anyone who isn’t in the “55 years or older at year one” or “35 years or older at year X” has the option to buy-in to Medicare regardless.

    It think it came off as her watering it down because the idea is that this Medicare public option would only be necessary for the transitional period BEFORE the final “Medicare for All” stage.

  8. Would you buy a new car without knowing how much it cost ? Sanders has not said how his Medicare for all will be funded and no CBO report has been done on his new plan . Considering that why would you blame Dems for being skeptical?

  9. Gillibrand straight up said she was for single payer a few months back and she was for single payer years ago. I hate to break it to people but sometimes Bernie isn’t to the left of every democrat. This is like when twitter left took credit for “forcing” Harris to support single payer when she said she was in fucking July.

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