There was a time when “Medicare for All” was not a part of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign. It was March.
“For me, what’s key is we get everybody at the table on this,” was her noncommittal answer when asked about it at a CNN town hall on March 18. She was a co-sponsor of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ signature single-payer health care bill (He “wrote the damn bill,” as you might recall), but had backed other health overhaul bills, as she told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
By the time of the first primary debate, in June, she was firmly behind Medicare for All. “I’m with Bernie on Medicare for All,” Warren declared
During this period, the Massachusetts senator also gained ground as the woman with a plan for everything. But she didn’t have her own plan for health care.
Sanders’ bill that Warren backed didn’t lay out for certain the details of how to pay for it. Rather, he had a list of possible options.
So Warren faced a new question, pressed most consistently by South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg. He chided her during October’s debate: “Your signature, senator, is to have a plan for everything. Except this.”
In addition, when asked about whether she’d raise taxes on the middle class to pay for the plan, Warren responded that costs wouldn’t go up — a move her opponents cast as evasive. Sanders said that taxes would go up on the middle class, while also promising that overall costs would go down.
By the time Warren came up with both a way to pay for Medicare for All and a plan to transition to it, the issue was a key way that opponents were attacking her — and, potentially, a key factor in her declining support among Democratic voters. Releasing her plans didn’t appear to help her regain that ground.
When asked about the link between her sagging poll numbers and Medicare for All, the Warren camp told NPR that its broad focus remains unchanged.
RandyMarsh
Article URL : https://www.npr.org/2019/12/13/787457849/warren-doubled-down-on-medicare-for-all-as-voters-had-second-thoughts