Crowded into the clown car of presidential hopefuls, only Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Andrew Yang, and the man himself, Bernie Sanders, remain committed to Medicare for All.
In January, Kamala Harris briefly backed the plan, but her initial support resulted in a deafening backlash from billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and Howard Schultz (who told CBS, “That's not correct. That's not American.… What industry are we going to abolish next? The coffee industry?”), and her press secretary quickly reassuredcritics that she would settle for “more moderate” reforms. (She has yet to articulate exactly what that means.) She's not the only candidate to reverse on Medicare for All, with Cory Booker now endorsing an expansion of Medicare down to age 55 although he, too, had initially supported Bernie Sanders's bill. Both Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren have endorsed Medicare for All, but are hedging their bets by simultaneously supporting more “moderate,” competing health care legislation in the Senate. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar are looking at compromises but have yet to settle on an exact plan; Jay Inslee and John Hickenlooper have gone to the mat for a public option; and former health care financier John Delaney has designed his own Byzantine program from scratch, although he seems to spend the bulk of his time attacking Medicare for All as unrealistic and fiscally irresponsible.
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