Sanders and Single-Payer: Democrats Stuck Between A Rock And A Hard Place

With no moderate leadership, the Democratic Party is forced to move left towards Bernie Sanders and single-payer health care.

This dramatic lurch left leaves many House Democrats with a conundrum.

They can either embrace the demands of progressive liberals or risk a primary challenger.

Via Washington Post:

It looked just like a campaign launch, from the line winding around the Fellowship Chapel Church, to the tailgaters giving away hot dogs, to the 2,000 voters who eventually packed inside.

But when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) and Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) arrived, there were no waving signs. They were there to kick off the push for universal health care, with legislation queued up for September, and no expectation that the Republican-controlled Congress would pass it.

In the meantime, as the chair of the Senate Democrats’ political outreach, he would continue to support colleagues in tough races, even if they rejected his bill.

“Is this a litmus test? No, you have to look at where candidates are on many issues,” said Sanders. “But you’re seeing more and more movement toward ‘Medicare for All.’ When the people are saying we need health care for everyone, as more and more Americans come on board, it will become politically possible.”

Republicans, looking hungrily at a 2018 Senate map where 10 incumbent Democrats will compete in states won by Trump, were hoping for a litmus test. But in just two states, West Virginia and North Dakota, are incumbents being challenged by progressives in primaries. Neither challenger is being backed by Sanders.

Still, as Sanders wove through Indiana, Ohio and Michigan, local conservatives mocked those states’ Democratic senators, even those who didn’t appear with Sanders.

Meanwhile, Sanders’s rejection of the “litmus test” hinted at where Democrats, pressured by their base, would be allowed to go. Few of the most vulnerable 2018 Democrats are expected to get behind his bill, but progressive groups have talked increasingly about “Medicare for All” becoming a do-or-die position.

“Our view is that within the Democratic Party, this is fast-emerging as a litmus test,” said Ben Tulchin, the pollster for Sanders’s 2016 campaign, in an August interview with Politico.

Sanders, however, is allowing his colleagues plenty of room to maneuver — so long as they come out for expanding health insurance. He complimented Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who last week rolled out a proposal to allow anyone to buy into Medicaid if their states allowed it.

“Brian is doing good work,” said Sanders. “I think we need to have short-term solutions to the health-care crisis, while working toward Medicare for All. I would hope we could get some support for making more people eligible for Medicaid. We need to substantially lower the prices for prescription drugs. I’d favor a public option, right now, and we’re working on that in the [Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions] Committee.”

The midterms will be one test; the 2020 presidential race will be another. Sanders, who has not ruled out a second presidential bid, suggested that whatever happened in 2018, it would be difficult — if advocates kept working at it — for any 2020 Democrats to back down from single-payer.

“Could people run? Sure,” Sanders said. “Do I think they can win without supporting single-payer? I’m skeptical. Among the people who consider themselves progressive, who vote in the primaries, there’s clearly movement toward Medicare for All.”