In Democratic policy debates since 2016 there’s been a widespread and sometimes near dominant narrative that Medicare for All is the way forward and actually surprisingly popular. You do away with all the rickety Tinker Toys complexity of Obamacare, SCHIP, Medicare, Medicaid, subsidies and exchanges and build out a single payer national health care plan out of the already popular Medicare program. It’s simpler and more coherent. It’s more efficient and thus cheaper. Critically, it’s actually quite popular: polls show that Medicare for All enjoys anything from substantial public support to overwhelming public support, with numbers usually hovering around 70% of the public backing the idea. This led most of the Senate Democrats with any interest in running for President to endorse the plan in 2017. Today all but one of the top tier of candidates are on record supporting the idea.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1237264