Democrats’ “Better Deal” Must Include Universal Healthcare

The Democrats have once again substituted banal platitudes for ambitious policies.

The Democratic Party’s economic agenda, “A Better Deal,” has been released and after reading it, I’m afraid to say, I see no reason to believe party leaders have learned from 2016.

First off, the policy proposals are worryingly similar to Hillary Clinton’s economic platform. Infrastructure is noted as a top priority, just as Clinton outlined. A higher minimum wage is supported, just as Clinton did. College affordability is embraced, just as Clinton promised. There’s no “wow” policy that shows the party leaders have the ability to escape the confines of Beltway groupthink.

The plan also lacks specificity and daring, two issues which plagued the Democrats less than a year ago. The agenda does promise more “bold ideas to achieve our goal of…creating millions of new, full-time, good-paying jobs,” but the economic solutions appear insignificant and disturbingly unclear. They include nods to urban elites like “connecting America to high speed internet,” while also playing to working class sensibilities by saying they will crack down “on foreign countries that manipulate our trade laws.”

As a result, the plan is a messy mix of political promises that do not conform to a coherent economic message, but instead represent a smattering of desperate pledges to a variety of people. There appears to be no singular focus, no distinct message beyond “we’re going to fix a lot of different things you are worried about.” Are we now the party of the gig economy or are we still the party of unions? Anyone reading this document couldn’t tell you.

What’s most disturbing is that the word “healthcare” does not appear once. If the Democrats were hoping this policy platform would “reclaim a populist image,” it is peculiar they’d avoid the top financial worry for Americans today. According to a recent Gallup poll, “healthcare garnered a 17 percent rating, far more than the next item on the list: too much debt or not having enough money to pay debt, at 11 percent.”

For a party that is so attuned to focus group concerns, Democratic leaders are counterintuitively staying quiet on healthcare. They’d do well to listen to one of their own leaders in the House: WA Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who recorded a podcast with us the other day. During the interview, she emphasized the importance of universal healthcare, noting it must become a priority position if progressives are to win back Congress and the White House.

Rep. Jayapal is a part of a growing number of Democrats who are uniting behind universal healthcare and actively considering how to optimize such a system. For the majority of the party, though, this ambitious proposal is merely “a huge distraction from the enormously important task that Democrats have in front of them, which is defending Obamacare.”

Here’s a crazy idea for the Democratic masterminds: you can both defend Obamacare and propose a more progressive and ambitious healthcare plan.

For a party that crows about the benefits of inclusivity, it is troubling that they are ignoring a policy that offers universal coverage. While it is true that the polling on the issue is confused, Democrats need to lead here. They’d start on favorable territory, too, with 60 percent of Americans agreeing that the “federal government is responsible for providing healthcare coverage to all Americans.” It is so clear that the Republicans have absolutely no interest in improving the healthcare of the American citizenry. Democrats must step up and offer a better alternative—again.

The time for technocratic timidity is over. It is imperative that Democrats incorporate specific, global policies like universal healthcare, because policies that apply to everyone are easy to understand and they get people excited. And when people get excited about politics, they tend to engage more and vote.

Implementing universal healthcare will be an incredibly difficult task, but Democrats must not make the same mistake as their conservative foes. When we get the chance to govern, we must have a better plan than we do now.