The Unconvincing, Cynical Case for Berniecare
Misleading people might not be a good way to improve their lives.
By Jonathan Chait
Among center-left health-care analysts, there is very little disagreement that Bernie Sanders says a lot of things on the subject that are misleading or wrong, and that his bill stands little chance of enactment even if Democrats win full control of government. His defenders instead make a different argument: By taking extreme positions, they say, Sanders creates more political room for rational reforms to take hold.
The Sanders bill “solves precisely none of the problems that have foiled every other single-payer plan in American history,” concedes Ezra Klein, “[b]ut it stands an excellent chance of getting the country quite a lot closer to single-payer.” Clio Chang argues it “open[s] the door for all kinds of fixes to a system that nearly everyone agrees is too expensive and too inefficient.” Jared Bernstein agrees: “For far too long, Democrats have way over-negotiated with themselves, starting debates where they wanted to end up, and getting pushed hard to the right by conservatives. Sanders’s plan is one of the few I’ve seen for a long while that sees the folly in this and takes strong, corrective action.”
