This week, Bernie Sanders came out with a comprehensive bill which puts the United States on a direct course to a single payer health care system. The bill, called “Medicare for all,” is something he’s been talking about for years: he has even drafted exoskeletons of this kind of bill before. But this time, it’s different. This time, one third of Senate democrats have signed onto to the bill — and they’re not all super-liberals like Sanders. These are democrats from across the ideological spectrum — from Liz Warren the progressive to the more centrist leaning Jeanne Shaheen. On top of that, 60 percent of House democrats have come out in support of the move to single payer.
Is the bill going to pass? Obviously not. Republicans control the House, the Senate, the judiciary, the presidency and the overwhelming majority of state and local offices. So why is Sanders wasting his political capital to push this bill? Why is he wasting his time penning op-eds in its support?
It’s simple: Sanders, like one-third of Senate democrats, is making a point. They’re making what seems like an awful lot of noise to prove that point, but it’s an important point to make nevertheless.
Sanders’ “Medicare for all” bill marks a 180 in democratic policy, a move less toward the left than toward practicality, despite how a lot of news outlets are going to frame it over the next couple of weeks. An overwhelming majority of Americans believe in the fundamentals of a single payer health care system. According to Pew Research Center, 60 percent of Americans believe it is the government’s job to ensure that everyone has health care. Even further than that, 52 percent of democrats believe that the United States should have some sort of national health care system in place, while only 31 percent believe healthcare should be a mix of public and private subsides.
I know that 52 percent doesn’t seem like a huge number — it is, after all, just barely a majority — but that number is 19 points higher than it was in 2014. That’s a monumental jump to have taken place in three years. These democrats are a conglomerate of left and centrist politicians, so not only are liberal democrats moving toward single payer, but more moderate democrats are too.
These developments and changes in opinion make sense, though; they didn’t materialize out of thin air, but rather exist in a linear history from FDR’s health benefits programs to Obamacare. For years, democrats have campaigned on behalf of Obamacare, with its most popular justification being that healthcare is above all else, a right. From there, it logically follows that we ought to award it to everyone. It is, after all, the government’s job, enshrined to it by the Constitution, to protect the fundamental rights of all citizens. That’s what single payer is — it’s holding government to that obligation. It’s holding democrats to their word, finally.
Whether or not former Obama knew that Obamacare was setting the country on a collision course for single payer is another story, for another day. But nonetheless, we have to credit the Affordable Care Act for moving us to where we need to be, as an ever-evolving modern society. Once it awarded health care to people who hadn’t had it in their entire lives, there’s no going back.
They become dependent on it. They realize the true value of preventative care, of mental health and drug abuse assistance, of not having to worry when your child breaks his leg. You can’t just give people these things and then take them away, the way kings and queens in the 18th century would award their subjects with freedom in the intellectual realm, and rip it away once political conversations about sovereignty and democracy entered the forefront.
Rights grow. They expand. Once you’ve given them out, they’re out. You can only withhold them for so long. Democrats and republicans know this. I’ve seen several republicans make the claim that single payer in inevitable, albeit begrudgingly.
It’s time for single payer in America. We’re not going to get our hands on it anytime soon, but it’s time. It all depends on logistics now: how democrats are going to pay for it, how they’re going to implement it, what concessions they’re going to have to make with hospitals, doctors and insurance companies. The debate isn’t whether or not, not anymore. It’s how.
