The Democratic Party’s first draft of its 2020 platform proves that the moderates — or what’s left of them — have lost on healthcare.
The platform doesn’t necessarily reflect the positions of the party’s chosen candidate, who will presumably be Joe Biden when Democrats hold their convention in August. But it does speak to the policy goals of the Democratic Party at large and the direction its leaders hope to take it, which is why the platform’s nod to “Medicare for All,” and the progressives who support it, was so revealing.
Democrats did not endorse Medicare for All completely. Rather, the platform said the party would strive for universal access to healthcare by creating a public insurance option while still allowing private insurers to operate — which has been Biden’s position since the primaries. Then, the platform acknowledges Medicare for All and its advocates.
“Generations of Democrats have been united in the fight for universal health care. We are proud our party welcomes advocates who want to build on and strengthen the Affordable Care Act and those who support a Medicare for All approach; all are critical to ensuring that health care is a human right,” the draft states.
This isn’t the win leftists such as Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren had hoped for, but it is a clear message that the Democratic Party not only accepts but welcomes leftists who would push the party further toward a single-payer system.
And make no mistake: The leftists will succeed. Already, Biden has caved to appease Sanders’s supporters, lowering the eligibility age for Medicare coverage from 65 to 60 and agreeing to work with Sanders’s team to make additional changes as his campaign progresses.
The Democratic Party’s nod to Medicare for All is in and of itself a sign that the party is moving to the left on this issue. Four years ago, the party’s platform didn’t even mention Medicare for All — and not because it wasn’t relevant at the time, but because it was such a drastic step that Democrats feared what it would do to the moderate, swing-state voters they needed to win.
Some of that fear still exists within the Democratic establishment. If it didn’t, mainstream Democrats would have pushed for Sanders, not Biden. But the guardrails are beginning to come off, slowly but surely. And it’s only a matter of time before Sanders and Warren finally have their way.
