A Single Man

That would be Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders just unveiled a single-payer health care plan based on expanding Medicare to everyone.  His plan has gotten mainstream media attention.  Republican senators are exaggerating and also just plain lying about the flaws of such a system by overhyping the problems with wait lists in Canada.  Trump called Sanders' plan a curse on America.  This is all a good thing; it means that more and more people want it, and the powers that be that force us to live - and die - like we do are afraid of the people getting ready to rise up for something they want.  They're going to brought to their knees one day.

Of course there are naysayers even among Democrats who want nothing to do with Sanders' ideas; Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer won't support it, believing that the health care issue has been settled.  Hillary Clinton - she of the book explaining why she's not to blame for losing the 2016 presidential election and of the pity-party tour to promote it - has been against it also.  And truth be told, some Democratic-friendly commentators fear old wounds being reopened if the party pursues Medicare expansion; they fear that a new debate on health care could undermine the Democratic Party going forward into the 2018 and 2020 elections. 

With all due respect, it's hard to imagine how the Democrats can be undermined even more than they already are.  Nevertheless, the fact that sixteen U.S. Senators have signed on to the bill as co-sponsors - including my own U.S. Senator, Cory Booker of New Jersey -  means that the issue has legs, even if the bill has no chance of even getting a vote in the Republican Senate.  It's an aspiration that inspires voters later more than a policy that could actually be pursued now.  And 53 percent of Americans support single-payer health care at this point.  If more Democrats get behind this, this could allow the party to return to its progressive base - a base it has refused to acknowledge for the past 45 years.

Martin O'Malley, meanwhile, has trumpeted the all-payer plan, in which all third parties pay the same rate for services from hospitals.  I've mentioned that before.  Unfortunately for O'Malley, not too many people have done so, and no one wants to listen to him when he brings it up.  Sometimes they tell him to shut up about it  - yes, John Dickerson, I'm talking about you!  I've looked at this idea, and it sounds like it could work, and it may even serve as a stepping stone to single-payer.  If O'Malley can find a way - any way - to get it into the debate, it could help him in the event that he runs for President against any of the Democrats who back Bernie on a single-payer "Medicare for all" policy.  It might even help O'Malley win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

If only John Dickerson will let him talk about it.