If a picture is worth a thousand words, then three series of pictures, featuring Democrats discussing health benefits for those in this country illegally, speak volumes. First, Hillary Clinton in September 1993:
Second, Barack Obama talking about his health care plan 16 years later, in September 2009:
Finally, Democratic candidates for president last night:
https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/1144418751577804801
As the current occupant of the White House implied shortly after that exchange, Guthrie may well have phrased her question in another way: “Who’s going to lose to Donald Trump next November?” As with Wednesday night’s discussion around abortion, the exchange clarified the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party, which may render the party unelectable.
Whereas Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg called coverage for illegal immigrants an “insurance program” and “not a hand out,” Clinton said in 1993—well before the most recent waves of migration—that “we do not want to do anything to encourage more illegal immigration into this country. We know now that too many people come in for medical care, as it is. We certainly don’t want them having the same benefits that American citizens are entitled to have.”
Likewise, whereas Joe Biden said “you cannot let people who are sick, no matter where they come from, no matter what their status, go uncovered,” the president whom he worked for promised the American people that “the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.” Granted, the promise had a major catch to it—Obamacare verifies citizenship but not identity, allowing people here illegally to obtain benefits using fraudulent documents—but at least he felt the need to make the pledge in the first place. No longer.
Ironically enough, even as all Democrats supported giving coverage to illegally present foreigners, the candidates seemed less united on whether, how, and from whom to take health insurance away from U.S. citizens. Only Sens. Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders said they supported abolishing private health insurance, as Sanders’ single-payer bill would do (and as Sen. Elizabeth Warren and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged on Wednesday evening). For Harris, it represents a return to her position of January, after fudging the issue in a follow-up interview with CNN last month.
Other candidates tried to take a softer tack, even though their plans would have much the same effect as Sanders’. For instance, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet claimed that a government-run “public option” could enroll about 35 million people, even though one estimate showed such a plan enrolling 135 million Americans—most of them people who lost their employer-sponsored coverage. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said she supported a government-run plan as a way to get to single payer, essentially admitting she would sabotage private insurance over time to put everyone on the government rolls.
As usual, Sanders made typically hyperbolic—and false—claims about his plan. He said that his bill would make health care a human right, even though it does no such thing. In truth, the legislation guarantees that individuals would have their bills paid for—but only if they can find a doctor or hospital willing to treat them.
While Sanders pledged that under his bill, individuals could go to whatever doctor or hospital they wished, such a promise has two main flaws. First, his bill does not—and arguably, the federal government cannot—force a given doctor to treat a given patient. Second, given the reimbursement reductions likely under single payer, many doctors could decide to leave the profession altogether.
Sanders’ home state provided a reality check during the debate. Candidates critical of single payer noted that Vermont had to abandon its dream of socialized medicine in 2014, when the tax increases needed to fund such a program proved too overwhelming.
Peter Shumlin, the Vermont governor who campaigned on enacting a single-payer plan, only to discover that he could not deliver one, recently told the Washington Post that “if I were running for president of the United States, I would have a team working on a plan so I don’t sell an idea to Americans that you can’t achieve. That’s the mistake I made.”
Shumlin gave his fellow Democrats a valuable lesson. Based on the radical, and radically unaffordable, proposals discussed in this week’s debates—from single-payer health care, to coverage for undocumented immigrants, to “free” college and student loan forgiveness, and on and on—they seem hellbent on ignoring it.
