In Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) may debut before a nationwide audience a surprising mantra for someone openly committed to enacting a single-payer system of socialized medicine: Choice.
NBC reports that Warren said on Saturday: “We’re going to push through…full health care coverage at no cost for everyone else who wants it—you can buy it for a modest amount. You don’t have to, but it’s your choice.”
To clarify her “you can buy it” comments, Warren’s most recent health care plan said she would immediately make “free” coverage available to anyone making less than two times the federal poverty level ($51,500 for a family of four in 2019), with sliding-scale premiums capped at no more than 5% of income for those making more than 200% of poverty. Her recent speeches have focused on selling this “transition” plan—“free” coverage if you want it, but only if you want it—rather than her earlier single-payer program.
Some conservatives have claimed that Warren’s change in rhetoric marks the “last gasp” for the left’s move towards socialized medicine. Don’t you believe it. Warren hasn’t given up on anything. Nor have Pete Buttigieg and the other candidates who have campaigned against “Medicare for All.” They, and she, have just chosen to become less candid with the American people about how they hope to achieve their ultimate objectives.
Why Warren Pivoted
Two reasons in particular explain why Warren suddenly embraced the mantra of choice. First, most Americans who have health insurance right now like their plan. A Gallup survey found that nearly seven in ten Americans find their health coverage either excellent (27%) or good (42%). In the 18 years since Gallup first started asking this question, the approval number for Americans’ health coverage has never dropped below 63%.
When millions of people received cancellation notices as Obamacare took effect, Barack Obama found out in 2013 how much people like their current coverage. He felt compelled to issue a public apology for his “Lie of the Year,” telling people they could keep their existing plans when many could not. In part due to these events six years ago, the fear of taking people’s coverage away has dominated the health care discussions at this year’s Democratic presidential debates.
By emphasizing choice, Warren seeks to minimize this potential source of controversy for key constituencies. In the Democratic primaries, union households who have negotiated generous health benefits may blanch at losing those benefits; one confronted Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) about the issue in Iowa this past summer.
Then in next year’s general election, educated and affluent voters who have good health coverage will similarly fear a new plan taking that coverage away. As Philip Klein recently noted in the Washington Examiner, proposing the eradication of existing insurance options could well cost Warren in places like the suburbs of Philadelphia, Detroit, and Milwaukee—critically important battleground areas in battleground states.
De-Emphasizing (Middle Class) Tax Increases
Second, Warren’s earlier rhetoric about taking coverage away from all Americans implies another, similarly awkward question: How will you pay for this massive expansion of government? Warren tried to answer this query by releasing a funding proposal in early November, but in truth, it raised more questions than it answered.
To give but one example: Since Warren released her plan, one study found that her proposed wealth tax would raise $1 trillion less in revenue than she claimed. That $1 trillion gap represents money that she would have to get from somewhere else.
Her revenue plan has myriad other gimmicks buried inside (analyzed in detail here). For instance, her estimates didn’t take into account the fact that the tax increases will shrink the economy, and therefore by definition won’t produce all the revenue she claims.
Warren released her revenue plan claiming that she could fund the full cost of her single-payer plan without raising taxes on the middle class. But the more she pushed that plan, the more people would pick apart all the gimmicks—and Warren’s opponents would rightly claim the gap between what she said her plan would raise and what it actually does would end up coming from the middle class. As a result, Warren “chose” to pivot to her “choice” mantra, navigating away from the Scylla and Charybdis of taking away people’s coverage, and raising taxes on the middle class to do so.
Forcing People to ‘Choose’ Socialism
The change in Warren’s tone doesn’t mean she’s changed her ultimate objective, however. Consider her comments at a town hall on Monday: “When tens of millions of people have had a chance to try [the buy-in proposal], I believe, at that point, we’re going to be ready to vote for” single payer (emphasis added).
Like Buttigieg, Warren sees a buy-in program—call it a “government-run plan,” call it a “public option,” call it “Medicare for All Who Want It”—as creating a natural “glide path” to single payer. They remain quite outspoken in their goal: They want to achieve a socialized medicine system. If given the opportunity, they will use policy to accomplish that objective—just slightly more slowly than under an immediate transition to single payer.
A throwaway line in a recent Vox article got at this same point. The article focused on open enrollment for exchange plans, and the fact that insurers must limit enrollment to a certain period of time, because Obamacare’s costly pre-existing condition provisions encourage individuals to wait until they become sick to sign up for coverage. The penultimate paragraph included this claim:
Under the various public options that have been proposed, uninsured people would be automatically enrolled in the new optional government plan. One advantage the government has over private insurers is it doesn’t need its books to balance perfectly; adverse selection [a disproportionate number of sick people signing up] isn’t as big a concern. [Emphasis mine.]
The highlighted line demonstrates how liberals would use taxpayer funds for the government-run plan: subsidizing coverage in advance, or bailing out the government plan after the fact if premiums are set too low, or too many sick people enroll, or both. Vox’s line hints at the left’s true goal through a “public option:” To sabotage private plans, and force people into socialized medicine, one person at a time.
Warren’s “choice” mantra sounds innocuous, but its underlying premise—by her own admission—seeks to create a single-payer system, just over a slightly longer period. Conservatives who think her approach represents anything other than a change in tactics should think again. The wolf attacking private insurance hasn’t disappeared so much as put on a disguise of sheep’s clothing.
