Elizabeth Warren Calls on Democrats to Move Past “Conservative” Obamacare
Photo by Astrid Riecken/Getty Politics News Elizabeth Warren
Well, it looks like Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Republicans do actually agree on one thing. Neither of them like Obamacare. In an interview with WSJ, Warren essentially claimed the current healthcare system was too conservative stating:
[Barack Obama] tried to move us forward with health care coverage by using a conservative model that came from one of the conservative think tanks that had been advanced by a Republican governor in Massachusetts.
She was, of course, referring to Mitt Romney. Calling Obamacare conservative is a surprisingly bold statement, but that wasn’t all she said. Warren also called out Democrats, saying, “Now it’s time for the next step. And the next step is single-payer.”
While several progressive Democrats have flirted with the idea of putting single-payer at the top of their party platform, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), doesn’t believe Congress is ready for such a move. This sentiment mirrors the ones held by Republicans who believe single-payer is still deeply unpopular amongst voters. In fact, Matt Gorman, communications director at the National Republican Campaign Committee, sarcastically agreed that Democrats should adopt Warren’s call for single-payer.
Do it! https://t.co/IfkzE9CLyy
— Matt Gorman (@mattsgorman) June 27, 2017
But despite all this, Warren believes that Democrats should stop straddling the middle and commit to some truly progressive measures:
It’s not like we’re trying to sell stuff that people don’t want. … It’s not that at all. It’s that we haven’t gotten up there and been as clear about our values as we should be, or as clear and concrete about how we’re going to get there.
Finally. An inability to escape lukewarm centrism is one of the primary reasons the Democratic party keeps getting beat all of the time. We saw it with Hilary, we’ve seen it with Ossoff, and, until the party changes, Democrats will continue to lose for the foreseeable future. Allow progressivism to flourish, and see where it leads your party.