In my last post, I gave a straightforward but ambitious directive: “The Left needs to shake its discomfort with wielding power and build the intellectual and political synthesis to gain power.” While I did not mention it in the post (which focused instead on net neutrality), I was inspired by a hopeful shift being enacted by the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) Medicare for All campaign. Those who worked on the Affordable Care Act may remember how power rarely if ever entered into the conversation. The power of health insurance corporations and powerlessness of the people were assumed, and instead the discourse focused on how to navigate these dynamics rather than disrupt or eliminate them.
While there are some who want to return to these paltry discussions, Medicare for All could be a crucial first step for the Left towards taking power. That is why I and many others have poured so much time into it, from door-to-door canvassing to work with medical debt. There’s a great groundswell of volunteers. But that is just part one of my aforementioned directive. Medicare for All will not be won solely by the Left deciding that it should take power. We also need to create the intellectual and political synthesis to make it happen. To be clear, this is not needed to fulfill the mandates of Medicare for All’s critics. They have already shown they have no qualms criticizing strawmen rather than any policy put forth by the campaign. Rather, it is needed to make sure that when we pass Medicare for All that it is an unencumbered single payer system, that it withstands constitutional challenge, and that it does not foreclose the path towards fully socialized medicine.
Habeas Quaestus 