Published yesterday and his subtitle is "And What Democrats Should Have Learned By Now".
His Opinion piece can be read here
Operative words here : "Should Have"
Oh well, as the old song said "Yesterday's Gone".
BUT, the President, the Democrats and all the rest of us should start to think about Alternate Plan B if the mandate and all or part of the rest of the law gets struck down as Unconstitutional.
After telling us what many if not most of us already knew -that a true public option, i.e. Medicare, was the only thing keeping the mandate legal-
Had the President and the Democrats stuck to their guns during the health-care debate and insisted on Medicare for all, or at least a public option, they wouldn’t now be facing the possible unraveling of the new health care law.
Reich reaches the obvious conclusion, that we need to go back to the drawing board and offer up what we should have in the first place - "universal healthcare based on Medicare".
I'm with him. And there's nothing wrong with him, or me or anyone else who saw this train wreck coming from the getgo saying now - "I told you so".
The challenges to the mandate have been predictable from the earliest days of the Democratic primary where President Obama himself argued against them with Hillary Clinton. The question of their legality was raised time and again during the HCR "debates".
But, let's move past all that and focus on the answer to the question - "What's next if the mandates get struck down?".
If after all this sturm und drang and kabuki and shadowy back door double dealing and court challenges and delays, we finally get to a place as a nation where we are compelled by the courts to the realization that Medicare For All is the only logical, just, and legal answer to our healthcare morass, then I say it would be completely worth it.
Perhaps we will be allowed to readdress this issue and get the real reform we were all voting for in the last Presidential election