There is a good reason why Senator Bernie Sanders won't win the presidency. You won't like my answer, but it needs to be said. Please read on because I think people need to hear this.
Look, I like Senator Bernie Sanders. I would love to have dinner with the guy: a long, open-ended conversation where he would do most of the speaking while enjoying a bit of scotch after a lovely dinner of whatever he is having. It would probably be a wonderful time hearing that New York tinged, intellectually-gifted voice just go on for a while, especially on the topic of income inequality. He would probably reminisce about the Occupy Wall Street movement and how we need to take the energy of that and move forward to a better future. Heady stuff to be sure.
I do think he's a good guy. However, I am also a person who has seen a fair share of Bernie Sanders types run for the highest office in the land. I have heard the glorious oratory of people like him who talk of a visionary future full of hope and the stuff that dreams are made of. And every time one of these types of candidates gets the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, they do not get close to winning the general election because there is usually one issue that is something they truly believe in that acts as a thorn in their side with everyone else. And with Bernie it is no different.
African-Americans don't like him? No. He just got the endorsement of "brother" Cornell West. Others will follow.
Is it that he was (and perhaps still is) a Socialist. Kind of, but not exactly that.
What is the issue pray tell? Single-payer health care.
Senator Sanders has been very consistent on this, and I think that is terrific. He wants single-payer universal health care and wants the government to oversee all health care in this nation, like we do in large part with seniors in this country. He wants, at the very least, Medicare-for-All, championed by him and another very liberal and feisty politician, Alan Grayson. He is convinced that this is absolutely the way for the United States to go. You don't even have to go back to be reminded of 2010.
Remember what happened in 2010? Remember the town halls?
https://youtu.be/...
Think of what it will be like if we introduce single-payer. Instead of just creating web sites and structures to utilize and improve the current system (which, to be honest is what the Affordable Care Act mostly does) and add a single-payer like component through Medicaid to help those who are the most vulnerable, let's scrap all of that and just give it over to the federal government. Let's take Medicare (a very good system to be truthful) and then superimpose it on the rest of the population. Let's take that current infrastructure (which still could use an upgrade or two) and quickly add to it to deal with the overwhelming influx of new members. We could even use healthcare.gov! It can still handle it, right? I mean the numbers might be twice (maybe 10 times) as large, but what the hell! It's like an Andy Hardy movie! Hey kids, we've got this web site...!
If it were only that simple. If he gets the endorsement, he has to convince people to fight the fight of fixing health care in this country all over again. Add to this that the Republicans can't wait to start that fight all over again (and this time the word socialist will have more weight to it) and you have a recipe for disaster.
Do you really think non-liberal people have the stomach for it? Do you think some liberal people have the stomach for it? I know that they don't. Why? One word: Vermont.
If you don't know the details, here they are. Vermont tried to introduce single-payer to its people. Universal coverage that was going to show how a single-payer system could work in this country. The shining state on the hill proving all the naysayers wrong. The plan was pretty basic. Vermont would provide an public option that would cover everyone that was a resident of Vermont. It was enacted with great fanfare in 2011 by Governor Peter Shumlin and an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature. It was called Act 48. To the followers of this site, in particular, they looked like knights in shining armor. Unfortunately, the blinding light resonating from that armor blinded them to the problems that they could have foreseen. And it almost cost Gov. Shumlin his job.
The best way to explain this in full is with an article from Vox.com. It's an excellent read and I encourage you to look it through. I will put some quotes in, but I will also leave several places where you can link to the article, like here.
Problem number one, their estimates were not right. As a matter of fact, they passed the bill to enact single-payer without the financial details.
"I was skeptical when the original bill passed," Peter Galbraith, a Vermont state senator, said. "When you pass a benefit and don't say how you're going to pay for it, it raises the obvious question of, 'How are you going to pay for it?'"
"How Vermont's Single-Payer Health Care Dream Fell Apart" By Sarah Kliff
Vox.com
December 22, 2014
They realized that they would have to increase taxes by double-digits on residents and businesses. It was thought that the cost to businesses would just be the same as them paying for health care themselves. That didn't turn out to be the case.
"There had been whispers that maybe [the payroll tax increase] would get as high as 8 percent," said Al Gobeille, chair of the Green Mountain Care Board, the independent agency overseeing the implementation of universal coverage.
Vox.com article
But it wasn't 8 percent. It was more, much more than that...and it made things much worse.
The increased costs and decreased revenue started to add up. The Shumlin administration estimated it would need to increase payroll taxes by 11.5 percent and income tax by 9 percent.
...
When the governor mentioned the 11.5 percent figure at his Wednesday press conference, Gobeille said it was a shock to the business owners in the room.
The costs were more than most businesses expected. They would actually pay more Vermont's plan that they had been with their private plans. People don't vote people in to lose money and in 2014, Peter Shumlin came very close in deep blue Vermont to losing the election for
governor. He lost to two guys named Scott Milne and Dan Feliciano. Milne was the Republican and Feliciano was an Libertarian. Milne was a milquetoast candidate and Republicans let him know it. He was called "
A Complicated Candidate" by the Burlington Free Press. Not exactly a glowing review. Feliciano? He's a corporate change consultant and workout
buff. Who does that remind you of?
Here were the results:
Nominee
Peter Shumlin (D) 89,509 or 46.36%
Scott Milne (R) 87,075 or 45.1%
Dan Feliciano (L) 8,428 or 4.36%
The Democratic-led legislature had to vote him in because he did not get 50%. He won that vote by a good margin, but the damage was done. If things are not significantly better the next time he runs, he probably loses.
One political science professor out of the University of Vermont put the reason for the close election to one point: People were "nervous about health care."
What about the expected 20 million or so using the Affordable Care Act that might see their insurance completely changed (or thrown away) if the Democratic nominee for President of the United States says we're going to change it all over again?
This is why Republicans would love a Bernie Sanders presidential run. They can tap into that nervousness all over again. And we'll get killed over it.
9:03 AM PT: It was just brought to my attention that I misspelled heel with heal. (Damn spellcheck. It's supposed to know what I am thinking.) I stand corrected.