This is, in part, based on speculation. I can't prove that Hillary Clinton is behind this smear. But I think I have very strong circumstantial evidence. It starts with a smear that can be definitively tied to the Clinton Camp. From the Huffington Post:
A Pro-Clinton Super PAC Is Going Negative On Bernie Sanders
A super PAC backing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is going negative, circulating an email that yokes her chief rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to some of the more controversial remarks made by Jeremy Corbyn, the United Kingdom's new Labour Party leader, including his praise for the late Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan leader who provided discounted fuel to Vermont in a deal supported by Sanders.
The article then goes on to detail that David Brock, head of Media Matters and the pro-Hillary Super PAC Correct the Record (and how is that not a huge conflict of interest, btw), sent an email to the Huntington Post attempting to tie Bernie Sanders into the anti-Jeremy Corbin fever currently sweeping the English speaking press.
Oh so coincidentally, the Wall Street Journal runs this anti-Sanders story at the exact same time:
Price Tag of Bernie Sanders’s Proposals: $18 Trillion
In all, [Bernie Sanders] backs at least $18 trillion in new spending over a decade, according to a tally by The Wall Street Journal, a sum that alarms conservatives and gives even many Democrats pause. Mr. Sanders sees the money as going to essential government services at a time of increasing strain on the middle class.
His agenda includes an estimated $15 trillion for a government-run health-care program that covers every American, plus large sums to rebuild roads and bridges, expand Social Security and make tuition free at public colleges.
The big chunk of this $18 trillion is the $15 trillion the WSJ says is needed to pay for Medicare for All. They cite Gerald Friedman, a left wing heterodox Economist from the Mecca of heterodox economics in the United States the University of Amherst, to justify this figure. The previous sentence might read as ironic, but it's not. I really respect Amherst and the economic tradition that comes out of it. The problem is that the WSJ took one figure from
Friedman's report without actually reading it:
Under the single-payer system created by HR 676, the U.S. could save an estimated $592 billion annually by slashing the administrative waste associated with the private insurance industry ($476 billion) and reducing pharmaceutical prices to European levels ($116 billion). In 2014, the savings would be enough to cover all 44 million uninsured and upgrade benefits for everyone else. No other plan can achieve this magnitude of savings on health care.
Specifically, the savings from a single-payer plan would be more than enough to fund $343 billion in improvements to the health system such as expanded coverage, improved benefits, enhanced reimbursement of providers serving indigent patients, and the elimination of co-payments and deductibles in 2014. The savings would also fund $51 billion in transition costs such as retraining displaced workers and phasing out investorowned, for-profit delivery systems.
So how did the WSJ get $15 trillion from a report that headlines the savings of Medicare for All? Simple. It took the costs of the current healthcare system, detailed in a chart on page 2, subtracted the total savings brought by Medicare for All, taken from a chart on page 3, and got the total cost of insurance under Medicare for All. This is $1.7 trillion - $.2 trillion = $1.5 trillion. Then, to inflate this number as much as possible, they extended it out over 10 years.
In order to do this, they ignored the entire rest of the report. Just from reading the preceding paragraph, you probably noticed that this plan is going to save 200 billion dollars a year. At the same time, it would extend coverage out to the millions of people who remain uninsured.
This WSJ article came out at the exact same time David Brock tried to get the Huffington Post to pick up a negative article about Sanders's link to Jeremy Corbin. It also depended entirely on the work of a far left economist at one of the most left wing universities in the country. Do you really think anyone working in the Wall Street Journal's management is reading that kind of material? Do you really think that they'd hire economic reporters who would read that kind of material? Keep in mind that in the United States, economic reporting tacks very far the right on average, let alone in the Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal.
Perhaps, as many commentators are sure to allege, I'm just paranoid. But it seems to me that if I were David Brock, I would tailor the negative stories I decided to push to the media in which I was pushing them. To the Huffington Post, which had just run a positive article comparing Sanders to Corbyn, I would send a story designed to tear both men down by linking them to evil American enemies. And to the WSJ, I would send a story designed to paint Sanders as fiscally irresponsible.
This would have the added benefit of tying directly into Hillary's two recent pivots, declaring herself more hawkish than Obama and "guilty" to the accusations that she's a moderate.
If I'm right, David Brock assumed people would be too stupid to look up the original report for themselves. He assumed, as a former Republican, that Democrats hate the idea of health care being a human right. He assumed that Democrats thought the government was wasteful and inefficient, and that the free market was the best governor of who should live and die. Again, if I'm right, he'll learn that this isn't true.