Iowa Starting Line - Where’s The Beef, Bernie?

[Alfresco]

http://iowastartingline.com/2016/01/14/wheres-the-beef-bernie/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wheres-the-beef-bernie
Excerpt:
January 14th, 2016
by Pat Rynard

Your Home for Iowa Caucus and Iowa Politics News

As caucus night draws near and the polls tighten, the Hillary Clinton campaign is putting increasing pressure on Bernie Sanders to release a detailed plan on his Medicare-for-all proposal. Namely: how is he going to pay for it?

The newest battle began after Sanders himself told CNN on Tuesday night that he would release his full tax plan before the Iowa Caucus. The next day, however, his national campaign manager Jeff Weaver backed off of that commitment. Sanders’ Iowa state director, Robert Becker, told the Des Moines Register that “Bernie Sanders will put forth details for universal coverage when he is ready and not because Hillary Clinton suddenly realized she is losing.”

All that didn’t sit well with team Clinton, which quickly called the backtracking on a plan “alarming,” and suggested Sanders was withholding information so to make caucus-goers think his Medicare plan could be implemented with little to no burden on most families. It’s likely also frustrating to Clinton backers who see a double-standard at play. If Clinton, seen by many critics as too calculating in her politics, decided to not release important details of a plan that could have negative effects before an important primary vote, she would be pilloried in the media non-stop for it.

The Sanders campaign shot back that Clinton committed a “flip-flop” on healthcare, even accusing her of using “Karl Rove tactics.” However, they weren’t hitting Clinton on a policy change, instead they were pointing to a statement she made in 2008 that Democrats shouldn’t criticize each other’s healthcare plans. But Clinton was largely criticizing Sanders’ lack of a plan in this instance.

There are two criticisms here coming from the Clinton campaign when it comes to Sanders’ Medicare plan. One is on the idea of Medicare-for-all itself, which Clinton and allies are arguing would either 1) be impracticable to implement without a large new tax on middle class families or 2) would dismantle much of Obamacare, CHIP and Medicare as it currently is. That policy argument has been met with push-back from many progressives who feel Clinton is attacking the idea of singer-payer, which is still very popular in many circles.

But the broader implication in this line of critique from Clinton is that Sanders promises a lot in his speeches, but would have extreme difficulty getting them actually enacted once in office. And that Sanders hasn’t adequately explained how much his “political revolution” would be realistically implemented.