67%

[Orangepeel]

16. Medicare for all is the way to go

One of the left wing's biggest problems is that we're generally terrible at the ability to frame an issue. One has to explain what "single payer" is, what it means, how it works...by that time the right has screamed "death panel!" and "socialism!" so often and so loudly the discussion is lost.

Anyway, expanding Medicare for all is the way to go. But it isn't just going to happen because it is what makes the most sense. One can damn politics for being what it is, but that doesn't get one very far. The question has always been "is what we can get passed better than what we have now?" I think yes, so I support the affordable care act. Others think no, so they don't (although it doesn't make sense to lump the "no" opinions together because the reasons may be very different). 67% is not the percentage of people who want single payer Medicare for all. It is the percentage of people who want Medicare for all, plus the percentage of people who don't think that Medicare is a government program, plus the percentage of people that want to live in Somalia, plus the percentage of people who would be for it if the President was against it.

And, to go back to lousy framing, "the individual mandidate" is lousy framing. It was an effort to avoid the word "tax" that backfired. It's a tax that people who don't meet a certain income level and/or have health insurance are exempt from.