It’s election season and one of the issues that will once again be politicized is healthcare. In 2018, Democrats ran on a healthcare platform and won the House of Representatives, leaving Republicans scratching their heads as to what they did wrong to lose control of that chamber of Congress.
The Democratic-controlled House is split, but not just with Republicans opposing measures like the Affordable Care Act and Medicare for All, but with factions within the Democratic Party being at odds over which healthcare measure to support.
Arguably one of the Affordable Care Act’s biggest voices of support is South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D), who has been aggressively pushing back against House Republicans and President Donald Trump over their efforts to “sabotage” and “repeal and replace” the ACA, aka Obamacare.
Rep. Wasserman Schultz and other liberal-to-moderate House Democrats, like Reps. Stephanie Murphy, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, and Al Lawson realize that the ACA needs fixing, but agree that pushing the progressive Medicare for All healthcare initiative could be a losing proposition even in a Speaker Pelosi House.
The Progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which is currently fighting for complete, free healthcare for Americans,” see Medicare for All as being a measure that could get them to single-payer healthcare, or complete government-run healthcare.
Wasserman Schultz believes that because “defending the ACA” is more than protecting healthcare, she outlined some of the major healthcare accomplishments that are slated to get funded in the 2020 House budget proposal.
The ACA is still popular in Florida.
Florida Republican Reps. Gus Bilirakis and Ross Spano, who oppose both the ACA and Medicare for All, told The Floridian that Democrats are in a bit of a political pickle about supporting Medicare for All because their voting base “demands it.”
“My guess is they (Democrats) understand Medicare for All would ‘break the bank’ and require massive middle-class tax increases,” stated Spano “But they can’t denounce it because a significant portion of their base expects and demands it.”
“Democrats, even the traditional liberals, who don’t belong to the progressive wing of the party, understand that a Medicare for All price tag of at least $32 trillion, will mean an exponential increase in taxes everyday Americans, including their constituents, simply cannot afford,” said Bilirakis, adding that “Government-run health care does not work no matter how you slice it.”
