I’m not seeing how at this point Warren is going to be able to offer a plan that is significantly different than the Bernie/Jayapal plan. I think she’s going to count on people who prefer her style to Bernie’s to get her over the top.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/02/warren-health-care-2020-1630660

Elizabeth Warren boasts she has a plan for everything, but there’s one glaring omission: health care.

Warren, who has recently leaped into the top tier of a crowded primary field as she rolled out detailed policies for seemingly everything — from climate change to the opioid crisis to breaking up tech giants — has instead embraced “Medicare for All” legislation from Sen. Bernie Sanders, her foremost progressive rival. And for many single-payer activists thrilled the once-fringe issue has entered the party’s mainstream, that’s good enough.

“Elizabeth Warren is a fierce advocate for America’s working families,” said Ady Barkan, the prominent health care activist dying of ALS whose story Warren told during the debate. “Single-payer Medicare For All is what we need, so it would be counterproductive to propose something else just for the sake of being different.”

Democratic advocates and political strategists suggested there’s little upside to Warren offering her own plan right now as she and Sanders — who have sought to avoid attacking one another — chase a similar set of progressive voters. By aligning with Sanders, she can fight for a progressive priority without boxing herself in with a prescriptive plan that’s unlikely to differ much from the one he’s written.

But they say Warren will need to strike a delicate balance as the field of candidates winnows — appealing to progressives by championing single-payer health care while still presenting a clear enough alternative to Sanders.

“So far they’ve been an effective one-two punch for the direction of the party,” said Democratic strategist Andrew Feldman, who works with labor unions and progressive groups. “But once the field starts dwindling, her lack of a health care plan is going to come into more heightened focus, especially because she does have so many plans out there. There’s a risk of people saying, ‘If she’s just for Bernie’s plan, why shouldn’t we just vote for Bernie?’”

Warren’s campaign did not respond to multiple questions from POLITICO about whether she intends to offer her own health care plan.

https://qz.com/1679312/sanderss-health-care-plan-may-give-canadas-a-run-for-its-money/?utm_source=reddit.com

During last night’s Democratic debates, Senator Bernie Sanders naturally talked up his signature policy point, his Medicare for All proposal. He also made a familiar comparison, describing a bus trip he made from Detroit to Windsor, Ontario, with Americans who fill prescriptions in the northern country at a fraction of what they cost south of the border.

“I took 15 people with diabetes from Detroit a few miles into Canada,” he said in last night’s debate, “and we bought insulin for one-tenth the price being charged by the crooks who run the pharmaceutical industry in America today.”

The differences between the two countries’ health plans are often highlighted in arguments for extending universal health care to all Americans, while eliminating private insurance. The US is the only industrial nation without universal health care, so it’s handy that such a close neighbor serves as an example of how it works. But, in fact, there are a few ways that Sanders’s plan would provide even more comprehensive coverage than Canada’s.

I’m looking at you Joe

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/labor-puts-presidential-candidates-on-notice-lets-be-honest-about-the-democratic-partys-record_n_5d43215de4b0ca604e2ed07f

The president of the AFL-CIO labor federation spoke at a closed meeting with representatives from the entire field of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates ahead of Wednesday’s debate in Detroit. His message was straightforward: “It’s time to do better.”

Richard Trumka told attendees that while President Donald Trump is enacting bad policies for workers, Democratic leaders need to reckon with their own role in creating an unfair economy. He said “both parties” are to blame for a system that caters to the rich.

“We are caught in a web of century-old labor laws that prioritize unchecked corporate greed over all else,” Trumka said. “We can blame this White House all we want. But this isn’t new.”

Trumka went on, “More often than not, the Republican Party is bad for workers. This president is bad for workers. But let’s be honest about the Democratic Party’s record.”

He singled out the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership as Democrat-backed trade deals that were tilted against the working class.

In attendance at the Detroit meeting was Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez, who, as former President Barack Obama’s labor secretary, promoted the TPP deal. (Trump pulled the U.S. out of the pact and it hasn’t been ratified.)

“It’s time to do better,” Trumka said. “I believe you can. I believe you will. And working people are hungry for it. But you can’t offer campaign rhetoric or count on workers’ votes simply because you have a ‘D’ next to your name.”

Except Rep. Neal, Western MA is not a purple district. It’s one of the bluest in MA.

Morse is a 30-year-old progressive. Neal is a 70-year-old moderate, who was first elected to the House 30 years ago — just before his young challenger was born. He is a prodigious fundraiser and among the most powerful members of the House.

But Morse says all that seniority doesn’t benefit the district.

“When you think about his money and where it comes from, whether it’s Wall Street or Big Pharma or the fossil fuel industry,” Morse says, “[you realize that] when he does make decisions, it’s certainly not for people here in the district; it’s for those corporations who invest vast sums in his campaign account.”

This is the main argument progressives are using against Neal — that he is beholden to special interests and boatloads of campaign cash.

According to Federal Election Commission filings, right after he took the gavel of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, Neal spent tens of thousands of dollars on fancy dinners and posh events from Washington, D.C., to Florida to California — all to woo wealthy donors, who in turn contributed hundreds of thousands dollars to the congressman.

It’s the way business is done in Washington, but Morse and his fellow progressives portray Neal as the poster boy of “pay-to-play politics.”

Morse supports Medicare for All, The Green New Deal and beginning impeachment proceedings against President Trump now — none of which Neal has endorsed.

But the veteran congressman points out that it was moderates — not progressives — who won in mostly purple districts and flipped the House to Democrats last November.

“That’s where the majority came from,” Neal says. “So, this argument that there was this [progressive] revolution — I think it might sound good for soundbites, but when you peel back the evidence, there’s not a lot to substantiate it.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/bernie-sanders-republicans-have-very-different-understanding-what-freedom-means-ncna1037321

On the first night of the Democratic presidential debate on CNN on Tuesday, the gulf between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and everyone else on stage was absolutely clear. Warren opened with a call for “big, structural change,” while Sanders gave a laundry list of the ways corporate America is prospering while average Americans suffer. The popular progressives were in command of the narrative as they called out the Republican framings used by the moderators and their colleagues — something that isn’t new to either of them.

Although Warren has become a standard-bearer for progressives, Sanders’ campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination fundamentally altered American political discourse. Before his insurgent candidacy, ideas like a $15 minimum wage, tuition-free college and “Medicare for All” were viewed as radical demands with little institutional support. But now, less than four years later, these views are increasingly common, including among the crowded field of 2020 Democratic candidates.

Lost in some of the coverage of these policies, however, is the fundamental question of why they are so necessary.
Lost in some of the coverage of these policies, however, is the fundamental question of why they are so necessary. The United States, once the beacon of freedom and opportunity for oppressed peoples around the world, no longer stands up to its reputation. Housing costs have soared, wages have stagnated, and structures designed to lift up those at the bottom have been systematically decimated. America is no longer the land of opportunity where, as the Constitution says, all are created equal.

After decades of consistently pushing the same message, Sanders has seen his ideas finally enter the political mainstream. Polls have shown him to be the most popular politician in the country, while he and Warren consistently poll second and third place among the Democratic nominees. Both politicians are inspiring a radical, energetic and unapologetic new class of politicians that are shaking things up in Washington and state capitals.

At the end of the debate, both Warren and Sanders harkened back to their working-class roots, called for structural change to take on the rich and powerful and emphasized the necessity of a mass movement to make it happen. People are fed up with the unfairness and lack of freedom that corporate greed has created, and they’re ready for change. Maybe this time they’ll finally get

Interesting maps in this article.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/02/us/politics/2020-democratic-fundraising.html

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has a huge lead over other Democratic presidential candidates in the number of individual donors they have each accumulated so far.

This is the first time since the primary race began in earnest that we can estimate how many individual donors each candidate has attracted — a key indicator of how much they are catching on with voters.