Getting any consequential law passed in the US is really hard, probably harder than at any point in history. Democracy is about math, if you don’t have the numbers, it doesn’t matter how hard you fight, or how righteous your cause. You have to have a comfortable majority in the house, a filibuster proof majority in the senate, and a willing president. Anything less means failure.
After the law is passed there are years of lawsuits that the law must survive at various levels.
If the law passes the courts those in opposition will be extra motivated at the next election, while supporters will be happy and complacent. This means that the opposition will likely win the next election and then begin to undermine the law.
Despite this, candidates for office are constantly promising plans for laws that could never pass even if there party had control of the entire government. If you tune into any political debate it sounds like the candidates are trying to become dictators, not one part of a huge system where everything has to go perfectly for anything to get done.
Because the plans are so ambitious and the power to implement them is so limited, both parties need a go to excuse. For the Republicans it is because the media elite and their allies are preventing it. For Democrats it is because politicians have been bought off by corporate money. Both explanations have a kernel of truth but totally miss the actual reason nothing gets done.
This breeds extremism, because Republican voters think that anybody the media elite hate, must be doing something right, while Democrat voters think that anybody in office has been bought off by plutocrats. Thus candidates like Trump and Sanders flourish.
The only solution is for voters to stand up and stop voting for people with pie in the sky plans instead of a history of actually getting laws passed. Politicians won’t be honest about how hard governing actually is, until voters start rewarding honesty.
You know, I actually typed up a big response and almost hit post before I realized this well is too poisoned with just one post that it is not worth participating.
I think I see where the OP is coming from- basically what’s happening is that when a candidate makes a huge absurd promise and then fails to deliver (as they all do), the electorate isn’t holding them responsible, because they claim they’re being thwarted in their ambitions by those bastards on the other side of the aisle, and the electorate believes it, instead of perceiving these guys as the a-holes and frauds they really are.
What’s worse to me is that the proposal of absurd positions by politicians isn’t seen as a detractor anymore for this reason- it used to be that someone who promised too much was looked at skeptically, but now it seems like the bigger the better; if you’re proposing realistic stuff, you look like you’re not sufficiently committed or something.
Part of this is that our media today doesn’t reward sound, well-thought out policies that take up 3-4 pages - it rewards zingers, burns and bumper-sticker quotes in debates or quips by politicians that take up no more than 10 words.
Not just that they blame the bastards on the other side, but that the other side is motivated by either contempt of ordinary americans, or has been bribed into their positions. Thus the whole system is corrupt and the only hope is someone outside the system.
However, the problem is that governing is difficult for an insider, but practically impossible for an outsider. Getting up to speed about how Washington works and where the levers of power are takes years if not decades.
The problem is the media is only responding to what people demand. The highest rated news programs are not civil discussions of tradeoffs but people shouting about how evil the other side is. The same thing with newspapers publishing clickbait instead of actual news.
Of course we have heard the promise that premiums would go down overall in the past. So it is not just a matter of specifics, but how believable the plan is.
Also from the cite -
If this is the same as the last Urban Institute analysis, it includes some very hard parts - namely that doctors and health care providers would be reimbursed at Medicare rates. Which is by no means a slam dunk as to whether or not she could bring it off. As I have mentioned several times in the past, doctors lose money on 65-80% of their Medicare patients.
Warren wants to eliminate private insurance. That would imply that Medicare rates are all that the doctors are going to get paid.
Not sure how she can bring that off. Just saying “doctors will have to suck it up and charge less” is not IMO a good answer.
The problem with Medicare for All is not just that there is no realistic way to pay for it, but no realistic way to pass it. Medicare is a money loser for most doctors and hospitals.
Anyone in a swing district or state who voted for it would lose the doctor, nurse, and associated profession vote forever. 8.7% of the population works in the medical field, that is too many people for any politician in a competitive race to anger.
The Vermont legislature is 80% democrats. They couldn’t pass single payer because it would raise taxes too much. If they couldn’t do it, how can they do it in the congress where it is almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans?