The times are changing -- Republicans want single payer

[SkyDancer]

Albeit by a slim majority.
That being said, this is the first time a majority of Republicans now want single payer health care in the United States. I think it may be safe to say that if you oppose single payer at this point, you probably are on the wrong side of history. If you look at where the opposition is now coming from, it's based in the health care and big pharma lobby, along with much of the Republican establishment who gets huge amount of cash from such entities. While they may be bought, it seems Republican voters are waking up to reality at least on this issue.

Turns Out People Really Like the Idea of Medicare For All and Free College Tuition

Reuters published a feature today on the growing influence of progressives in the Democratic Party, accompanied by a round of extensive polling on three of the most visible planks of the wing’s platform: abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, free college tuition, and Medicare for All. It turns out that nearly everyone really likes the idea of single payer!

According to Reuters’ polling, 85 percent of Democrats support Medicare for All, along with 52 percent of Republicans. In all, 70 percent of the nearly three thousand people Reuters polled indicated their support for Medicare for All, while 21 percent opposed it and 9 percent said they don’t know.

In polling free college tuition, Reuters noted it would be funded by taxing speculative trading, but said it would be “for those who meet income levels”; the College for All Act of 2017, introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and co-sponsored by seven other Senate Democrats, eliminates tuition at four-year universities for families making under $125,000 a year and would eliminate it altogether at two-year public colleges.

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[Meadowoak]

1. Of course republicans want it, they just don't want democrats to get it.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

2. Republican PEOPLE may want it, but ..

The pharmaceuticals and insurance companies will fight it, not tooth-and-nail, but with bribes and job offers. They can buy a lot of congresspeople.

We can hope.

[Sherman A1]

3. Precisely

That said, I fall to understand why companies in other sectors are not pushing hard to eliminate the costs that they have to bear.

[greymattermom]

4. And if it hsppens

Maybe folks would finally get pay raises.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

16. Well, let's not go crazy here ...

What corporations pay for health insurance, they should pay that much in a tax increase to cover the new medical scheme. If they do experience reduced costs, they'll either give raises to the executives, or buy their own stock back from the market, again to raise the value of their executives' stock.

The recent corporate tax cuts "could" have gone to pay raises for workers. Apparently, they did not.

[Trust Buster]

5. Who the hell is AOC to claim that any Democrat that dosen't support Medicare for All should be

Considered a “fringe Democrat” ? In truth, she is the fringe Democrat and I am being very kind in saying that.

[thesquanderer]

8. If 85% want something, and 15% don't...

...then you could say that the people who want it represent the mainstream (the popular majority position) and the people who don't are the fringe (the much smaller minority position).

[Tom Rinaldo]

9. Democrats who supported Medicare for All in 2008 were told they held a fringe position

It was said to lack enough support to even receive serious consideration during preliminary hearings about health care reform. Supporting Medicare for All in 2008 was not a fringe position. Opposing it now isn't literally a fringe position either, but if you consider a "fringe" description fair for those who supported Medicare for All in 2008, it is just as fair to say that about a position opposing Medicare for All now.

[Trust Buster]

11. In the 2016 primaries, Hillary Clinton held the position that Medicare for All was not politically

Feasible. Since then, the Democrats have lost the White House and Senate. Hillary was right then and is right now. For a person that has never won a general election to claim that Hillary Clinton is a “fringe Democrat” says volumes about AOC IMO.

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. First off, you seriously distorted what was said

Neither AOC nor anyone else has said that Democrats who don't support Medicare for All are "fringe Democrats. The assertion was rather that those who reject it are now holding a “fringe stance." That is fringe stance singular, no doubt many good Democrats hold a view or two that others might consider to be at the fringe of the current Democratic mainstream, that doesn't make them fringe Democrats. That would define how my views on health care were labeled in 2008. Sometimes views change rapidly. Gay marriage is an example of that.

Second, no Democrats did not lose the Senate in 2016. Republicans already controlled it.

[SkyDancer]

10. Who the hell is AOC?

A woman of color. A progressive. A Democratic Socialist. Someone who beat the #3 Democrat. Someone who is on the right side of the issue.

If you think AOC is the "fringe" when 83% of Democrats support single single payer, you may want to re-examine what exactly "the fringe" actually means. Being in the 17% who don't support single payer literally makes you "the fringe".

[IronLionZion]

6. It lowers costs for employers

so if you think about it like that, it is the real pro-business plan

[Xipe Totec]

7. Employers should never have been involved in health insurance in the first place

During World War II, the federal government was wary of post-war inflation. The administration saw the terrible devastation hyperinflation wreaked on post-World War I Germany and they were determined to hold it at bay through wage and price controls which they instituted during the war. In reaction to the wage controls, many labor groups planned to go on strike en masse. In order to avert the strike, in a concession to the labor groups, the War Labor Board exempted employer-paid health benefits from wage controls and income tax.

This historical accident created a tax advantage that drove enormous demand for employer-provided health insurance plans over the previously more common individual health insurance. Employers received a 100% tax deduction while the benefits employees received were exempt from federal, state, and city taxation.

https://www.peoplekeep.com/blog/part-1-the-history-of-u.s.-employer-provided-health-insurance-post-world-war-ii

[hueymahl]

12. And to think, not long ago, on this very website, you were called a radical, a dreamer

if you supported single payer. Someone who didn't know how politics worked, lacked pragmatism, were doing things that would hurt the party.

Glad to see times have changed.

[George II]

13. Where is the poll?

[Hortensis]

15. They want good healthcare. They want THEIR name on it.

They used to support the ACA by significant majority, but now they're afraid those trashing it from both the right and the far left will succeed. So, they're interested in healthcare under a new label.

And the name "Medicare for All" appeals as much to them as to anyone else in its promising, if very misleading, simplicity.

We advance. Sigh for the dysfunctional strife and stupidity that demand destruction, dissent, and delay before we can is all.