Bernie Sanders will foil Senate Republicans' single-payer trolling
Jul 26, 2017, 9:31pm EDT
Excerpt:
Bernie Sanders is going to do his more moderate colleagues in the Senate Democratic caucus a big favor, in pursuit of the larger goal of trying to defeat Republican efforts to roll back the Affordable Care Act.
The Washington Examiner reported Wednesday night that Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) is planning to propose an amendment during debate this week to create a single-payer health care system.
Daines doesn’t himself support single-payer. But his amendment is an attempt to splinter the Democratic caucus and expose the minority party’s divisions on how to reform the health care system. Republicans are struggling mightily to find 50 votes to pass their bill, and the Examiner suggests that Daines is interested in calling attention to Democrats’ internal discord. In essence, the hope would be to force the many Democrats who are in-cycle in 2018 to choose between going on the record as favoring a pretty hefty tax increase by voting for a Daines-written single-payer bill and attracting the ire of Sanders supporters by voting against it.
But Sanders isn’t having it. The tactic of turning Sanders fans’ often dyspeptic attitude about the Democratic Party establishment to their advantage has worked for Republicans in the past, but Sanders has no intention of letting them run that playbook this week. Rather than seize the opportunity from Daines to talk about Medicare-for-All — which would in turn highlight Democrats’ internal divisions — Sanders will reject Daines’ amendment, a spokesperson for the Senator told Vox.
"The Democratic caucus will not participate in the Republicans' sham process. No amendment will get a vote until we see the final legislation and know what bill we are amending,” Josh Miller-Lewis, a spokesperson for Sanders, said in a text.
https://www.vox.com/2017/7/26/16048136/bernie-sanders-daines-single-payer
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