Coverage of health care in the context of the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign amounts to asking a yes-or-no question about support for Medicare-for-all and then pointing out that Democrats are “divided.” (A rift! A split in the party!). The Medicare-for-all crowd accuses the others of being incrementalists (horror!) and the Medicare-for-all critics say this is pie-in-the-sky stuff that won’t work. That’s it. That’s the “health-care debate” as it has generally been covered.
What’s missing is any deep analysis of the costs and feasibility of Medicare-for-all and, more important, what some of the alternatives might look like.