After all he tried-and failed-to bring single payer to Vermont. When Bernie was asked about its failure in one of the smallest and most progressive states-where you'd think it would have had its best chance of making it-his response was to my mind very revealing.
He blithely said 'I'm not Peter Shumlin.'
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/01/bernies-explains-vermonts-single-payer.html
I find this revealing in that while it was a sort of pithy response and got him past the question, it also was in truth a very non-responsive response which told us nothing actually. It was an answer to the question that really didn't answer the question.
It''s yet another reason I get nervous when I hear him talk. I mean, we know he's not Shumlin but he is pushing a policy they both agree on, so it would be more reassuring if Bernie at least had some thoughts why it didn't work out in his own home state.
He could even argue that Shumlin did it wrong-but, again, not just say you know, gee, he did it wrong, but explain:
1. How Shumlin went about it and why it didn't work
2. How Bernie would do it differently and why it would work so much better.
It isn't easy because you have to think Vermont gave single payer its best chance to work.
The question for me that begs is why Shumlin has endorsed Hillary Clinton as he and Bernie agree on single payer?
My guess it's because Shumlin knows all too well who Bernie Sanders is and who he isn't seeing him up close and personal in Vermont.
"Here's my problem with Bernie Sanders. With few exceptions, I agree with his positions on issues. But I don't like him or his political temperament. He'd be an awful president."
"I followed him carefully when I was editor of the Burlington Free Press in Vermont. Sanders was the state's sole congressman, lived in Burlington, and would periodically visit with the newspaper's editors and publisher."
"Considering that the Free Press' editorial positions were very liberal, reflecting the nature of a very liberal Vermont community, one might think that meetings with Sanders were cordial, even celebratory."
"They weren't. Sanders was always full of himself: pious, self-righteous and utterly humorless. Burdened by the cross of his socialist crusade, he was a scold whose counter-culture moralizing appealed to the state's liberal sensibilities as well as its conservatives, who embraced his gun ownership stance, his defense of individual rights, an antipathy toward big corporations and, generally speaking, his stick-it-to-them approach to politics."
http://lansingcitypulse.com/article-12189-The-trouble-with-Bernie.html
This was similar to what Barney Frank said about him when he got to Congress-that Bernie had a way of alienating potential allies.
This is the opposite of what it takes to get things done and is why Bernie has gotten so few bills passed in his time in Congress-compared with Hillary it's just embarrassing for him.
It shows that Bill Clinton is right: Bernie is a change-talker and Hillary is a change-doer.
Peter Shumlin's support of Hillary Clinton underscores a point I've tried to make repeatedly. Bernie maniacs have taken HRC's criticism of Bernie's single payer plan as a repudiation of the ideal of single payer itself.
That is not the case. Her criticism has been tactical not conceptual. She is not repudiating it as a goal-she pushed something close to single payer as First Lady in 1994 and has the battle scars to realize that the first rule of healthcare reform in America is 'First don't screw with what anyone already has.'
Bernie's single payer play only sounds like a free lunch if you assume that he can get it with no rationing.
Shumlin would obviously like to see the ACA expanded but he gets that simply blowing it up and starting over as Bernie wants to do is counterproductive.
As Krugman notes, to talk about single payer right now is a distraction.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/01/krugnan-on-single-payer-and-art-of.html
He blithely said 'I'm not Peter Shumlin.'
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/01/bernies-explains-vermonts-single-payer.html
I find this revealing in that while it was a sort of pithy response and got him past the question, it also was in truth a very non-responsive response which told us nothing actually. It was an answer to the question that really didn't answer the question.
It''s yet another reason I get nervous when I hear him talk. I mean, we know he's not Shumlin but he is pushing a policy they both agree on, so it would be more reassuring if Bernie at least had some thoughts why it didn't work out in his own home state.
He could even argue that Shumlin did it wrong-but, again, not just say you know, gee, he did it wrong, but explain:
1. How Shumlin went about it and why it didn't work
2. How Bernie would do it differently and why it would work so much better.
It isn't easy because you have to think Vermont gave single payer its best chance to work.
The question for me that begs is why Shumlin has endorsed Hillary Clinton as he and Bernie agree on single payer?
My guess it's because Shumlin knows all too well who Bernie Sanders is and who he isn't seeing him up close and personal in Vermont.
"Here's my problem with Bernie Sanders. With few exceptions, I agree with his positions on issues. But I don't like him or his political temperament. He'd be an awful president."
"I followed him carefully when I was editor of the Burlington Free Press in Vermont. Sanders was the state's sole congressman, lived in Burlington, and would periodically visit with the newspaper's editors and publisher."
"Considering that the Free Press' editorial positions were very liberal, reflecting the nature of a very liberal Vermont community, one might think that meetings with Sanders were cordial, even celebratory."
"They weren't. Sanders was always full of himself: pious, self-righteous and utterly humorless. Burdened by the cross of his socialist crusade, he was a scold whose counter-culture moralizing appealed to the state's liberal sensibilities as well as its conservatives, who embraced his gun ownership stance, his defense of individual rights, an antipathy toward big corporations and, generally speaking, his stick-it-to-them approach to politics."
http://lansingcitypulse.com/article-12189-The-trouble-with-Bernie.html
This was similar to what Barney Frank said about him when he got to Congress-that Bernie had a way of alienating potential allies.
This is the opposite of what it takes to get things done and is why Bernie has gotten so few bills passed in his time in Congress-compared with Hillary it's just embarrassing for him.
It shows that Bill Clinton is right: Bernie is a change-talker and Hillary is a change-doer.
Peter Shumlin's support of Hillary Clinton underscores a point I've tried to make repeatedly. Bernie maniacs have taken HRC's criticism of Bernie's single payer plan as a repudiation of the ideal of single payer itself.
That is not the case. Her criticism has been tactical not conceptual. She is not repudiating it as a goal-she pushed something close to single payer as First Lady in 1994 and has the battle scars to realize that the first rule of healthcare reform in America is 'First don't screw with what anyone already has.'
Bernie's single payer play only sounds like a free lunch if you assume that he can get it with no rationing.
Shumlin would obviously like to see the ACA expanded but he gets that simply blowing it up and starting over as Bernie wants to do is counterproductive.
As Krugman notes, to talk about single payer right now is a distraction.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/01/krugnan-on-single-payer-and-art-of.html
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