Discussing Yang's M4A support

 So, Sam Seder decided to put out a video bashing yang for bashing the democrats as far as M4A goes, while being less than consistent on M4A himself. The video came off as yet another hacky anti yang propaganda piece to come out of the left, and I felt a need to discuss it.

Now, first of all, I kind of gave away my feelings toward Sam Seder here. I think he's a hack. I haven't been a fan of his work in recent years, and while I still follow him, I tend to not get along with his brand of left wing politics. He tends to be far too loyalist to the democratic party for one, and for two, he still sees himself as able to pick at people not as "progressive" (however as he defines it, it's more a tribalistic label at this point anyway) as him from the left. And on top of that, the dude is just so snarky and insufferable. Typical liberal smarm. Thinks he's the smartest guy in the room and treats people who don't agree with him as intellectually inferior. While this sometimes is done for comedic effect such as his spat with Steven Crowder, other times, it just comes off as cringe to me. 

But let's get to the gist of the video. Basically, Seder is claiming Yang isn't a true supporter of medicare for all based on statements he made in December of 2019. And for some of you, this may ring a bell, as this is around the time I stopped being a Yang supporter in the 2020 campaign. And the reason I formally cut ties with yang was because of the same information. Yang basically started out supporting medicare for all in his "war on normal people" book, where he rightfully pointed out that having employer based healthcare is bad for both workers who won't be able to rely on full time employment in the future (let alone now), and bad for employers who have to put out tons of extra costs associated with health insurance. He supported medicare for all being rolled out by gradually lowering the medicare age, which was echoed in this video. However, over the course of the campaign, he moderated a lot, first saying we can't implement medicare for all all at once and we need to do it over time, and then claiming to support the spirit of it while being agnostic on healthcare, and then releasing this mess, it was a mess. 

I dont blame seder, to some extent, for criticizing yang for not supporting medicare for all. Yang sucks at messaging it, and he really turns off a lot of left wingers with his framing. It makes him appear to be a fraud to them, as consistency in messaging is something they are big on, and yang has no consistency. He supported M4A as a pillar of his 2020 campaign, by then by the end of it he didn't even support a public option. Seder is kind of justified in pointing this out.

HOWEVER, digging deeper into yang, I think he does still support medicare for all. While not explicitly stated in his forward party principles, he has kind of given signs he still supports the policy. For example, he did mention still supporting it in his book, "Forward", and I've been hearing rumblings within yang communities and his podcast when asked about this and he still supports it. He just supports shifting that way gradually. 

Now, where do I stand on this? I can get behind Yang. I mean, I've gone through some shifts in the past year on this issue, and I've concluded a gradual approach could be good, depending on how its done. And here's the simple reason why: cost. if you're supporting UBI, like Yang or myself do, you are supporting a policy that is roughly $2.8 trillion (yang's plan) or $3.6 trillion (my plan). That's a massive increase in spending. And then to properly do medicare for all, it costs around $1.75 trillion (Bernie's plan) to $2 trillion (Warren's plan). That's a lot of money. We're talking anywhere from $4.5 trillion to $5.6 trillion in additional taxes and revenue a year. That's incredibly hard to pull off, and will cause us to hit the laffer curves I spoke of in terms of taxation. That said, while it makes sense for Bernie, who doesn't support UBI, and whose entire agenda is on the low side of that estimate including M4A, to support M4A outright, for someone like Yang, or myself...well...I feel like compromises can be made. While I still have a M4A plan that I support, if I couldn't get it through with UBI, I would shift toward medicare extra for all as a plan to get us to single payer over time. Essentially, it's an aggressive public option that would automatically enroll any uninsured american into a public option, while allowing people who like their insurance to keep a private healthcare option if they want. over time, fewer and fewer people would be in private healthcare and more would be on the public option. The cost of this would be a fraction of M4A, only around $280-450 billion at first, although it would still impose flaws from our current healthcare system like copays and deductibles on people. Yang instead takes the lowering the medicare age approach, although i think that he's kind of naive for that. Yang isn't an expert in crafting public policy in the details though. hence his lack of clarity on this topic.

That said, I can actually get behind Yang's inconsistency on it, as long as he's still serious about getting M4A over time. It's really just a matter of pragmatism for me. He's worried about transitioning people off of private insurance quickly, and I'm more worried about the combined cost of the two largest and most aggressive programs in expanding public spending we'll have ever implemented. These two programs make up a new new deal for a majority of Americans, giving every american a taste of the comfort currently only retirees possess in old age. 

But...let's face is, progressives are cut from a different cloth. Their ideas are more outdated, more piecemeal, and because of that, their plans are cheaper (but worse) on fronts other than healthcare so they can afford to be M4A or bust. For a human centered capitalist though, Yang's M4A support is fine. if you read between the lines, understand his statements on the issue, and his ideology, you'll understand that Yang is supportive of it, he's just relatively incrementalist in pursuing it for pragmatic concerns (for better or worse), and that he actually is on board with that.

I need to emphasize this because normally, when we talk about pragmatism and incrementalism, coming from neoliberals, it's often a way to fake you out. To pretend to support what you support, while being corporate bought and owned and sabotaging your interested in favor of theirs. Yang isn't that guy. He's not bought and owned. if he was, he wouldn't be running a third party. Everyone makes yang out to be some sort of grifter or sell out, but if he was that, he would be one of the democratic party good old boys. You dont form a third party if you're a grifter (even rich jerks who float the idea like bloomberg are megalomaniacs). No, Yang's the real deal.

That said, Sam Seder's attacks might make sense in appealing to his progressive base and their purity based circlejerk on the issues, but honestly, Yang has every right to be frustrated with the California situation, and I see where he's coming from. You can be both anti establishment, and NOT a Bernie style progressive. It's just a different ideology that weighs concerns a little differently. Now, the Bernie Bros, and even dem apologists like Sam Seder will crap on yang for this, but...honestly? Screw them. They dont have a monopoly on ideas. And honestly? I don't think they take yang seriously. They dont listen to his podcast or read his books. They just take snippets of stuff he says out of context, and then uses them to claim he's not a true progressive. It's BS. 

So yes, Yang DOES support medicare for all. There's just a lot of nuances and asterisks there, and he sucks at explaining himself in the marketing. To some extent that is Yang's fault. he should pick a view and stick to it if you ask me. But, weighing his progression from 2018 when he released the war on normal people to today, I don't think his core convictions have wavered, just the nuances of how he would get it done. He deserves some criticism for some of the apparent wavering he has done, but seriously, the left needs to grow up and stop being like HE ISNT AS PURE AS THE 80 YEAR OLD FROM VERMONT! BURN THE WITCH. Dude, NO ONE is as consistent and pure as bernie. And while I respect the crap out of Bernie...he...isn't always right on all the issues in my opinion, and it is okay to move on and like someone else.