Naomi Lim of the Washington Examiner seeks Iowa Democrats’ reaction to Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential bid.
Elizabeth Warren’s “Medicare for all” government-financed healthcare plan is unnerving Iowa Democrats as the prospect of her seizing the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination becomes more real.
Voters in the first nominating contest state say they’re scared both about the $26 trillion price tag of “Medicare for all” and the opening it could give President Trump to tag the Massachusetts senator as a socialist whose efforts to abolish private health insurance would leave to the collapse of the American healthcare system.
It’s becoming a serious challenge for the Warren campaign, which has a natural group of voters who vehemently want to oust Trump in 2020 but are leery of Warren’s far-left policy proposals.
Tim Fairchild, 60, an independent voter whose No. 1 issue is healthcare, said he is “wide open” in the 2020 primaries but Warren’s plan is giving him pause. “I’m not saying it’s wrong, but I’m scared. I really am. I’d be scared to have an appendectomy, too — it’s big, it’s bold, it may be great,” he told the Washington Examiner after a Pete Buttigieg town hall in Spencer. …
… Democrats are grappling with the politics of “Medicare for all” as they hurtle toward the Iowa caucuses, now less than 100 days away on Feb. 3. The promise of universal health coverage has become a litmus test as the party lurches to the Left, yet fissures have formed over how to get there. …
… Now, Warren is facing her own “Medicare for all” test.
