9:12 PM: This isn’t really a critique of single payer, as such. And over time, it should shake out. But here’s a question I have, both about implementation and the politics of it. At the end of the day, you pay for your health insurance, even if your employer pays for it. Because it’s carved out of money you otherwise would receive in direct compensation. But in practice, in the moment, it’s not that clear cut. So if you have a relatively small tax increase and in exchange we have Medicare for All, the immediate savings are to your employer. Do we assume your employer will immediately push those savings to employees? I doubt it. Overtime, sure, some more elasticity in wages. But as a practical matter and in the moment, I think this is a complication to the argument.
9:20 PM: I will say Bernie Sanders has gotten maybe a 100 times better at this than he was only a few months ago.
9:21 PM: With the guy who asked about a class-based political and worldview I was thinking, what’s with the ridiculously articulate questions?
9:24 PM: The injustice question, I mean, that won him a few votes.
9:29 PM: Akrit.
9:30 PM: Not a lot of excitement in that segment. But Sanders made the case for himself about as well as possible, I thought. There were a couple points where I sort of expected Cooper to press him a bit further, but didn’t, especially on the religion question. I think Sanders is an agnostic or atheist. And he didn’t precisely say otherwise. But he seemed to say that religion was actually an important part of his life and the way he sees the world. But then he sort of shifted to spirituality and a message about human solidarity. I sort of expected that Cooper was going to ask, “Do you believe in God?” Didn’t.
