House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went on CBS News 60 Minutes to discuss a number of pressing issues currently dominating the American political discourse.
Notably, Pelosi punched left, suggesting that the Democratic Party has to remain a mainstream, centrist party.
Host Lesley Stahl suggested that there appear to exist two wings within the Democratic Party, one of them progressive and the other moderate. Stahl asked Pelosi whether she can “unify everybody.”
“By and large, whatever orientation they came to Congress with, they know that we have to hold the center. That we have to go down the mainstream.”
“You have these wings — AOC, and her group on one side –” the host pressed Pelosi, but the House speaker interrupted her.
“That’s like five people,” she quipped.
Stahl suggested that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party includes more than just five people, and Pelosi pushed back against her by calling herself a progressive. Immediately after calling herself a progressive, however, Pelosi argued against the immensely popular “Medicare for All” policy.
Pelosi, she said, prefers the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare, and considers it to be “much better” than a single-payer system which would ensure equal access to healthcare to all American citizens.
Pelosi and Stahl seemingly agreed that “Medicare for All” is unrealistic, and that it would provoke President Trump and the Republican Party to slap a “socialist” label on the Democrats.
Universal healthcare is not a socialist proposal, however, and as The Economist pointed out, the United States — which is the richest country in the world — is the only developed country without universal healthcare.
Furthermore, polls have consistently shown that the vast majority of Americans — even a majority of Republicans — supports universal healthcare. Eighty-five percent of Democrats and 52 percent of Republicans support the policy, according to CNBC .
In a private meeting less than a month after Democrats won back the House, Nancy Pelosi’s top health policy aide told insurance executives that Democrats would be allies to the insurance industry in the fight against single-payer health care. https://t.co/bJkFlpXgNA
— The Intercept (@theintercept) February 5, 2019
Numerous studies have shown that “Medicare for All” is actually much cheaper than the Affordable Care Act. As reported by The Nation , even a study backed by conservative-libertarian Koch brothers demonstrated that the United States would save trillions of dollars by switching to a single-payer system.
Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in the country, has recently had to endure criticism from progressive politicians, journalists, and activists.
As previously reported by The Inquisitr , Pelosi’s comments about President Trump’s tweet inferring that Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar supports terrorism were deemed weak by many progressives.
Nancy Pelosi is finally starting to take Ilhan Omar’s safety seriously https://t.co/n3oXOCKJqY pic.twitter.com/qPFncr9PP2
— Splinter (@splinter_news) April 14, 2019
Pelosi subsequently came out with a stronger statement, eventually contacting U.S. Capitol Police, and asking them to “conduct a security assessment” and protect Omar — who has been receiving death threats — and her family, according to Politico .
