The UAW’s Cadillac Health Care Plans could go the way of the Pontiac Aztek if candidates like Abdul El-Sayed keep winning and that has many democrats worried about a rip-tide developing in their blue wave plans for November.
Abdul El-Sayed’s Michigan US Senate primary victory last night marks a clearer leftward pivot in Democratic health politics—one that aligns closely with Democratic Socialists of America priorities. Even as he rejects the socialist label, his AOC and Bernie-backed campaign will throw down a marker for those who would vote to end Obamacare because it doesn’t go far enough. Abdul El-Sayed will go on to face the GOP candidate Mike Rogers in the November general election.
El-Sayed co-authored Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide and has made government-run, comprehensive coverage without premiums or deductibles the centerpiece of his campaign. He has called private insurers “parasites” and argued that only single-payer can end medical debt. That has many democrat strategists worried about the November matchups, particularly in places like Michigan with middle-class families who depend on private plans through the UAW, MEA (teachers), Teamsters and building trades. This represents hundreds of thousands of well-organized voters. El-Sayed said:
All health insurance companies are essentially parasites, you pay so that you get the healthcare you need when you need it, only to find out that you’ve got a deductible standing in your way.
He continued:
I don’t think parasites should exist in healthcare, which is exactly what Medicare for All would do.
El-Sayed may have the rhetoric of an oysterman, but he is no Grahm Platner. He has a M.D. from Colombia and a D.Phil from Oriel College, Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar. That doesn’t always impress the folks at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers annual Labor Day picnic.
Generations of Michigander workers in the automotive and construction trades have traded money for health benefits, providing for a relatively comfortable (read affordable) middle class career and retirement. Those workers had been faithful to the democrats until the last decade or so.
That has practical democrats like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitman worried enough to stick her neck out to have endorsed El-Sayed’s opponent Haley Stevens in the primary. One of El-Sayed’s other opponents, Mallory McMorrow pointed out that He supports a plan that makes illegal all existing forms of health insurance (including labor-treasured Cadillac plans).
El-Sayed countered “If you like your insurance from your employer, or union, that will be there for you.”
Where have we heard that before?
