 So, without question, Bernard Sanders is the most important and I think influential ally that we have in the fight to get Medicare for All. That doesn't mean that he created this idea, even though he supported it for decades. But he did popularize this issue. This is something that grassroots activists have been fighting for for decades. But what he did was he took this issue and he brought it to the forefront of American political discourse. And because of him, we're all talking about Medicare for All, right? He is facilitating a cultural shift in the way that we view health care. Now we view it as a right. Even corporate Democrats who don't even support Medicare for All at least concede that it's a right and, you know, they don't actually believe it's a right if they don't want it to be free at the point of service. But nonetheless, he has changed the way that we talk about health care. So he is the most crucial ally. With that being said, I do think that there are areas where he could improve. And I think that he's playing too nice and he's done that pretty much throughout the course of the 2020 primary. He rarely goes on the offensive. And it's important that you defend when it comes to, you know, what you've managed to build up in terms of rhetoric around health care and Medicare for All. But you've also got to attack the people who are attacking you. If they attack Medicare for All, don't just defend but attack the policy that they are proposing, like Mayor Pete. And the reason why you have to do this is because their attacks are actually landing. Like since Mayor Pete and, you know, Joe Biden have been more vicious and vociferous than attacking Medicare for All, public support for Medicare for All has actually decreased and support for a public option has increased. This is according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation who does a lot of polling when it comes to health care. So you have to also go on the offensive and attack people who are fighting against what you're fighting for. And Bernie Sanders has finally started to do that. And it's really important because what he says, people actually take seriously. There was a recent poll that shows Bernie Sanders is the most trusted on a number of issues, the economy, education, but also health care. And that is really, really important. So if Bernie Sanders says that somebody else's idea on health care is flawed, people will listen and he did that. He criticized Mayor Pete's Medicare for All Who Wanted and explained why that is an idea that is a disaster if it actually does get implemented. So as Nick Cotrain of the Des Moines Register writes, Buddha Judge, like many candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for president, outlined a health care plan that stops short of Sanders' goal. Instead, Buddha Judge proposes giving people a choice between buying into a public option of health care coverage or private insurance. And that's its fatal flaw, Sanders said. It would overload the government with the most expensive patience, he said. When you talk about having a system where you're going to have private insurance and you're going to have a public option going in, the rich and the healthy will go into private insurance, the poor and the sick will go into Medicare and cost that system an enormous amount of money, Sanders said. So it's a failed idea in my view. He chastised the prescription drug in health care industries as creating a dysfunctional cruel system that is very, very expensive. He asked attendees for stories about health care costs and they shared tales of high costs for inadequate care. When an attendee asked about Buddha Judge's plan, Sanders called it unfair. If Buddha Judge or someone else wants to maintain that system, I think it's really unfair to the working families of this country. Sanders said. I'm just suggesting to you we can substantially lower health care costs for working families. And that is exactly correct. We lower health care costs if everyone is in one risk pool, if every single person is on the same plan in America. That's what we need to have happen because that way it's not just, you know, a public option that's being burdened by the sick and the poor, whereas healthy people will be marketed, you know, by these insurance companies, these plans that are cheap, that don't offer much. But nonetheless, they're not helping to subsidize the entire health care system, which is the way it's supposed to function if you want it to have staying power, right, and longevity. So what we need to make crystal clear about a public option is that this is the illusion of choice. It's not actually increasing choice because if you truly want choice when it comes to health care, what does that mean? That means that I can choose my doctor. I can choose the hospitals that I go to. And I don't have to worry about out-of-network expenses. But with this system, Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden also are promoting this as choice because you get to choose between a private and a public option. But that doesn't actually give you more choice than Medicare for all. Because if you have a multi-payer system, well, what if the hospital that you want to go to doesn't accept Medicare? I mean, if everyone has the same plan, if the government is the single payer when it comes to insurance, they can't choose to opt out of taking Medicare unless they want to go out of business, essentially. Now, they technically can do that if they're stupid, if they expect people to just pay out of pocket. And I'm sure that maybe there'll be a clinic or two under Medicare for all that will do that. But in the grand scheme of things, it is in their financial interest to not opt out because they would lose a lot of money. But with a multi-payer system with a public option, they can do that. They can say, oh, what's that? You have Medicare? We actually don't take Medicare here. Sorry. Or they can say, you know what? We actually do take Medicare. But we don't accept Medicare for this particular procedure because they don't pay out as much as private insurance companies. Something along those lines, I don't know. But understand that if you truly want to increase choice, if that's your main goal, which is what individuals like Buttigieg purport, then increasing choice means doing Medicare for all, where you eliminate networks. There's just one giant network and it's free at the point of service for everyone who actually can go to a doctor even if they don't have a job, even if they don't have private insurance. That is what choice means, right? Because even if you're a homeless person, you can walk into a doctor's office and get checked up because it is free at the point of service. We don't have the choice to do that right now. We wouldn't have the choice to do that under a public option because Medicare for all who want it, as Elizabeth Warren actually put it, is Medicare for all who can afford it in actuality. You have to have money to have health care. It is not free at the point of service. Therefore, it's still a commodity like baseball cards and video games. So this is important. I'm glad that Bernie Sanders is now going on the offensive. I think he needs to do this more. And I get the worry with basically attacking your opponents because back in 2016, when he was more critical of Hillary Clinton, marginally so, he was accused of being a misogynist and a toxic and spewing too much vitriol. But if you truly believe in what you're fighting for, then you have to make sure you call out the people who are fighting against the progress that you've made. Push the envelope further, but defend the gains that you've made, right? Solidify the progress that we've made. That's incredibly crucial. So regardless, Bernie isn't going to win over the establishment and the health insurance industry. So go on the offense of attack them if they're going to continue to attack you and attack Medicare for all. Just the other day, Pete Buttigieg in defending his work at McKinsey for Blue Cross Blue Shield and the potential job losses that he caused, he said that actually Bernie Sanders, his policy, I'm paraphrasing, he didn't name Bernie, but he essentially said Bernie's Medicare for all would lead to the most amount of jobs being lost because well, if you wipe out the private insurance industry, then that leaves thousands of Americans without jobs. That's an attack and also it's a misrepresentation because Bernie Sanders opts for a just transition to where people who are currently working in the private insurance industry can get jobs in Medicare. So it's a lie and his opponents have no problems attacking him. So it's about time that Bernie Sanders gives them a taste of their own medicine and he actually calls them what they are. Frauds were promoting failed strategies when it comes to healthcare. He didn't call them frauds, but he should. But yeah, give them a taste of their own medicine, no pun intended. Keep it up, Bernie, because this is how you win by showing them that what they're pitching is snake oil and you're pitching what is truly going to save lives and offer people real choice. Medicare for all.