While progressives have been focused this week on pressuring House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to embrace bold initiatives, an interview with Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) served as a reminder that the second-ranking Democrat’s vision for the party is sorely lacking, as it heads into a new term with control of the House.
On NPR‘s “Morning Edition” early Friday, Steve Inskeep asked Hoyer about Medicare for All, which 26 newly-elected Democrats support. Outspoken support for the plan helped progressive challengers including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib win their elections, while 84 percent of Democratic voters—and 70 percent of Americans overall—now back the proposal.
The skyrocketing support for Medicare for All, however, appears to have gone unnoticed by Hoyer, who replied with familiar promises of “affordable, quality healthcare” but gave no sign of backing the proposal which even a Koch Brothers-backed study estimates would save Americans $2 trillion in overall healthcare costs.
“I think every Democrat is focused on making sure that every American has access to affordable, quality health care,” Hoyer said. “There are a number of ways to do that. I believe that we ought to first make sure that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is working as effectively and efficiently as we intended it to do.”
Hoyer briefly acknowledged that there is “a large number of the members of the caucus who are for ‘Medicare-for-all’ to begin with,” but finished by saying that Democrats including himself are looking forward to President Donald Trump keeping his campaign promise to provide affordable healthcare to Americans—despite the fact that he has spent a good deal of his presidency thus far working to sabotage the ACA and trying to repeal it:
Hoyer’s comments drew condemnation from at least one listener—Mercy College Professor Brent Draper Scott, who slammed the Minority Whip for “capitulating to Trump and utterly selling us out on Medicare for All.”
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