Is Amy Klobuchar a moderate?

Here is the most recent statement I can find online about Klobuchar’s views on health care. Not very long ago it would have been viewed as almost unimaginably liberal. Almost everything in it is about increasing access to more and better health care at better prices to consumers, especially the families of the working poor who make a little too much to qualify for Medicaid.

She favors allowing Medicare to be authorized to more aggressively negotiate with drug companies to drive down prices (the “Empowering Medicare Seniors to Negotiate Drug Prices Act”). She favors a “public option” that would allow people who are not old enough for Medicare or poor enough for Medicaid to buy into those programs.

I mentioned in a recent post that there are two versions of what could be called “Medicare for All.” One version, which the leftmost Democratic candidates are supporting, is really a name for single-payer, which could virtually do away with private insurance. Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders favor that.

The more moderate version would allow anyone who wants to to buy into Medicare. It would be universal “access,” but not universal coverage, because some would not use that option and would remain uninsured. Pending her announcement, that appears to be what Klobuchar favors. It’s a perfect example of my overall point: Not long ago, a sitting senator advocating a universal option to buy into Medicare would have represented the leftmost wing of the Democratic Party. Now it makes you a moderate.