Bernie Sanders’ Quiet Triumph in the 2016 Race
On Tuesday morning, Bernie Sanders finally endorsed Hillary Clinton, giving nervous Democrats — dreading that a fractured party could fumble away the White House to Donald Trump — the “Kumbaya moment” they’d been pining for.
Sanders’ endorsement of his establishment rival marks the end of his implausible, meteoric campaign for president. But it should also mark a victory for his brand of democratic socialism. Sanders didn’t secure the nomination, but he has left an indelible mark on Hillary Clinton’s governing agenda, and he has reshaped the Democratic Party platform, likely for elections to come.
Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton comes on the heels of two major policy concessions by the Democratic nominee. Lost amid the bloodshed last week of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and the massacred Dallas police officers, Clinton embraced the core of Sanders’ education plan and also took a major step toward his agenda on health care.
Eager to bring Sanders’ young supporters into her fold, Clinton has adopted free-college-for-(almost)-all. Clinton had previously proposed complex policies to minimize student debt, and had blasted Sanders’ free-college plans for spending public money to educate children of the wealthy — including (hypothetically) the children of Donald Trump.
The new Clinton spin on the Sanders education plan would extend free public-college tuition to households earning up to $125,000 a year — or to more than 80 percent of American families. The Clinton plan would phase in, beginning with families making $85,000 or less, and ramping up to the $125,000 threshold by 2021. Placing this shift by Clinton in the context of his “political revolution,” Sanders praised Clinton for a “revolutionary step forward” — a “very bold” plan that, he said, “combines some of the strongest ideas she fought for during the campaign with some of the principles that I fought for.”
On health care, Clinton took significant, but more modest, steps toward Sanders’ dream of a national health plan. Clinton proposed allowing Americans over the age of 55 to buy into Medicare, the federal health care program for seniors, which provides health coverage at a steep discount to private insurance. In essence, this proposal would create a “public option” for Americans nearing retirement. In addition, Clinton revived her 2008 commitment to fight for a state-run public-option insurance plan for Americans regardless of age in each Obamacare exchange. Further, Clinton vowed to devote another $40 billion to a nationwide expansion of community health centers — offering primary care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay, including to millions of farmworkers, public housing residents and Americans experiencing homelessness.
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