'Medicare-for-all' will cost an enormous amount of money: Joe Lieberman
Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Ct., on the Democratic Party's shift to the left and the controversy over Israel and the BDS boycott.
Former independent Sen. Joe Lieberman on Thursday said that he agreed with former Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who called some far-left proposals like 'Medicare-for-all' and open borders unrealistic.
Reid on Tuesday told VICE News that supporting 'Medicare-for-all' would botch the 2020 general election and Democrats should instead concentrate on improving Obamacare “without bringing something that would be much harder to sell.”
Lieberman said that he “couldn’t agree with him more.”
“'Medicare-for-all sounds good as a slogan -- it will cost an enormous amount of money. Bernie Sanders himself said everybody's taxes, including the middle class, will go up,” he told Maria Bartiromo. “If people want to improve the system they should tinker with [the] Affordable Care Act… Don't do something so big that it will turn against them next year.”
Lieberman also said there is a “danger” to having progressive democrats, like Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, known as “the Squad,” leading the party. The four congresswomen have not only feuded with Trump, but they’ve also disagreed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“This year I think in the Democratic Party it's more acute a problem than normally and part of it is because of all the emotion against President Trump and the so-called resistance,” said Lieberman. “You don't win an election nationally for president in America being part of a revolution that wants to turn most of our society over to the government.”