Joe Biden has cast himself as a return to normalcy, but his domestic policies are fairly progressive. Stop surprise billing. Researchers at Brookings conducted secret-shopping trials to ask about Covid-19 benefits specifically and found a staggering amount of misinformation.On safely reopening, on contact tracing, on encouraging mask-wearing, on centering science over politics, Biden contrasted what he has proposed and what Trump has done.That is indicative of the Trump administration’s overall approach: hands off. Coronavirus shows Joe Biden’s healthcare plan doesn’t go far enough. Instead, they’ve created a backstop to reinforce the current system, with all its flaws. Individuals can’t use the money their employer is spending on private health insurance to buy into the public option.
On the immigration disputes that have at times defined Trump-era politics, the three-way tug-of-war among activist demands, public opinion, and the institutional realities of American government are complicated.“That’s his genius now,” one pillar of the Democratic establishment who’d initially preferred several younger candidates from the moderate lane told me.On an aspirational level, Biden’s immigration plan takes the core Obama-era concept of a path to citizenship for the long-settled and otherwise law-abiding unauthorized immigrant population and runs with it. Whether you choose to solve them reflects whether you think the American health care system is fundamentally broken or just needs to be patched up.Latest News, All Over the Worldwe respect your privacy and take protecting it seriouslySubscribe to our mailing list and get interesting stuff and updates to your email inbox.Richard Nixon called police forces “the real front-line soldiers in the war on crime.” Bill Clinton, in his signing ceremonyBut if the political weakness of Sanders’s plan is that it upends too much of the current system, the substantive weakness of Biden’s plan is that it does too little to transform the current system.But the Biden team made a series of policy choices to limit the impact their public plan would have on employer-based health insurance. He doesn’t think Biden has suddenly become a left-wing hero. Trump has very much thrown the levers in the opposite direction, and reversing course in a substantive way will involve taking on some in-the-weeds battles.In that sense, moderate Joe is nobody’s Trojan horse. His thoughts about health care will become more evident as he spends more time on the campaign trail.At the same time, it sounds like he's also aware that the current health care system isn't the best program ever, and is aware that there could be some changes made, but knows that access to health care is more important. Trump is refusing to acknowledge any need for change.