Julian Castro Wonders if Big Money Made Mayor Pete Flip on Medicare for All. It Did Not.

Tommy ChristopherDec 24th, 2019, 10:25 am
 

Former HUD Secretary and Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro questioned whether South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg had “flip-flopped” on Medicare for All because of campaign contributions, but the facts say Mayor Pete did not.

The influence of money was a hotly-contested topic at last week’s Democratic debate, from which Castro and several other candidates were absent because they did not meet the DNC’s criteria to qualify. But Secretary Castro jumped into the debate on that topic this weekend, accusing Buttigieg of “flip-flopping” on Medicare for All, and saying it raises questions about the influence of donors over Buttigieg’s policy positions.

Mayor Pete staked out a pretty emphatic-sounding position on Medicare for All almost a year before announcing his run for president, replying to a skeptical tweet by saying “I, Pete Buttigieg, politician, do henceforth and forthwith declare, most affirmatively and indubitably, unto the ages, that I do favor Medicare for All, as I do favor any measure that would help get all Americans covered.”

Now that he’s running for president, Buttigieg is campaigning on “Medicare for all who want it,” while campaigning against Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan as too much too soon. It’s a matter of opinion whether this violates his 2018 Twitter pledge, since he’s still supportive of the eventual goal of Medicare for All, while campaigning against the immediate-ish implementation of it (Sanders’ plan calls for a 4 year transition). So it’s a maybe-quasi-flip-flop. Or that tweet is a statement roughly consistent with his current position.

But in order for donations to his campaign to have affected his decision to maybe flip-flop, he would have needed to take campaign donations before making the change, if it’s really a change. That appears not to be the case. At a press conference in January, months before the start of his presidential campaign, Buttigieg was asked about health care, and essentially described his current position.

“Are you saying that you haven’t decided whether or not you support implementing a single-payer health care system or even abolishing ICE?” Buttigieg was asked.

“Oh, I’m all for implementing a single payer health care system,” Buttigieg said, but added “I also recognize that along the way to getting there, along the road to Medicare for All, maybe Medicare for More is part of how we make that happen.”

“Or maybe in the first instance, we can do something like the all-payer rate setting that’s used in Maryland to keep health care costs down while we develop something better for the long term,” he continued. “The bottom line is, everybody should be able to get health care. And I think everybody agrees on that, I don’t think we have to make it that complicated as a principle. Obviously it’s a complicated set of policy issues, but we’ve got to start with our values and go from there.”

Buttigieg spoke at length on the topic in February as well, and with the same message. And just after his announcement, at a “meet and greet” event in New Hampshire, Buttigieg described his plan in nearly identical language to that which Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren now uses.

Whatever the effects of “wine cave” politics, they don’t include changing Buttigieg’s position on health care. In fact, it was Senator Warren who flatly declared that Sanders’ plan was her plan, then released a plan that more closely resembled Buttigieg’s as a bridge to the Sanders plan.

Watch the clip above, via C-Span.

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