Author Marianne Williamson said after Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate that her position on “Medicare for All” is still evolving and that she questioned herself when she realized she had been putting herself on the same side of the issue as former Maryland Rep. John Delaney.
“When I said what I said, I felt dirty after I said it,” Ms. Williamson told The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur after the debate in Detroit.
“The needle really moved for me on that tonight … having to say to myself, ’You’re agreeing with John Delaney here. You’re really being pulled over here.’ …” she said.
Ms. Williamson agreed with Mr. Uygur’s suggestion that she’s still in “mid-evolution” on the issue.
“I am. But I think the needle moved left today,” she said. “The only thing that it seems to me we’re talking about here is the issue of whether or not people will be able to keep their private insurance. Because they’re transitional as well. Am I wrong about this?”
She said eventually, private insurers should be “gone,” which Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont is calling for under his universal health care plan.
“My only issue is that some people want it for whatever reason, and this idea of taking it away from people — I’m not totally there yet,” she said.
Ms. Williamson had said during the debate that she had concerns about the feasibility of the kind of health care vision being offered by candidates like Mr. Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
“I do have concern that it will be difficult. I have concern that it will make it harder to win, and I have a concern that it’ll make it harder to govern,” she said during the debate.
Mr. Delaney took on Mr. Sanders during the debate on health care, saying the Vermont senator’s Medicare for All bill would necessarily lower the quality of care and likely force the closure of hospitals if all bills are paid at Medicare rates.
Mr. Sanders disagreed, saying that hospitals would save money because they wouldn’t be spending money on bureaucratic tasks they are today.
Ms. Williamson has been polling in the low single digits, but was the most-searched candidate during the debate, according to Google Trends.
She turned some heads with her answers on the Flint water crisis, reparations for slavery and for mentioning a “dark psychic force” she said President Trump is helping bring about in the country.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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