The_Nation_October_9_2017

4 The Nation. October 9, 2017

from this is that Democrats should redouble our efforts

to develop bold, creative ideas that offer broad-based

benefits for the whole country.” On health care in

particular, according to a recent Pew survey, a major-

ity of Americans now believe that the federal govern-

ment should be responsible for making sure everyone

has coverage, and a majority of Democrats think that

single-payer is the best way to achieve that goal. All

of this forms the context for the sudden popularity of

Medicare for All, but there is also a quieter genius to

Sanders’s particular bill that helped bring about this

moment.

The Medicare for All Act of 2017 is unambiguous

about its goal: It would eliminate all private insurance

and replace it with a vastly expanded government pro-

gram. Doctors, hospitals, and drug companies would

make less, but everyone would have access to com-

prehensive health services—including dental, vision,

substance-abuse treament, and reproductive care—

without any out-of-pocket costs. That is its

principle, and it is unwavering about it.

The bill’s pragmatism lies in how it gets

there. Medicare expansion would spool out

over several years, first by enrolling chil-

dren under 18 and dropping the eligibility

age to 55, a step that even non-backers like

Senator Tim Kaine support. By its fourth

year, incremental expansions would finally

create a true Medicare for All program.

During that transition, many people who are uncov-

ered would be able to buy into the system through

provisions championed by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand,

who supports the bill, and Senator Debbie Stabenow,

who doesn’t—yet.

Canvassing his fellow senators, including those who

have taken a wait-and-see approach, was key to Sand-

ers’s ability to build a surprisingly broad base of sup-

port, as was the backing of dozens of outside groups,

from MoveOn.org to the Working Families Party to

the United Mine Workers. That Sanders was one of

the most vocal defenders of Obamacare—even as he

consistently criticized it as insufficient—helped build

credibility, too.

Of course, Medicare for All is still a long way from

becoming reality. Republican control of Congress and

the White House is the most obvious impediment, and

that’s before we see the insurance industry, the hospital

industry, and Big Pharma devoting every ounce of their

awesome power and influence to destroy it. And yes,

there are still holdouts in the Democratic Party who carp

about the costs, or insist that we have to focus on protect-

ing Obamacare first before going for single-payer—as if

you can’t do both at the same time.

But thanks to a deft mix of politics and policy from

Senator Sanders, that faction shrank dramatically in the

past year. And that, in addition to its promise to not

only improve the health but save the lives of millions of

Americans, may be one of Medicare for All’s most en-

during legacies—the beginning of the end of the Demo-

cratic Party’s unthinking and self-sabotaging belief in

the idea that principle and pragmatism can’t coexist.

Harvard’s Shame

Kowtowing to power is an old Cambridge tradition.

H

arvard is arguably the most elite of

America’s elite universities, so how it

positions itself in relation to official

power reveals much of what we need to

know about the balance between sup-

posedly liberal academia and the illiberal officials who

would narrow the national debate. This is why stories

about how Harvard maintains that balance have for

decades generated headlines not just in the education

sections of great newspapers but on their front pages.

When Cambridge tips too hard toward Washington,

when it bends to political or media pressure, that’s news-

worthy—and unsettling.

Harvard made a lot of unsettling news in mid-

September. The most jarring reports came

after CIA director Mike Pompeo used the

bully pulpit afforded him as a docile member

of Donald Trump’s administration to attack

whistle-blower Chelsea Manning’s selection

as a visiting fellow at the Kennedy School’s

Institute of Politics. Within hours of Pom-

peo’s pronouncement, Harvard distanced

itself from Manning—an all-too glaring in-

dication of the influence that the Trump

administration and its allies have even over the most

respected institutions of higher learning and over the

intellectual discourse that is supposed to flourish beyond

the boundaries of inside-the-Beltway politics.

Pompeo announced on September 14 that he would

not appear at Harvard for a speaking engagement in pro-

test over Manning’s appointment. Attacking the former

US Army intelligence analyst—who provided WikiLeaks

with nearly 750,000 military and diplomatic documents

that she said revealed details of the “death, destruction

and mayhem” in Iraq—as “a traitor to the United States

of America,” the CIA director told Harvard officials: “Ms.

Manning betrayed her country and was found guilty of

17 serious crimes for leaking classified information to

Wikileaks. Wikileaks is an enemy of the United States.”

The next morning, the Institute of Politics revoked

Manning’s fellowship and apologized for offering it to her.

Manning tweeted that Harvard had decided to “chill

marginalized voices under @cia pressure.” That’s a harsh

assessment. But another set of headlines lent credence

to concerns that the university was kowtowing to the

right: The same week that saw Manning, a trans activist,

dismissed by the Kennedy School also brought word that

Harvard administrators had reversed the history depart-

ment’s recommendation to admit Michelle Jones, a PhD

applicant who’d been released from prison after serving

20 years for killing her young son. Jones went to college

and began doing academic research while still incarcer-

ated, emerging as a paragon of the “model prisoner.”

Yet she was rejected by Harvard officials who, The New

York Times reported, were concerned about “a backlash

[from] conservative news outlets.” Jones is now in a PhD

Casting out

Manning

at the

CIA’s behest

dishonors the

university.

DC BY THE

NUMBERS

7
Years that
Chelsea Manning
served of her
35-year sentence

1,
Days that she
spent in prison
without trial

700K+
Number of
documents
leaked by
Manning

109K
Deaths in Iraq
from 2004 to
2009, accord-
ing to those
documents

22
Manning’s age
when she
released the
document trove
to WikiLeaks
—Gunar Olsen

“Civil

disobedience

has always

been the

most

dangerous

thing that

any person

in society

can do.”

Chelsea Manning,

speaking in

September at one

of her first public

appearances since

being released from

military prison (^) WIKIMEDIA CC 4.