Let us get the requisite hunk of cynical reality out of the way right here at the top. Absent the kind of national landslide that killed off the Whigs and Federalists, or a sudden discovery within the Republicans of a vestigial collective conscience, no Democrat’s healthcare plan will get through to the president’s desk out of a Senate led by Mitch McConnell. Therefore, any debate on the topic within the Democratic primary process is largely aspirational. (After all, only Joe Biden has publicly endorsed the actual existence of that mythical beast: The Republican Who Can Be Reasoned With.)
