Washington Post slams Warren, Sanders policy proposals: ‘The senators cannot deliver’

The Washington Post’s editorial board on Thursday slammed proposals of presidential candidates Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as unrealistic. 

The board writes that some policies favored by the senators, two of the most progressive candidates in the 2020 field, are not achievable.

{mosads}”Proposals should meet a baseline degree of factual plausibility — a bar that, for example, the Medicare-for-all plan that Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren favor does not clear,” the editorial reads. 

The board wrote that former Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.), a fellow presidential candidate, was correct in saying that the numbers behind the proposals don’t add up. 

“The senators cannot deliver a system that provides far more benefits than other single-payer systems they claim as their model while preserving the level of care and access that insured Americans currently enjoy,” they wrote. “They should make the case for a government monopoly on health care if they want, but they should be honest about the trade-offs.”

The board also wrote that Congress will continue to reflect the ideas of the “vast, pluralistic” country that is the U.S.

“The next president should have a vision of progress for the nation that is expansive and inspiring. It also should be grounded in mathematical and political reality,” they concluded. 

The piece comes after Sanders and Warren appeared on stage Tuesday for the Democratic presidential primary debate in Detroit, where the two senators fended off frequent criticism from more centrist members of their party. 

After Delaney said Warren was running on “fairy tale” policies, the Massachusetts senator responded, “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for.”

Delaney’s campaign on Friday sent out a copy of the editorial, writing “the Washington Post Editorial Board defended Delaney’s position” and also called Medicare for All “bad politics and bad policy.”

Warren and Sanders have consistently polled near the top of the crowded Democratic field and both have already qualified for the third Democratic debates Sept. 12-13 in Houston.