Why is Elizabeth Warren falling in the polls? Blame Medicare-for-all.

Voters simply aren't convinced they won't get stung, no matter how gradual the phase-in

Elizabeth Warren.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)

Before Elizabeth Warren had "a plan for that," the GOP had its own man with a plan. A decade ago, Paul Ryan championed a "roadmap" to curb the national debt and rein in entitlement spending through free-market reforms of the big programs that benefit the elderly. Republicans seemed to buy in: Despite Democrats labeling his "Path to Prosperity" plan a cruel austerity program that would hurt seniors, Ryan rode this ambitious budget blueprint to two committee chairmanships, a vice presidential nomination and the House speakership.

But the triumph of the Ryan plan did not last long. The former speaker is out of Congress and Republicans no longer control the House. The Republican president of the United States, Donald Trump, pointedly rejected Ryan's proposals to retool Social Security and Medicare. Entitlement reform is once again the third rail of American politics; Democrats want to expand rather than cut these programs to cover still more people.

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W. James Antle III

W. James Antle III is the politics editor of the Washington Examiner, the former editor of The American Conservative, and author of Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?.