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The Obama administration's expansion of Medicaid was a rare extension of an otherwise battered safety net.

Obamacare, for all of its failures,

expanded the health insurance program to cover millions of Americans, and it would have counted many more amongst its beneficiaries, had Republican governors around the country, abetted by the

Supreme Court, not callously refused to expand coverage to poor working-class people

in their states. They did that in order to take a shot against Obama and model austere

libertarian virtue for primary voters and right-wing donors. And it was Medicaid expansion,

it turned out, that saved Obamacare from repeal. Obviously, there's a lot to hate about

Obamacare, which requires people to buy health insurance from private companies without even

providing them with a public option. But Medicaid expansion did do something that was very good

on a very large scale, and it made just enough Republicans very, very nervous about taking it away.

Trump Care's demise offers an important lesson about economic policy more generally. The more universal

a program is, the greater the number of Americans who become advocates for its preservation.

This is a fact that conservatives know and fear, thanks to Medicare and Social Security,

but that many establishment liberals since the Democratic Party's neoliberal turn have failed to

...