Yet all of them stood with Bernie and endorsed his version of Medicare for All.

The plan would require massive taxes, entail huge cuts in payments to doctors and hospitals, forbid private insurance and impose a more restrictive and generous government-run health-care system on the US than exists in European social democracies. It’s not something you endorse lightly, but Booker & Co did. They all wobbled, hedged their bets or flip-flopped, demonstrating, if there were any doubt, their insincerity on a key issue with deep philosophical implications.

Warren has suffered from the same disease. She has lasted much longer than the others and is still on the hunt in Iowa. She also has gone further down the Sanders path. She unequivocally stated, “I’m with Bernie on Medicare for All” in one of the early debates. Then, she got tangled up on the question of financing, because the part of her brain worried about the general election didn’t want to admit she’d have to raise taxes on the middle class.

This led to an agonizing climbdown. She settled on the implausible compromise position that she’d initially pursue incremental health-care policies until passing Medicare for All in the third year of her presidency, when presidents aren’t at a high ebb of their legislative power.