Sanders, while airing dismay over the omission of drug-pricing provisions and his own bid to expand Medicare to include vision and dental coverage, said the framework paved the way for “probably the most consequential bill since the 1960s in terms of protecting the needs of working families, of children, the elderly, the sick and the poor.”
The bill does include massive new subsidies for child care, support for universal prekindergarten, an expansion of Affordable Care Act subsidies, new hearing-aid coverage under Medicare and roughly a half-trillion dollars in climate incentives.
“The story can be: Democrats are disappointed it’s not enough,” Brown said. “Well, the story really is that we are thrilled we’re going to enact something this consequential and this transformational that’s going to affect people’s lives.”
The problem that emerged for Democrats on Thursday is that the debate over the passage of their agenda became increasingly less about policy and more about personalities — two of them, to be specific.
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