Marianne Williamson is running to Joe Biden’s left in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary.
However, when pitching voters in New Hampshire this week, Williamson said her proposed policies are not radical. She said that, in other countries, her ideas would be considered moderate.
Williamson told prospective voters that her support for a larger social safety net is not radical, during an appearance Wednesday, March 8 at an event at Community Oven in Hampton, New Hampshire.
“We need to do the things they do in every other advanced democracy,” Williamson said. “They’re considered moderate positions in every other advanced democracy: universal health care, tuition-free college and tech school, family and paid sick leave, a guaranteed living wage, and free child care.”
Williamson did not explain how she plans to pay for her proposals.
However, a woman who attended asked Williamson how she plans to pay for them and how new government programs would appeal to New Hampshire voters, who she said are generally fiscally conservative yet socially liberal.
Williamson did not directly answer the question. But argued that her Medicare-for-all proposal would save the country money.
“Today we spend about 20 percent of our GDP,” Williamson said. “Other countries that have universal health care spend about four, five, six percent of their GDP – and much better outcomes. So if you want to talk about spending too much money on health care, keep it exactly the way it is.”
The United States spent 16.8 percent of its gross domestic product on health expenditures in 2019, according to World Bank. It was a higher rate than other developed countries like the United Kingdom (10.2 percent), Canada (10.9 percent), and Australia (9.9 percent), which have single-payer universal health care programs.
However, opponents of single-payer healthcare argue that the private sector manages health care better and that socialized medicine will result in worse health outcomes. Medicare-for-all, which Williamson supports, would cost the United States between $30 trillion and $40 trillion over ten years, according to Kaiser Health News.
Most elected Democrats in the federal government, including President Joe Biden, oppose Medicare-for-All; Biden has cited cost as a chief reason why he opposes it.
“So when we had a thriving middle class, we had tuition-free college and university,” she said. “This had to do with the typical unfettered capitalism that will find any possible place of need and human suffering and build a profit center on it. A person who is more highly educated on average will create more wealth. If you want to have a thriving economy, help people thrive. That’s what the economy is. The economy is what happens when people are unshackled.”
Williamson is an underdog in the 2024 Democratic primary. She dropped out before the Iowa caucuses in her 2020 presidential bid.
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