We have not seen such a clash of lefties since I dreamed of programming a computer baseball game between Lefty Grove and Sandy Koufax.  What a dream lefty match-up that would have been!  The score card would have had lots of Ks from Koufax and too-close-to-your-neck pitches from Grove.  In the end, it'd be 0-0 after 9!

Well, my dream may come true after all.  Unfortunately, it won't be a baseball game, but rather a fight in the Democratic Party.

What happens when one side of the room wants an undefined single-payer health care system no matter what it costs and the other side is warning us that it can't be paid for?  Can you say "California Democrats"?

Welcome to another chapter of the divisions in the Democratic Party that CNN and MSNBC don't always tell you about.

Let's check this from Paul Waldman:

Beware Democrats: There's a new litmus test on the way that you'll have to satisfy if you want to avoid being branded an establishment sellout. It concerns single-payer health care, and while this one can get silly in some quarters, there are serious questions that everyone on the left, from the most moderate Democrat to the most committed leftist, will have to answer.

Mr. Waldman warns Democrats that some on their side are not going to be happy with anything except their definition of a single-payer plan – in other words, a plan that allegedly provides everyone insurance but raises taxes on the rich to pay for it.  Of course, this is assuming that there will be any rich people left.

Also, some in the left want us to be like the rest of the industrialized world and offer universal health care.  They want us to be on the right side of history, as they often say.  Unfortunately, most countries don't really have the kind of "universal care" that the left is calling for.  The so-called "universal coverage" in other countries is a lot more complicated:

If your single-payer idea is "what they have in the rest of the industrialized world," well, that's not single-payer either.

All those other systems have much stronger government regulation than we do, but they all include at least some form of private payment, some more than others.

What unites them is that they cover everyone at far lower cost than we do, and they do it through aggressive regulation and price-setting.

But it would be absurd to say that someone who favors a version of the British system is a real progressive, while if you favor something like the French system or the Japanese system or the Dutch system then you're a neoliberal sellout.

So as liberals start to think seriously about this issue, it would behoove us all to define exactly the principles and goals that are important; then we can judge what kind of job each competing system does of accomplishing them.

Universal coverage is obviously the most important one; everyone has to be covered, full stop. Another is that the system has to be equitable; if people with lower incomes can only afford plans with huge deductibles, it has failed. At a minimum, there has to be a floor of coverage that no one can fall below.

So get ready for the next big one in the left.  It's coming, even if CNN and MSNBC just want to talk about tweets.

What does the GOP do in response?  Repeal Obamacare and then call on Democrats to propose a solution or their idea of a replacement.

Let them propose "universal care" and then explain how they are going to pay for it.  My advice to Senator Warren and Senator Sanders is to check with the California Democrats who couldn't find enough rich people to pay for it.

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