Ady Barkan, the prominent liberal activist and advocate for “Medicare for all,” is endorsing Joseph R. Biden Jr. for president, in a sign that some progressives who opposed Mr. Biden in the Democratic primary race are increasingly willing to actively support him against President Trump.
In the primary campaign, Mr. Barkan endorsed Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and then Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. His endorsement now of Mr. Biden comes as the former vice president, keenly aware of the need to energize and turn out younger and more liberal voters who are unenthusiastic about his candidacy, works to improve his standing with them.
“Even though he wasn’t our first choice, I don’t think that progressives and democratic socialists should sit out the election, or vote third party, and I wanted to make that clear,” Mr. Barkan, who has A.L.S. and can now speak only through a computerized voice using eye gaze technology, said in an email. He will announce his endorsement on Wednesday.
Mr. Biden, who opposes Medicare for all and was one of the more centrist candidates in the primary contest, declined to sit down with Mr. Barkan then, the activist said publicly at the time. But the two recently engaged in a wide-ranging and sometimes deeply personal discussion over Zoom about issues including health care, police reform and Mr. Biden’s own extensive experience with illness and grief.
The conversation was the latest and final installment in Mr. Barkan’s series of interviews with candidates created through Be a Hero, the political action committee associated with Mr. Barkan.
“I think that the vice president and his staff understand the need to unify the party, and I think that is why they agreed to the conversation,” Mr. Barkan emailed. “The conversation reinforced my pre-existing understanding of Joe Biden. He is an intelligent, compassionate man who will be a vast improvement over Donald Trump.”
In a statement announcing his endorsement, he directly appeals to those who may have felt as he did when his preferred candidates dropped out: “devastated.”
“He and I have meaningfully different perspectives on the world; not only on what ails it, but on what we must do to address those maladies,” the statement reads. “And yet despite the literal and figurative distances between us, I know that the vice president heard what I was saying. He listened, he understood, and he promised to continue doing both after he is elected.”
Asked about the most important steps Mr. Biden could take to energize young progressive voters, Mr. Barkan replied that the presumptive nominee’s biggest opportunity “to excite young progressive voters is by selecting Elizabeth Warren to be his vice president.”
According to a transcript of the conversation between Mr. Biden and Mr. Barkan, the two disagreed over Medicare for all and Mr. Biden defended the option of private insurance. But he also outlined his own plans for health care, nodded at more ideas to come and raised proposals like “providing for the option to have home care paid for and elder care paid for, not as part of Medicare, as just a basic right.”
In an effort to demonstrate a commitment to investing in health care, Mr. Biden also said at one point, “What I’m proposing is something that costs an excess of a trillion dollars and we’re going to get it done.”
Asked for details on the proposal Mr. Biden was referring to, a campaign official said that his health care plan, when combined with “related forthcoming proposals,” would amount to more than $1 trillion over 10 years. Mr. Biden has already called to build on the Affordable Care Act and add a public option.
“I’m eager to get to you and your folks the remainder of what I call the entire health initiative,” Mr. Biden told Mr. Barkan. “That goes beyond Obamacare with a public option or Medicare for all, goes beyond that in terms of a whole new care network across the board, of giving people more flexibility, allowing people to not have to make choices between their job and taking care of a parent who’s dying.”
The campaign declined to comment further.
In response to a question from Mr. Barkan, Mr. Biden would not commit to doubling the budget for the National Institutes of Health, saying that he would “significantly increase the budget” and would also ensure “we spend another $50 billion on biomedical research” over the next several years.
“I think that is not enough,” Mr. Barkan said.
“Well, maybe when I get elected, you can come and help me figure out what’s enough,” Mr. Biden told him.
“Thank you, Mr. Vice President,” Mr. Barkan replied. “I’ll take you up on that.”
Mr. Biden also promised, “absolutely positively,” that as president he would commit to sharing technology and access to a Covid-19 vaccine if the United States develops one first.
They also discussed police reform, and Mr. Biden called no-knock warrants for drug cases “bizarre,” saying, “We don’t need that.” That policing approach led to officers’ killing of Breonna Taylor, 26, in Kentucky.
Asked by Mr. Barkan if “we agree that we can redirect some of the funding,” Mr. Biden, who does not support defunding the police, replied: “Yes. Absolutely.”
The video of the interview is set to be released publicly later on Wednesday.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
