Democratic leadership have now signaled to voters what their party would look like in power, by introducing their vision for American health care policy: the laughably named Protecting Pre-existing Conditions and Making Healthcare More Affordable Act. Hakeem Jeffries, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, believes this bill presents “a clear contrast in terms of what we as House Democrats are about, and what Republicans are about.”

The bill is aimed at redressing the Trump administration’s early and recent assault on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Its key features are increased subsidies for private insurance, bolstered funding for enrollment outreach, and the closure of loopholes that allow insurance companies to sell short-term plans that discriminate against people with preexisting conditions. The legislation protects private insurance plans and does not include a public option to compete with them on ACA’s market exchanges.

This is contrary to Donald Trump’s picture of the Democratic Party’s “radical socialist” health care platform. It’s also contrary to what many Democratic candidates ran and won on in the 2018 midterm elections. The disappointing reality is that Democratic leadership opposes Medicare for All, the single-payer policy championed by Bernie Sanders. Steny Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer all reject the proposal. Pelosi disingenuously asks, “How do you pay for that?” Hoyer claims it has “significant administrative and other issues.” Schumer dodges the question. This relentless focus on tweaking the ACA instead of championing Medicare for All fails to offer a solution to our continued health care crisis, let alone a winning alternative to Trumpism in 2020.