Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren crushed last night’s Democratic Party debate. Time and again, they flagged the moderators’ and their opponents’ disingenuous right-wing talking points, and they dismantled claims that bold progressive policies constitute “wish list economics” and “political suicide.” As the moderates and naysayers stammered and obfuscated, Sanders and Warren worked confidently and gracefully as a team, and that team clearly came out on top.

But Bernie Sanders won an additional prize. Medicare for All, his signature policy proposal for going on four years, was the first and most heated topic of debate. Warren deftly assisted him in deflecting attacks. But make no mistake: the fact that it was discussed at all is owed primarily to Sanders.

Sanders has publicly supported some degree of decommodified health care for four decades. In the ’70s, he called for fully socialized medicine. In the ’80s, he said, “We have a crisis situation. We are one of two nations in the industrialized world that does not have a national health-care system.” In the early ’90s, he brought his first single-payer bill to Congress, saying, “Our system is not in need of band-aids or patchwork or such concepts as managed competition. We are in need of a new system. The American people believe that health care must be a right of all citizens and not just the privilege of the wealthy.”