Single-payer exhausts Biden’s capital.
Alice Miranda Ollstein, 3-16-2021, health care reporter for POLITICO Pro, Joanne Kenen, "Democrats treading lightly on Biden’s next big health care promise ," https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/16/public-option-health-care-biden-476458, KL
Fresh off securing the first big upgrade to Obamacare since its 2010 passage, Democrats are eyeing a much heavier and politically riskier lift: creating a government-run public health insurance option.
President Joe Biden campaigned on the idea, touting it as an achievable reform that would bring down costs without upending private health insurance. It consistently polls well across the political spectrum.
Yet the obstacles are many: universal opposition from Republican lawmakers, reluctance among centrist Democrats who wield outsized influence, a powerful health industry ready to spend big to block it, and a long list of priorities for a new administration still pouring energy and political capital into ending the pandemic.