I wrote something for the WaPo and now I need to clarify a couple of things...

So, I wrote my first Op-Ed piece for the Washington Post yesterday...

Harris’s rollout Monday was met with swift criticism from both the Biden camp, which called it “A Bernie Sanders-lite Medicare for All,” and the Sanders camp, which insists Harris “can’t call [her] plan Medicare for All.”

In saying this, the Sanders campaign is effectively trying to lay a copyright claim to Medicare-for-all, as if it, and only it, can define what it means. The reality is far less clear — and depending on your perspective, it could be Harris’s proposal that is more justified in claiming the Medicare-for-all branding.

I'm not going to overquote my own piece, but this has led to some backlash against me, so for the record:

• I don't work for Kamala Harris' campaign.

• In fact, while Harris is my #2 choice in the primary, I've been vocally supportive of Elizabeth Warren for several months now...

• ...although I actually prefer Joe Biden's healthcare proposal for the short term...

• ...followed by Beto O'Rourke's preferred bill (Medicare for America) in the long term.

So no, I didn't write this as a Harris shill. If anything, now that Warren has seemingly decided to shift gears and go full "I'm with Bernie" on healthcare policy after all (I wish she wouldn't...I'd much prefer she go back to her "many paths to get there" stance from March), but she stuck to her guns on that at the Detroit debate last night), my Op-Ed is at least partly coming out against my own preferred candidate.

Oh, one other thing:

New WaPo op-ed by @charles_gaba in the op-ed on the Medicare-for-all fracas

Worth noting: Gaba disclosed that on June 1, 2019, he would work as a part-time independent contractor with the Center for American Progress, with which Team Sanders has feuded https://t.co/Uy9y8MFTKW

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) July 30, 2019

Yes, that's true. And no, I didn't happen to mention that in my Washington Post piece because a) I don't work for the Harris campaign; and b) the only connection this post has to CAP is that Harris' plan has similarities to "Medicare for America", which in turn was based on "Medicare Extra", which was proposed and developed by CAP. I seriously fail to see even a remote conflict of interest here, but for the record: Yes, I announced in June that I'm doing some part-time healthcare policy analysis work for CAP these days.

Anyway, I just wanted to clear that up.