Voters understand Medicare-for-all better than Bernie does

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I would think long and hard about contradicting Larry Levitt (of the Kaiser Family Foundation) and Jonathan Cohn (of HuffPost) together on anything but semantic grounds.  But on semantic grounds...I don't think their framing of the results of a Kaiser poll voters' understanding of "Medicare-for-all" is quite right.

Kaiser asked some 1200 voters what the healthcare system would look like "under a national health plan, sometimes called Medicare-for-all." Majorities, varying moderately by partisan affiliation, assumed:

• Taxes for most people would increase 
• People would continue to pay premiums, deductibles and copays for medical services
• People with private insurance would be able to keep their plans
• Private health insurance companies would not be the primary way Americans can get health coverage*
• All U.S. residents would have health insurance coverage

On Twitter, Larry Levitt alluded to "how confused the public is about Medicare-for-all based on our new poll." Jonathan Cohn, who wrote about the results, tweeted, "Voters like Medicare for All, but there's a catch: They don't understand what it'd do."

I don't think the survey respondents and focus group participants were collectively confused, though they're not informed about current bill specifics. I think they're realistic about the furthest likely extent of next-gen Democratic healthcare reform. Their responses lack coherence only to the extent that "Medicare-for-all" can't be understood to encompass "Medicare access for all," particular in the refracted context of a "a national health plan, sometimes called Medicare-for-all."