He actually proposed that public colleges and universities should be tuition free, which is not the same thing.
> On reflection, that's not very comforting. We are at a place politically where "redistribution from the rich" has become thinkable as an independent goal.
Redistribution wasn't what caused the collapse, being more dependent on oil while producing less of it (and thus becoming supersensitive to price was.)
I only mentioned redistribution as an independent policy goal to explain why the narrative social spending -> funding needs -> effort at raising taxes -> expropriation was wrong. That sequence simply didn't occur. Venezuela relied on raising oil prices for revenue, and collapsed when oil prices did; expropriation was adopted early on when things were going relatively well, because of high oil prices, not in desperation over inadequate revenue.
> The main focus was on Medicare-for-All, which could not but would also (even in analysis by hostile sources) reduce total public + private health costs.
So there's a deal available there to be done where everybody wins (except perhaps politically). Medicare-for-all without the deal could be a disaster for the government finances, though.
But Sanders also proposed free college for all, which would also have to be funded somehow. And it seems like there was another big one, but I don't remember what it was.
> Venezuela did not enact policies that cost more than it could supports, then try to raise taxes for revenue, and then turn to expropriation as a revenue measure; expropriation and high taxation were adopted deliberately as part of an overt policy of aggressive redistribution of wealth, not because revenue for social services was unavailable elsewhere but because redistribution from the rich was an independent goal.
On reflection, that's not very comforting. We are at a place politically where "redistribution from the rich" has become thinkable as an independent goal.