Yeah I know what his argument is.
I just think he isn't being very honest saying his objection to M4A is that it'd raise the tax burden on the middle class.
Pretty much any health care initiative is liable to do that. Obamacare did that (and called it a penalty). A public option would likely do it.
Warren did the same thing with M4A, Biden's just easier to sell no middle class tax increases.
The main drain on ACA popularity was that it drove up premiums and forced a bunch of otherwise uninsured Americans into high deductible catastrophe insurance instead of providing actual health care to anyone. It sucked and we should have focused more on financial reform first or nuked the filibuster so we could have gotten a public option.
See, that's actually false. The ACA is total shit, but premiums were already going sky-high before it was passed. The ACA is total shit, but it outlawed the worst, most useless plans available (Which pissed people off because apparently they liked their below shit-tier insurance and "Obama lied") even if it still allows plans that are nearly worthless.
But, yeah, in hindsight, nuking the filibuster would've been better, but it's hard to sell that in the middle of a financial crisis when you on-paper already have a filibuster ignoring majority and a lot of those Senators would winge pointlessly about how it'd hurt them in their election (when they'd later lose their seats by running AWAY from Obama, cause brain-geniuses there).