Abdul El-Sayed is no Barack Obama. In terms of what he expects government to do, he's far more ambitious.

If you thought Obama's expansion of the federal government went too far, consider what El-Sayed has in mind.

El-Sayed criticized Obama in the past for the former president's inability to institute what El-Sayed believes was a big enough government, with nationalized, universal health insurance, price controls and expansive environmental authorities.

But now he stands just votes away from a position that would give him the ability to push the expansive and expensive plans he has advocated throughout his campaign — plans that "stand on the shoulders of giants," as El-Sayed characterized his work in 2018. He sees it as a continuation of what others before him, like Obama, haven't yet accomplished.

Obama campaigned for El-Sayed and his U.S. Senate bid in Michigan on Oct. 24.

Much attention has been given to the criticism El-Sayed was willing to lodge against the former president in 2012 and 2018 as evidence that this was an inauthentic visit. But that misses the point entirely.

El-Sayed ran against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2018, too. She just endorsed him.

El-Sayed has made peace with the Democratic establishment, it would seem. The bigger question is has the Democratic establishment made peace with El-Sayed?

El-Sayed's frustration matches the angst of the progressive base that ushered him into a primary victory — and a highly competitive general election race — the most expensive in Michigan's history.

El-Sayed's answer to that frustration is more federal spending, more centralized decision-making and a dramatically expanded role for Washington in Americans' daily lives.

That is what is at risk with El-Sayed's election — and that is the most important takeaway from El-Sayed's past criticism of Obama, a president who others in the Democratic coalition also blame for failing to bring about a progressive utopia.

Consider his frustration with Obama's health care plan: It's a "watered down reform that kowtows to the health care lobbies," El-Sayed wrote in now-deleted posts online in 2018.

The Affordable Care Act effectively mandated health care insurance for American adults, but it stopped short of nationalizing or universalizing the health care system in the sense El-Sayed is proposing. And Obama fought an enormous political battle just to do that.

But even that historic expansion wasn't enough for El-Sayed.

El-Sayed proposes universal coverage with a single-payer system (the government) that would effectively end the private market. To fund this expansion of government spending, El-Sayed proposes taxes on wealth and jobs and shifting federal revenue, likely away from military and defense funding.

It would likely cost $25 to $30 trillion over 10 years, according to an estimate of additional federal financing for comprehensive Medicare for All from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's 2020 analysis.

Such an enormous transfer of health care financing to Washington would carry profound economic consequences, including the taxes needed to sustain it and the government's increased power to determine what care is covered and how providers are paid.

Universal coverage directly addresses the issue of having insurance. But it does not automatically solve shortages of specialists, hospital beds, or advanced treatments.

Whatever their past disagreements, Obama is coming to Michigan to help elect a candidate who believes his own signature domestic achievement didn't go nearly far enough.

Voters shouldn't assume El-Sayed has moderated his ambitions, but rather that the Democratic establishment has decided to embrace them.

_____

©2026 www.detroitnews.com. Visit at detroitnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.