If you look back at my posts, I think you'll see that I've tried to engage with you and MDH in good faith and will continue to do so, accusations aside.
M4A is *not* a Democratic policy goal. The policy goal is (and should be) affordable universal health care. M4A is one particular policy to achieve that, and it has been endorsed by some Democrats (though many of them have endorsed multiple pieces of possible health care legislation across the universal health care spectrum, and it's not clear to me they understand exactly what M4A would mean). We can have a separate discussion about M4A the policy. I'm personally not sure it's the right approach, it's to the left of essentially the entire world, and is very unpopular with the public once explained in any detail. But again, that's a separate discussion (we should probably have 1 or more threads about policy ideas, I'd enjoy hearing and learning about the ideas people have on here).
I wouldn't think it surprising that the Speaker of the House and the PhD economist who are representing her, both of whom were architects of the ACA, continue to support strengthening the program. I also wouldn't think it surprising that they would try to court the powerful insurance lobby to help with what is in this case a shared goal, trying to decrease drug costs. I think the purpose of the discussion of M4A and its potential difficulties is to try to keep them at the table (and I doubt any real promises were made) by (correctly) stating that there are ways to obtain universal health care that still involve the insurance industry (like most of the world does).
I do get that it can feel a little gross to see interactions between dem leadership and the insurance industry, especially if you see them as partially responsible for the past and current state of health care in this country. And if your position is that no dem should be working with *any* corporate interest, fine, I guess. But I think acting as if this is some betrayal of the party, or collusion again dem presidential candidates, just seems silly to me. Clearly some dems will still push for and support M4A regardless of what the Speaker thinks and that's great! I hope there is robust debate of lots of different plans to achieve universal coverage, and we can come up with the best one in the end. But in the mean time, I just don't think it's a big deal to take a stab at pitting the insurance industry against the drug companies to help drive down prices while we wait.