A weird thing in Dem politics has been the decades-long contradiction between "we must end welfare as we know it" and "any social program must be means-tested so that it doesn't quite reach middle class people." If welfare was unpopular because it only reached those shiftless poors, then other programs targeted at the poors aren't going to be much more popular. People who get it love the Medicaid expansion. People who earn a buck too much and have to suck on a "bronze plan" are really pissed off about it.
Popularity isn't the only measure of value, of course, but doing popular things does help you to be popular. All that free money to the poors, and only the poors, wasn't very popular in the 90s. Why do think tanks and consultants think a new version of it is going to be popular now? But almost every "nice thing" they propose is...just that.
