Tag Archives: medicare for all

Political Rants

Only money.

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Sometimes I think my head is going to explode. Every get that way? It sometimes happens over stupid shit, like earlier this week when the MS Office install stopped working on my two-year-old PC, and Bill Gates’ automated tech support tried to trick me into buying a subscription to Office 365 rather than just reinstalling my Office 2016 once-and-done version. Hate when that happens, don’t you?

That’s not what really made my head explode this week. The true culprit was our ridiculous political culture – you know, the one that whines incessantly about how expensive Medicare For All will be (i.e. trillions of dollars less than what we’re spending now) but then turns around and drops two trillion dollars on saving Trump’s political bacon (they wanted to spend six trillion). Suddenly, all this money appeared out of nowhere.

And like the financial crisis, Congress’s piece is just the down payment. As David Dayen explained on Majority Report this past week, the $425 billion fund managed by Steve Mnuchin (the foreclosure king) will serve as initial capital in a Federal Reserve program that will direct more than ten times that amount towards select businesses – big banks, etc. – in the form of low-interest credit. Dayen refers to it as a money cannon, and he’s not wrong. There will be oversight in the form of an inspector general and an oversight board, but the review will be after the fact. It’s deja vu, all over again.

Sure, presumably every worker/taxpayer in America will get some kind of check. But the point is the bailout – the prole checks are just for window dressing. The bishops of austerity in the Senate are already whining about expanded unemployment benefits being too generous to people who are not working, as if there’s some moral hazard in paying people not to spread the Coronavirus. I’m not hearing them complain about trillions in public money being dropped on private enterprise, which will turn around and enrich themselves rather than use it for productive purposes, like hiring people. I’ve heard some vague hand-waving about the American people having a stake in the beneficiary industries, but this isn’t going to happen. Like the Wall Street and Detroit bailouts, there are very few strings attached to this money.

If we hand trillions of dollars out to private companies, we should own those companies. If we own those companies, we should put their workers in charge of managing them. If capitalism requires the government to resuscitate it every ten or so years with massive injections of socialism, we should start to rethink our system and, perhaps, pursue a vision of society that doesn’t entail crash-and-burn collapses every time something goes wrong … a vision that would emphasize social cohesion and a more robust approach to preparedness, involving – I don’t know – an exponentially larger number of, say, ICU beds, respirators, freaking PPE, for when the next plague comes strolling along.

We determine what’s possible. It’s just a question of political will.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

First in the nation.

What more can be said about the New Hampshire primary? Just this: Bernie won. I’m sure someone has said it, somewhere. It was a bit more than annoying that we had to sit through excruciatingly long third-place and second-place trophy acceptance speeches before hearing from the man himself, but it was worth waiting for. Like any other supporter of the Vermont senator, I would have liked to have seen a more decisive victory, but in a crowded field in a year when most voters are scared, exhausted, and looking for an answer, 26% is okay. That said, we have to do better.

I do mean we. The candidate can only do so much. His surrogates, excellent as they are, can only fight so hard. These primaries and caucuses are instructive in the sense that they demonstrate in stark terms what it would take to achieve the ambitious agenda that Sanders is putting forward. If we want Medicare for all, we’re going to have to do a lot better than we did in Iowa and New Hampshire. Policies like M4A, the Green New Deal, wealth tax, and so on will not come close to passage without massive mobilization. Let’s not kid ourselves: at best, these programs will take years to implement under the best of circumstances. But they won’t even get off the ground without an unprecedented groundswell of popular will, much as Bernie has described in virtually every stump speech. I think he understands what’s needed … but do the rest of us?

Say it loud: Bernie won.

The signs aren’t all bad. There appears to have been strong turnout in New Hampshire. Given how flaccid the 2016 primary participation rate was, it’s good to see things back up around 2008 level. The real test, though, of our strength as a governing coalition is in the level of support for Bernie and other progressive candidates. There’s no way that Sanders is going to get big things done if he just squeaks by in November without any fundamental changes in the complement of Congress. That’s why I would encourage my middle-of-the-road friends not to feel any reluctance about voting for Sanders or Warren. If you’re worried about M4A and the rest, there will be a million ways to put roadblocks in front of anything like that. I know that sounds pessimistic, but understand – I believe change is possible, but possible isn’t easy. Likely policy is going to be shaped by whoever ends up a part of the electorate. The more we vote, show up, etc., the stronger the case for good policy.

I could go on, but probably shouldn’t. Suffice to say that we will get the president we ask for, good or bad. It’s up to us. Latest polls have Bernie ahead in Nevada, ahead in Texas, ahead nationally. Let’s build on this, folks … it’s our last, best chance.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Stalking horses.

The Democratic race for president is one candidate smaller today than it was a couple of days ago. Kamala Harris dropped out this week, and it took about five minutes for the talking heads in the corporate media to attribute the failure of her campaign to the push for Medicare for All. By Wednesday morning, Claire McCaskill, failed candidate for senate, was on Morning Joe taking shots at M4A as a far-left government takeover of insurance, amounting to some kind of expropriation from hardworking Americans. They’re taking our corporate insurance away! People from the heartland won’t like this!

Let’s think for a moment of what would be taken away. I have one of those insurance policies people like McCaskill and Scarborough think so highly of. (I’m sure they have nothing like it, by the way.) My plan is what used to be termed a “Cadillac plan”, not because the benefits are so generous but because my employer pays 80% of my premiums. Even so, the plan costs me thousands of dollars a year even when things don’t go wrong. What M4A would take away from me are co-pays, which are considerable, and a $3,600 deductible, plus additional costs associated with out-of-network providers. Would I pay more in taxes than I do currently? Possibly, but when we’re sick, we can go to the doctor, to the hospital, to urgent care, and not even think about cost. That’s a level of liberation I have never experienced.

It’s not hard to work out why shows like Morning Joe make such a determined effort to scuttle any attempt at bringing about M4A. Just look at their advertisers. No, not the military contractor ads – they’re mainly shooting at a more specific target (i.e. lawmakers and congressional staffers). The drug companies, the hospital groups, the medical device manufacturers, and of course, the big insurance firms. They are dropping a lot of coin on advertising and lobbying, as always, but if either Bernie or Warren gets anywhere near the White House, you can bet they will be directing their ample coffers to a concerted comm strategy to kill M4A before it is even drafted. That strategy will include targeted ads, but it will also involve appearances on talk shows, columns, video news releases and inserts on local TV news broadcasts – you name it. We saw some of this during the Obamacare fight. This will be much, much more determined.

I don’t say this to discourage anyone on the left from fighting for M4A. Quite the opposite – with the forces arrayed against us, we are going to need a sustained effort like nothing any of us has experienced before. It’s a fight worth having, so please … be ready both before and after election day.

luv u,

jp