Tag Archives: medicare for all

Political Rants

Heavy lift.

I want to open this week with a message to my fellow leftists. I know, some of you right now are probably saying, “Okay, boomer … “, but hear me out. For the more deeply committed among you, the upcoming presidential race is probably not the most important item on the agenda, but for those who plan on participating in the Democratic party primaries and caucuses, I have one modest caution: Don’t rip a new asshole into every candidate other than Bernie (whom I personally support). Many of us who are participating in electoral politics want Bernie to win, but that goal is in the hands of the voters. If we out-organize and out-vote all of the other candidates, we can win … but losing is a possibility, and given that eventuality we would still need to beat Trump in November … regardless of who wins the Democratic party nomination for president.

It's going to take all of us

The fact is, achieving top policy priorities like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal will be tremendously difficult no matter who the next Democratic president turns out to be. Obviously, Bernie Sanders is the best choice, in that we can be confident that we won’t have to convince the president to push for them. This is true of Warren to a lesser extent. But even with a reliable progressive / socialist like Bernie in the White House, M4A and the GND will demand massive organizing and activism outside of government, as well as more progressives in both the Senate and the House. All of that amounts to a heavy lift, and the difference a progressive president would make would be significant but not sufficient in and of itself.

In other words, there is no universe in which we can elect Bernie on a Tuesday in November and have him deliver M4A, for instance, sometime over the following year, all by himself. We need to build momentum for this and other progressive policies now and throughout next year, and when we defeat Trump with whatever candidate gets the most primary votes, we will need to push even harder and keep our eye on the ball. The presidential component of this project, while important, is relatively minor; no Democratic president can pass such sweeping legislation without a movement behind him or her. We will be opposed in all progressive proposals by the richest, most powerful institutions in the world, so it’s going to be a fight no matter who wins.

If we work extremely hard, we will get the nominee – Sanders – that we want and need. And then the real work begins.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

The utility of experts.

I haven’t been following the Democratic primary contest very much on this blog, as it receives so much coverage elsewhere it seems massively redundant for me to comment on it as well. When it becomes a substantive policy discussion, however, it certainly warrants comment. When Elizabeth Warren released the explanatory document on her version of Medicare for All (M4A), it was greeted with derision by supporters of the more “moderate” candidates. Morning Joe, of course, rolled out their resident fiscal policy expert Steve Rattner, who deployed a series of charts and graphs that demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt the very thing that the recent George Mason University study made clear: health care in America is expensive.

Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.

Rattner used a pie chart to show what portions of total health care cost would be picked up by M4A, then a line graph to illustrate how much higher federal spending would be if such a plan were implemented. He was attempting to make the point that the federal government would have to spend a third again as much as it currently does, and that …. shudder …. that’s a lot! What of course neither he nor his Morning Joe colleagues mentioned was that this money is being spent by us anyway … and that the current result is more than 80 million people uninsured or under-insured, half a million medical bankruptcies a year, and assorted other disasters. In other words, the current system is a massively costly failure.

M4A, on the other hand, would cover everyone. It would eliminate much of the cost to families and individuals, and decouple health care from employment. There would be no more medical bankruptcies, and (icing on the cake) it would cost less than what we’re currently collectively spending. With the right funding plan, it would cost individuals below a certain income level less than what they’re paying now. We can disagree over how that will play out, but M4A is the only way to ensure that health care is a right, not a privilege. When I hear the middling candidates so beloved of Morning Joe complain about single payer, it reminds me that none of them ever had to deal with inadequate health coverage. I have, and it’s a massive pain in the ass. Even the so-called good plans that people supposedly love so much are massively complicated and involve all kinds of hidden expenses.

This fight for M4A won’t be easy. We need to be ready for it.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Issues and non-answers.

A little more off the top of my head. One of these weeks I’m going to take some pains over this posting, but… not this time.

Don’t worry, Kyoto. Canada’s pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol (can you say “tar sands”?) and Durban was a bust. What’s it going to take, people? We had massive tornadic storms this past year. We don’t have the luxury of another decade of inaction and ignorance.  

See you in health. One of the issues that comes up in our perennial presidential campaign is that of health insurance, mostly in the context of so-called “Obama Care”. What doesn’t get discussed so much is, well, the only possible positive solution to the current situation, which is bankrupting individuals, bleeding businesses dry, and threatening to drown the government in red ink. The only constituency the current health insurance system benefits is private health insurers. Seems like we, as a nation, sacrifice a great deal to preserve their profitability. That has got to end. We need a national health insurance system – basically universal Medicare with some enhancements – that covers everybody.

When GOP strategist Ed Gillespie was on the Daily Show the other day, he seemed to suggest that he didn’t have a problem with the notion of insurance exchanges or the idea that veterans, for instance, should have government coverage because they deserve the best. And yet his – and I think most Republicans’ – solution to the ongoing health crisis is to throw everyone into the private market. I can tell you from experience – that is not a good place to be unless you’re very young, very healthy, and can afford very steep premiums. And the employer based system isn’t working either, partly because it’s based on the pool of employees covered by the plan. If there are a lot of illnesses in a given year, that sends the premiums through the roof. The only way to control costs is to a) get everyone in the freaking country into the same pool, and b) cut the profit out of it entirely so that, as with Medicare, practically all of the money goes to patient care. 

Private, employer-based health insurance is an anachronism that should go the way of the typewriter. It was designed for an age of close to full employment, when companies needed to incentivize people to come to work for them. If the GOP wants to reduce “uncertainty” for their friends in business, they might consider making it possible for them to get out of the health insurance business altogether. The only reasonable way to do that is through a national health plan administered by the federal government.

War’s end. The Iraq war is coming to a close, at least with respect to American troops (though many contractors remain). Of course, there are those amongst us who consider withdrawal a mistake, such as Cheney, McCain, and nearly all of the GOP presidential candidates. I know – who cares what Cheney thinks, right? Has a man ever been more consistently wrong (or despised) than he? Still, I don’t think we should be too dismissive of their views. If Cheney, McCain, Lindsey Graham, Michelle Bachman, and other foreign policy super-geniuses want us to stay in Iraq, we should ship them over there. Good place for them. And they can stay as long as they want.

Of course, we could never really allow that to happen. I mean, haven’t the Iraqi people have suffered enough?

luv u,

jp