We don't need federally provided universal health care

Whatever gave you the idea we do?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

You want to keep your private insurance

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

This is a Fox News poll

Medicare for all

After CNN posted a slightly corrected version of its falsehood-riddled Medicare for All fact check on Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) thanked network anchor Jake Tapper for admitting that his earlier video "was not factual," but added that the updated version is still full of "errors peddled by the Koch-funded Mercatus Center."

Pointing to the table in the Mercatus Center analysis that shows Medicare for All would save the American people $2 trillion over ten years—while also providing healthcare for everyone—Sanders accused CNN and other corporate media outlets of putting "blind faith" in Chuck Blahous, the right-wing author of the Mercatus study who deceptively insists that his numbers are being taken out of context.

"What Tapper and others have done is say we're wrong because Blahous didn't actually intend to find that Medicare for All would be a great deal for Americans," Sanders noted in a series of tweets. "The problem is: Blahous did find it would save $2 trillion—he just doesn't like that people are celebrating it."

[...]

"They are all wrong," [People's Policy Project founder Matt] Bruenig wrote of the self-proclaimed fact-checkers Tapper cited. "Jake, to talk about the fact-checkers as if they are separate evaluations is nonsense. Each one of them got the same spin from the same Mercatus author who has been doing intentional outreach to get people like you to say this stuff. It's the same poisoned source."

[...]

"I guarantee you Mercatus approached each one of these outlets with the same pitch, then after a bunch of them bit on the pitch, they hold them up as proof they are right. This, by the way, is exactly how the NYT got snowed on WMD in Iraq."

[...]

Tapper stood by his thoroughly discredited fact check by pointing to other thoroughly discredited fact checks—including his own—for validation.

  Common Dreams

Why, Jake, why?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

A Brit responds to a Twit

Short-sighted Trump admin moves

[A lawsuit] filed today by Attorney General Schneiderman and Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, details how the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – without adequate justification and in disregard of lawful procedure – withheld legally-required funding owed to New York and Minnesota to operate their BHPs. New York and Minnesota are the only states that operate BHPs [ Basic Health Programs], which collectively provide health insurance coverage to over 800,000 residents.

“The Essential Plan is a lifeline for over 700,000 low-income New Yorkers. The abrupt decision to cut these vital funds is a cruel and reckless assault on New York’s families – and we will not allow it,” said Attorney General Schneiderman. “I won’t stand by as the federal government continues to renege on its most basic obligations in a transparent attempt to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. We’re suing to defend these vital funds and the quality, affordable health care they ensure for New Yorkers.”

  New York AG

Who will do the menial labor and shit work after this administration has knocked off all the poor people and immigrants?

New York’s Essential Plan is extremely successful, with the vast majority of eligible individuals choosing to participate due to the low costs of coverage and generous benefits. Depending on income, some enrollees do not pay any premiums, while others pay at most $20 per month; there is no deductible, and the plan covers preventive care without cost sharing – providing access to critical health care for low-income New Yorkers.

Health care for all is not only achievable, it's a necessity.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Deficits Racket

I have a question that has never gotten answered to my satisfaction until now:  Why can't the US afford EVERYthing, since it prints its own money?

Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi talk to economist Stephanie Kelton about how money is made and spent and why the question of whether we can afford single payer health care in this country is a straw man.  Adam and Nima spend the first half of the podcast chattering in an uncharacteristically juvenile way, to my mind, but when they get to Ms. Kelton, the enlightenment begins.  She makes it all so clear.

Politics is bullshit.

I recommend skipping the first half (sorry, Adam and Nima) and jumping in at the 28.00 mark of The Deficits Racket Part 1: Single Payer Propaganda War.

The idea that we’re “running out of money” and have to “tighten our belts" is a common trope in US media; the premise that the US government is like a household that must balance its books, largely taken for granted by liberal and right-wing outlets alike.

But is this premise correct? Is it true that the United States is over-budget and ready to explode with insolvency? Where does this conventional wisdom come from and whom does it benefit?

On this and next week's show we seek to answer some of the questions. In Part I: Single Payer Propaganda War, we examine the primary talking points against Single Payer and other big government programs and how to combat them with guest Stephanie Kelton.

  Citations Needed

"Conventional wisdom holds that the government taxes individuals and companies in order to fund its own spending. But the government, which is ultimately the source of all dollars, taxed or untaxed, pays or spends first and taxes later. When it funds programs, it literally spends money into existence, injecting cash into the economy. Taxes exist in order to control inflation by reducing the money supply, and to insure that dollars, as the only currency accepted for tax payments, remain in demand."

Socialism/Communism in Health Care

I don't really understand why people get so hepped up about single-payer health insurance - or socialized medicine - when they're ultimately under Communisitic medical profession rules already. Isn't the Communist motto: from each according to their ability, to each according to their need? In other words, everybody pays in (work or dollars) what they are able to contribute, ultimately covering the cost of needs of people who can't pay.

Well, guess what? That's insurance. And that's how hospitals operate. And that's how Malcolm Bird got a bill from a hospital emergency room for $629 for the service of a doctor putting a bandaid on his child's finger - $7 for the bandaid that fell off in the parking lot, the rest for emergency services cover charge.

As an American with health insurance, you're already paying for socialized medicine.  Just a hell of a lot more than you would under single-payer health care.

Two-thirds of bankruptcies in the United States have to do with medical bills — and many of those patients likely had little ability, in advance, to know just how big those bills would be.

  Vox

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Where's the Magic Money Tree?

Adam Johnson addresses the concern trolls regarding single-payer health care:

Of all the water-muddying tactics, this one is the easiest to set aside. As I’ve noted in these pages before, deficit scare-mongering is used, almost exclusively, as a bludgeon to smear progressive policy proposals. When it comes to launching wars or bailing out banks, these fears vanish.

Articles in the Washington Post, Vox and Think Progress all asked how Sanders’ single-payer bill would be “paid for,” yet not a single one of those outlets asked the same question the day after the Senate signed a $700-billion military spending bill, an increase of roughly 13% from 2017. (That $80 billion increase alone could cover 2017-2018 tuition for every student at a 4-year state university in the country.) Money for war is magically always there; money for healthcare must be counted bean by bean.

  LA Times

Continue reading.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Tweet Tweet

You know what's a curse on the U.S. and its people, Dolt?

And do you know what can happen even AFTER you veto a bill?  Ask around.  Somebody there will know.

Perseverance Porn

You’ve seen or heard or read the personal interest story a thousand times: An enterprising seven-year-old collects cans to save for college (ABC7, 2/8/17), a man with unmatched moxie walks 15 miles to his job (Today, 2/20/17), a low-wage worker buys shoes for a kid whose mother can’t afford them (Fox5, 12/14/16), an “inspiring teen” goes right back to work after being injured in a car accident (CBS News, 12/16/16). All heartwarming tales of perseverance in the face of impossible odds—and all ideological agitprop meant to obscure and decontextualize the harsh reality of dog-eat-dog capitalism.

  FAIR

This is akin to making individuals responsible for the planet's survival - recycle, cut down on waste, etc - when it should be a global government effort to reduce pollution and encourage/insist on/subsidize sustainable corporate practices.

In the case of perseverance porn, we get to overlook the fact that a world of haves and have-nots is a world destined to remain a world of hunger, neglect and strife.  How many brilliant minds that could otherwise contribute to human and global advancement are instead being used to simply survive?

[The individuals in the story don't matter. T]heir humanity is irrelevant. They’re clickbait, stand-in bootstrap archetypes meant to validate the bourgeois morality of click-happy media consumers.

[...]

Here we have a story highlighting how society has colossally failed its most vulnerable populations—the poor, ethnic minorities, children and the homeless—and the take-home point is, “Ah gee, look at that scrappy kid.”

Journalism is as much—if not more—about what isn’t reported as what is. Here a local reporter is faced with a cruel example of people falling through the cracks of the richest country on Earth, and their only contribution is to cherry-pick one guy who managed—just barely—to cling on to the edge.

[...]

Perseverance porn goes hand in hand with the rise of a GoFundMe economy that relies on personal narrative over collective policy, emotional appeals over baseline human rights.

[...]

$930 million out of the $2 billion raised on GoFundMe since its inception in 2010 was for healthcare expenses, while an estimated 45,000 people a year die  [...]  due to a lack of medical treatment. Meanwhile, anchors across cable news insist that single-payer healthcare is “unaffordable.”

[...]

It’s part of a broader media culture of [...] moralizing “success” rather than questioning systemic problems.

[...]

After all, if they can do it, so can you—right?

[...]

A healthy press would take these anecdotes of “can do” spirit and ask bigger questions, like why are these people forced into such absurd hardship? Who benefits from skyrocketing college costs? Why does the public transit in this person’s city not have subsidies for the poor? Why aren’t employers forced to offer time off for catastrophic accidents? But time and again, the media mindlessly tells the bootstrap human interest story, never questioning the underlying system at work.

Reminds me of the Democrats (and Republicans too) take after the 2008 financial crash and scandal - bail out the banksters and finance criminals, and tell the public things are not going to get better for a long time, so we need to tighten our belts.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

You Can Call Him Al

A day after the Republican party’s effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act crumbled, Al Gore spoke at a community college in Manhattan, NY, about his new climate change movie. Completely unrelated to the documentary, however, Gore expressed his support for a single-payer healthcare system.

[...]

Breaking with ranking Democrats like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Gore told the audience that private health insurance has failed to provide accessible coverage for all Americans.

“The private sector has not shown any ability to provide good, affordable health care for all. I believe we ought to have single-payer health care,” Gore said at the event hosted by The New York Times.

  Fusion

And the crowd (me) goes wild.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

In a Word, No

Obviously Ro thinks the Dems are something they're not. They don't want single payer either.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

With Any Luck, His Lifetime Won't Be Much Longer, Then

Activists across the country have provided real momentum to the idea of a single-payer health care system, pressing the issue in California and among leading figures in the Democratic Party.

The mere prospect of single payer, however, has elicited swift derision from some corners of the party, with Dick Gephardt, the former Democratic House minority leader, laughing off the idea at a health insurance conference earlier this month.

“Not in my lifetime,” scoffed Gephardt, when asked if the United States will ever adopt such a system.

[...]

When Colorado debated a ballot measure to adopt single payer during the election last year, a small army of Democratic Party consultants descended upon the state to help health care industry interests defeat the measure.

[...]

The claim that single payer suppresses innovation is an old argument that does not stand up to scrutiny. Most medical innovation in the U.S. are already government funded, through universities receiving federal subsidies and grants, as well as through the National Institutes of Health. A single-payer insurance system, like Medicare, would simply negotiate for lower prices from providers, and would likely steer savings towards greater investments in research and development. Claims about lower quality care are also highly disputed, given that countries with single payer and tightly regulated universal health systems perform much higher than the U.S. in a range of health out-comes.

  The Intercept

Gephardt, by the way, is a Democrat Superdelegate.

Where was he when he said this?

[A]t the Centene Corporation annual investor day conference at The Pierre, a ritzy five-star hotel in New York City.

Who is Centene?

Centene, which merged with Health Net two years ago, is a health insurance company that sells coverage in 28 states. At the conference, which included investors and Centene executives as well as lobbyists, an unidentified participant asked Gephardt about whether the industry should fear being replaced by a single-payer-style system. Such a move, the questioner remarked, would present an “existential threat.”

[...]

America, [Gepharddt] added, has the “greatest health care system in the world, bar none.” And while single payer would provide universal coverage, there would be less quality and innovation without the “involvement of the private sector.”

[...]

Haley Barbour, the former Republican National Committee chair, another speaker at the event, chimed in to agree. “Hear, hear. Put me down as agreeing with Leader Gephardt as usual,” Barbour chuckled.

Two dicks in a pod.

Gephardt, notably, became a corporate lobbyist after serving as a populist Democratic lawmaker from Missouri. His clients have included Peabody Coal and Goldman Sachs, among others. He also serves on the board of Centene, receiving annual compensation of around $315,965 in cash and stock awards.

On behalf of Missourians across the state, I apologize for "populist" Dick Gephardt.

The single-payer bill sponsored in every congressional session since 2003 by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., now has 113 sponsors, nearly twice the number that signed on last year.

After Trumpcare gets going, there may be more.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Does This Mean the NYT Is NOT Fake News?

via GIPHY

And that wouldn't be the case with Medicare for all, which was NOT the recently spectacularly failed Trumpcare plan.  It would, however, be the case in which any plan fashioned by insurance companies is in place.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Try, Try Again

In the wake of the Republican failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act on Friday, leading figures in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are rallying behind a single-payer health insurance and a raft of other bold reforms.

These lawmakers and grassroots leaders have long believed that the problems plaguing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, are rooted in the original health care law’s attempt to accommodate, rather than gradually replace, the private, for-profit health insurance system.

  HuffPo

Duh.

“We have got to have the guts to take on the insurance companies and the drug companies and move forward toward a ‘Medicare for all,’ single-payer program,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said on MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes” on Friday night. “And I’ll be introducing legislation shortly to do that.” Sanders added on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that he would “absolutely” seek President Donald Trump’s cooperation on expanding Medicare and lowering prescription drug prices.

[...]

Notwithstanding the support of the influential groups for the proposal and ― according to a May 2016 Gallup poll ― even a majority of the American people, Medicare-for-all legislation is a non-starter in the current Congress. Single-payer health insurance still lacks support from many, if not most, Democrats, let alone from the Republican lawmakers who control both chambers.

[...]

In the meantime, [...] by adopting a position that is considered extreme by contemporary standards, politicians and activists can make more attainable policy goals start to seem reasonable by comparison.

That phenomenon already seems to be working in progressives’ favor.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the only one of Sanders’ Senate colleagues to endorse his presidential bid, discussed the possibility of lowering the Medicare eligibility age or empowering Medicare to negotiate drug prices in his statement on the Republican bill’s collapse.

[...]

“There are plenty of ideas already on the table that would make health care more affordable for working families, from a public option, to prescription drug negotiations, to offering older Americans the chance to buy into Medicare,” Merkley said on Friday. “I’m happy to work with anyone, from either side of the aisle, to explore these or any other ideas that would improve health care for working Americans.”

Wouldn't it be nice to see Congress go into a budget huddle thinking about what programs to cut back and what taxes to levy in order to make sure every American has good health care, a good education, and a place to live?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

American Health Care

The debate over the health-care bill in the House of Representatives has come to center on a single topic: How many Americans will be covered under its auspices.

[...]

Freedom’s fallen entirely out of the [...] debate.

[...]

The current health-care bill was dealt a terrific blow by the Congressional Budget Office, which estimated on Monday that by 2026, 24 million fewer people will have health-care coverage.

[...]

As a simple matter of fact, that isn’t right. The verb “lose” suggests these 24 million will unwillingly be booted out of the system. No: The CBO says that most of those people will not be covered because they will not buy an insurance policy when it’s no longer the law of the land that they must do so.

[...]

In other words, they’ll be exercising their freedom of choice as adults to opt out of the system — and should they try to get back in only when they get sick, they will have to pay a 30 percent penalty for their effort to game the system.

[...]

The right’s riposte has always been: The cost of such a policy would be larger than this country can bear unless the government literally runs all of national health care directly in what’s known as a “single payer” system.

[...]

Single-payer nationalizes health care, which is philosophically inimical to the American experiment and would as a practical matter be destructive. It would drive the best people out of medicine, retard the medical innovations that are improving our lives every year and create a horrifying system of rationing.

[...]

Our political system isn’t designed to ensure parity of outcome. It exists to enshrine the freedom of the individual from coercion by the state and to provide for the working of a free society outside government control.

[...]

Also as a matter of fact, the people who now have coverage under ObamaCare who did not before it was passed are in a degenerating system. Their premiums have risen by double digits a year, and their deductibles have risen to such an extent that many of them don’t get a cent back from insurance even after they make some use of the system.

[...]

In a stunning March 13 op-ed, [Christopher Ruddy, the publisher of Newsmax and a close friend of the president’s] argues that the private health-care system is a mirage and that Trump should ditch what he calls “Ryancare” to protect Medicare and push for a huge expansion of the Medicaid system to make it the provider for far more people than just the poorest Americans.

[...]

Barack Obama and the Democrats may have lost the House in 2010, the Senate in 2014 and the presidency in 2016, but they may be winning the most important argument they’ve ever made.

[...]

The case for liberty is in desperate straits.

  John Podhoretz @ NY Post

"So poor people should stop having heart attacks and strokes." -- Jason Chaffetz, probably.

Don't worry.  We won't get single payer health care even if T-Rump actually wanted it.  Congress members are too heavily supported by the insurance industry.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Don't Count on the Dems

Instead of attempting to salvage the doomed and fatally flawed Affordable Healthcare Act, progressives should seize the time and push for single payer health care, said pediatrician and political activist Dr. Margaret Flowers.

[...]

The push, however, must come from the people, not the Democrats. “Even Sen. Sanders has backed down and is saying, Let’s protect the Affordable Care Act now and we’ll fight for single payer later,” said Flowers.

  Black Agenda Report

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

After Obamacare: What Comes Next?

The promise to deliver affordable health care was a key campaign issue in 2007 and 2008. But while most Americans demanded a single payer system to replace the private insurance companies, and guarantee health care for everyone, the 44th president his corporate funded Democrats instead delivered Obamacare –- billions in tax dollars to insurance companies for policies with skimpy coverage and such high co-pays and deductibles that many families cannot afford to use their new health insurance. Worse still, Obamacare only provided these sketchy policies to about half the uninsured leaving the rest to the tender mercies of state governments which control Medicaid.

[...]

[E]ven though this is the fourth consecutive Republican dominated Congress, and Republican politicians hate Medicare For All just as much as their Democratic rivals, the popular mandate for single payer health care is very much alive.

A May 2016 Gallup Poll confirms that “...58% of U.S. adults favor the idea of replacing the law (Obamacare) with a federally funded healthcare system that provides insurance for all Americans.” [...] It’s worth noting that the Green Party’ candidates Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka were the only ones in this election calling for single payer health care.

A 2009 study by the National Nurses Union reveals that adoption of Medicare For All would create 2.6 million new jobs, from doctors and nurses to a host of health care professionals and technicians. That’s as many jobs as were lost in the 2007-2009 recession. It would inject $75 billion per year into the US economy, including $100 billion in wages alone. President Trump won in part because he told people he’d “bring back the jobs.” But steel mill jobs are imaginary, fictitious. Health care jobs are real.

[...]

Trump’s threat to dismantle Obamacare is an invitation for us to reopen the struggle for health care as a human right. And this time we know we’re struggling against Republicans AND Democrats.

  Bruce Dixon @ Black Agenda Report

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Regarding Universal Health Care

Indeed.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.