Right, Ady Barkan has been a strong advocate for Medicare for All. And yet, he just endorsed a person who seems to support the Public Option instead. I am genuinely perplexed about why he did that. As I said before, I expect this endorsement to help Warren convince some people that she actually does support Medicare for All. Others will be more skeptical.
Mr. Barkan explains
Medicare for All activist Ady Barkan has courageously dedicated his life to fixing America's broken health care system. Here he explains why Elizabeth Warren has the best health care plan and the best path to M4A. (via @ddayen, @TheYoungTurks) pic.twitter.com/8Fu7eZXQHA
I know you're in favor of Obamacare but the Tweet shows why I'm not in favor. Its a bandaid that hinders M4A. It has not reduced Medical bankruptcies.
According to a 2019 study, about 530,000 bankruptcies filed annually are because of debt accrued due to a medical illness. The study found that even the Affordable Care Act has failed to change the proportion of bankruptcies caused by medical debts.
Obamacare did not work out as well as the insurance industry wished. They thought with the mandated IRS penalties almost all who are eligible would sign up. Instead, most who are healthy did not whereas the needy (expensive ) did. It screwed their profitability. Consequently, the large rate and deductibility adjustments.
What the industry hopes is for an extremely profitable income stream where almost all Americans would be under their private plans. The exceptions would be Medicaid and Seniors who do not use private Medicare plans. That would give the health insurance industry an almost eternal lock on the country.
The profits don't just lead to hefty paydays. They allow the industry to amass a war chest to fend off piecemeal reforms and larger-scale overhauls like Medicare for All.
And here is why it is not. It's not Medicare for All. It's just like Pete's plan, which is probably why Warren is losing supporters to Pete. Barkan does not say why he favors Warren's plan over Sanders, and he praises Sanders' and Jaypal's bills as well.
Warrencare Doesn’t Deserve to Be Called “Medicare for All”
Warrencare and Petecare are, as proposed, structurally identical. Why do pundits insist on calling Elizabeth Warren’s health care plan “Medicare for All”?
And here is why it is not. It's not Medicare for All. It's just like Pete's plan, which is probably why Warren is losing supporters to Pete. Barkan does not say why he favors Warren's plan over Sanders, and he praises Sanders' and Jaypal's bills as well.
Warrencare Doesn’t Deserve to Be Called “Medicare for All”
Warrencare and Petecare are, as proposed, structurally identical. Why do pundits insist on calling Elizabeth Warren’s health care plan “Medicare for All”?
I'm experiencing deja vu. Wasn't this posted a few weeks ago?
It's a new post on the Twitter, from Friday.
Interesting, now that we have heard from Wendell Potter how he helped develop the use of the word "choice" to gaslight people into supporting programs such a the public option. And now we have Elizabeth Warren using the "choice" word. Wonder what Ady thinks about that?
In a rhetorical shift, Elizabeth Warren emphasizes 'choice' on health care
Interesting, now that we have heard from Wendell Potter how he helped develop the use of the word "choice" to gaslight people into supporting programs such a the public option. And now we have Elizabeth Warren using the "choice" word. Wonder what Ady thinks about that?
In a rhetorical shift, Elizabeth Warren emphasizes 'choice' on health care
I still don't understand why Nan/Bernie's (or most of the others) are called "Medicare for All" since they are all different from Medicare in terms of coverage, etc.. It just confuses the issue. To me, "Medicare for All" should mean that everyone (rather than only age 65+) would be eligible for Medicare as it currently exists or as it might be changed in the future. It might or might not mean that everyone would automatically be enrolled in it (just as now, some 65+ folks are not enrolled in Medicare for various reasons.) Any other proposal should have some other name, ideally descriptive enough for people to be more able to know whether or not they favor it although that's probably not possible. It's no wonder that you can't draw any conclusions from polls about what people think about M4A, since nobody really knows what it is.
I still don't understand why Nan/Bernie's (or most of the others) are called "Medicare for All" since they are all different from Medicare in terms of coverage, etc.. It just confuses the issue. To me, "Medicare for All" should mean that everyone (rather than only age 65+) would be eligible for Medicare as it currently exists or as it might be changed in the future. It might or might not mean that everyone would automatically be enrolled in it (just as now, some 65+ folks are not enrolled in Medicare for various reasons.) Any other proposal should have some other name, ideally descriptive enough for people to be more able to know whether or not they favor it although that's probably not possible. It's no wonder that you can't draw any conclusions from polls about what people think about M4A, since nobody really knows what it is.
Medicare for All is not the same as current Medicare. Medicare for All provides complete health coverage, including vision, dental, hearing and long-term care for every person in the whole country. There are no enrollment forms, co-pays, deductibles, networks, premiums, etc. You get a card saying you are eligible and you pick a doctor/hospital and go. There is one network and all doctors/hospitals are included. A doctor/hospital could decide not to take Medicare for All, but then they would be on a cash basis only. It is unlikely that many would choose to do that. Duplicate medical insurance would not be allowed.
It is called Medicare for All because that's where the program starts and expands--with the system that is already in place. When everyone is on it--there can only be one network. And it expands to include the things currently in supplemental.
It gets rid of the insurance company's profit and all the complex billing and lobbying and marketing and passes those savings on to the public.
The Public Option, which would be all the candidates except Sanders offers the same system we have now, with the same cost issues and keeping deductibles, premiums. co-pays, etc. This offers "access" to healthcare, not guaranteed healthcare as the Medicare for All plan. The Public Option plan also has a separate network so only some doctors would be on it. It is likely to be overburdened with the sickest people and would likely fail.
I still don't understand why Nan/Bernie's (or most of the others) are called "Medicare for All" since they are all different from Medicare in terms of coverage, etc.. It just confuses the issue. To me, "Medicare for All" should mean that everyone (rather than only age 65+) would be eligible for Medicare as it currently exists or as it might be changed in the future. It might or might not mean that everyone would automatically be enrolled in it (just as now, some 65+ folks are not enrolled in Medicare for various reasons.) Any other proposal should have some other name, ideally descriptive enough for people to be more able to know whether or not they favor it although that's probably not possible. It's no wonder that you can't draw any conclusions from polls about what people think about M4A, since nobody really knows what it is.
Bernie's plan is pretty explicit. Within a few years, everyone is on Medicare, coverage is expanded, and private insurance goes away. You can argue around the margins, but that's the broad plan. Hence - Medicare for All. Pretty straightforward. I think Warren has embraced the same plan, except she treats it as a goal down the line, instead of an immediate one. No one else's plan is similar to this, I don't think.
Employers currently pay about $10,000 per employee for health insurance. This comes directly out of your paycheck, but most people can’t be convinced of this. If you were to tax them $10,000 for all-in universal health care, they’d see it as losing $10,000 per year. And who knows? Corporations aren’t known for their benevolence, and there’s no guarantee that if you eliminated their health care obligation they’d use that savings to increase everyone’s wages. So maybe “most people” are right.
This is why I continue to think that anyone who’s in favor of Medicare for All should also be in favor of funding a big chunk of it via a payroll tax on employers. There are still tricky details to work out. Who pays for contractors? How much do corporations pay for part-time employees? Etc. But those are not insurmountable problems. They can be worked out. And when they are, it works out to employers paying about $5 per employee hour for health insurance. According to the BEA, Americans work about 250 billion hours per year, so a payroll tax on corporations of $5 per hour of paid employee labor comes to:
$1.25 trillion
Current federal and state spending on Medicare and Medicaid comes to:
$1.25 trillion
If you figure that Medicare for All will cover 85 percent of health care expenses—which is about average for other health care systems—then households will continue paying about:
$500 billion
Other federal spending comes to about:
$100 billion
This adds up to $3.1 trillion. Total current health care spending is about $3.6 trillion, which means we need to find about $500 billion more. That’s it. You may assume any combination of your favorite spending cuts and tax increases to fill this gap. If, like me, you assume that spending won’t change (getting rid of private insurance overhead will be balanced by covering more people), then you need a $500 billion tax increase. This is hardly chump change, but it’s also far from insurmountable. We can start by reversing the Republican tax cut of 2017, and then finish up by adding a fairly modest additional tax on the rich.
In other words, this isn’t that hard. But you have to keep all the current funding in place if you want to avoid gargantuan numbers. And here’s what the public gets for this:
Health care is easy. Just show your M4A card when you see a doctor and you’re done. No fighting with insurance companies.
Everyone is covered from the day they’re born.
You don’t lose your coverage if you lose your job.
Your coverage doesn’t change whenever your employer decides to save some money by switching insurance companies.
Every doctor and hospital is paid via M4A, so you can see any doctor you want. You don’t have to worry about whether your doctor is part of your insurance company’s network.
I still don't understand why Nan/Bernie's (or most of the others) are called "Medicare for All" since they are all different from Medicare in terms of coverage, etc.. It just confuses the issue. To me, "Medicare for All" should mean that everyone (rather than only age 65+) would be eligible for Medicare as it currently exists or as it might be changed in the future. It might or might not mean that everyone would automatically be enrolled in it (just as now, some 65+ folks are not enrolled in Medicare for various reasons.) Any other proposal should have some other name, ideally descriptive enough for people to be more able to know whether or not they favor it although that's probably not possible. It's no wonder that you can't draw any conclusions from polls about what people think about M4A, since nobody really knows what it is.
Bernie's plan is pretty explicit. Within a few years, everyone is on Medicare, coverage is expanded, and private insurance goes away. You can argue around the margins, but that's the broad plan. Hence - Medicare for All. Pretty straightforward. I think Warren has embraced the same plan, except she treats it as a goal down the line, instead of an immediate one. No one else's plan is similar to this, I don't think.
All of that is true, but you're missing my point. Medicare is what it is and if you use the name Medicare in a new plan name it implies (in this case) that it is the Medicare we already have but extended to more people. Not everyone has (or will) read Bernie's (or anybody else's) "plan" but many more people DO have some sense of what current Medicare is. So, in many cases, if you ask them whether they are for or against "Medicare for All", that is what they will think of. I haven't read every candidate's exact position on health care, but I suspect that they all vary to some degree, even though a number of them call their plan "Medicare for All".
In Nevada, there's a group apparently putting out ads about how M4A will destroy the hard-earned health benefits of one union.
It's a subject we've covered before, but one thing I haven't heard mentioned is why can't the union just negotiate for supplemental insurance if it turns out that M4A is inadequate for their needs?
Kowtowing to the union on this issue (and I think it's only one union that's involved, at least in Nevada) is kind of ridiculous. Are we supposed to forget about universal health care because some union members are afraid of losing a benefit?
It's a subject we've covered before, but one thing I haven't heard mentioned is why can't the union just negotiate for supplemental insurance if it turns out that M4A is inadequate for their needs?
Kowtowing to the union on this issue (and I think it's only one union that's involved, at least in Nevada) is kind of ridiculous. Are we supposed to forget about universal health care because some union members are afraid of losing a benefit?
In "pure" M4A there isn't any "supplemental insurance", as there aren't any insurance companies.
It's a subject we've covered before, but one thing I haven't heard mentioned is why can't the union just negotiate for supplemental insurance if it turns out that M4A is inadequate for their needs?
Kowtowing to the union on this issue (and I think it's only one union that's involved, at least in Nevada) is kind of ridiculous. Are we supposed to forget about universal health care because some union members are afraid of losing a benefit?
In "pure" M4A there isn't any "supplemental insurance", as there aren't any insurance companies.
Again, that would be something that the union could lobby for to include in M4A. Nothing in Bernie's plan is a foregone conclusion.
(and here we are, talking about it as if it might pass. silly us.)
It's a subject we've covered before, but one thing I haven't heard mentioned is why can't the union just negotiate for supplemental insurance if it turns out that M4A is inadequate for their needs?
“Just negotiate.” That makes is sound like you have little understanding of what union negotiations are like, or why unions wouldn’t want to renegotiate something they’ve already achieved. Stick with “hard-earned.”
Are we supposed to forget about universal health care because some union members are afraid of losing a benefit?
No. Are we supposed to expect some union members not to raise a fuss about it?
It's a subject we've covered before, but one thing I haven't heard mentioned is why can't the union just negotiate for supplemental insurance if it turns out that M4A is inadequate for their needs?
“Just negotiate.” That makes is sound like you have little understanding of what union negotiations are like, or why unions wouldn’t want to renegotiate something they’ve already achieved. Stick with “hard-earned.”
Are we supposed to forget about universal health care because some union members are afraid of losing a benefit?
No. Are we supposed to expect some union members not to raise a fuss about it?
you make it sound like union negotiations are some form of dark art, instead of something that's been going on for many decades.
Also, negotiating for supplemental insurance, which would have to be far less costly for the employer than full medical benefits, seems like a somewhat easy lift.
you make it sound like union negotiations are some form of dark art, instead of something that's been going on for many decades.
Also, negotiating for supplemental insurance, which would have to be far less costly for the employer than full medical benefits, seems like a somewhat easy lift.
Not a dark art. Very, very — very — difficult. Not something you want to have to open up again for a redo from scratch.
“Somewhat easy lift.” That’s ignorance, right there.
Very true. +1000 But, people fall for this crap all the time. So, we will see.