Medicare for all

Medicare-For-All Is Good For Our Towns

February 27, 2021 Jane Katz Field, Brattleboro Reformer. Create! Congress, Health Care, Medicare for all, Vermont

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, 30 million people in the U.S. had no health insurance, and about 50 million were underinsured. The pandemic has caused millions more to lose coverage because of losing their jobs. Indeed the pandemic has given us perspective on an array of injustices in our health care delivery system — including the lack of an adequate public health infrastructure, the racial disparities in access to care, the rationing of care based on ability to pay, and hospitals’ concentration on lucrative cardiac and orthopedic services rather than mental health and primary care. The U.S. spends twice as much per capita on health care as other high-income countries that provide universal coverage, and yet our health outcomes are worse.

Biden’s Health Plan Shifts Even More Public Dollars Into Private Hands

February 20, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Truthout. Educate! ACA, Health Care, Joe Biden, Medicare for all

As the American Rescue Plan (ARP) winds its way through Congress, some progressives are hailing its health provisions as the greatest expansion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 10 years, while conservatives are claiming that it is a slippery slope to a national Medicare for All system. Democrats have decided to forego seeking Republican support for President Biden’s $1.9 trillion promise of relief to those suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic and recession by using the budget reconciliation process. This has Republicans worried the legislation will be used to advance the progressive agenda to expand government health care programs. However, at the end of the day, while the bill may be used to strengthen some provisions in the ACA, it will not move the United States’s health care system any closer to the popular national improved Medicare for All system that we need.

American Healthcare System Failed Black Americans

February 3, 2021 Nick, Progressive Martial Artist. Educate! Black America, health disparities, Medicare for all, Racism

There are certain policy positions that are such a slam dunk that if someone does not support them, I can’t take anything they say seriously, nor can I trust their judgement. Medicare for All is one of those polices. It is the most pro-black legislation in mainstream political discourse right now. Our black leaders, such as Jim Clyburn, teaming up with health insurance companies and Big Pharma, are why the state of healthcare in the African American community is so bleak, as I laid out in my previous article Liberals, for good reason, hold social wedge issues as their primary litmus test. Can you imagine a standard liberal Democrat supporting someone who is openly against gay marriage and abortion rights?

Medicare For All Reaches The Crossroads

February 2, 2021 Shamus Cooke, Counterpunch. Strategize! COVID-19, Health Care, Medicare for all, Single-Payer

In 2021 the U.S. healthcare crisis has, again, reached a boiling point. It was already simmering in 2019 when the number of uninsured grew to 33 million. Covid then triggered a job crisis that added anywhere from 15 to 27 million to the ranks of the uninsured. The still-growing job crisis has pushed the number of uninsured near or beyond the 49 million uninsured that existed prior to Obamacare, whose goal was “universal healthcare.” It’s no surprise then that Medicare For All emerged, pre-Covid, as the most popular policy during the Presidential Democratic primaries. But after the Democratic Party organized, once again, to crush Bernie Sanders’ campaign, Biden tried to push discourse away from Medicare For All with plans to “improve Obamacare” a goal as ambitious as “patching up the Hindenburg.”

Biden Lifts Health Care Plan From Insurance Lobbyists

January 20, 2021 Andrew Perez and Julia Rock, Daily Poster. Educate! health insurance industry, Joe Biden, Medicare for all, Public option

President-elect Joe Biden’s new COVID relief plan does not adopt existing Democratic legislation to expand government sponsored medical coverage nor does it propose a promised public health insurance option. Instead, it adopts proposals from health insurance lobbying groups’ recent letter to lawmakers demanding lucrative new subsidies for insurance companies, at a moment when those corporations have recorded record profits as millions lose coverage and many face claims denials. Biden’s plan would shovel billions of dollars to private health insurers by providing subsidies for Americans to buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces, which are far more expensive than government health care programs and have at times been plagued by high rates of claim denials.

Single Payer: Which Way Forward?

January 19, 2021 Ed Grystar, Dissident Voice. Strategize! Health Care, Medicare for all, Single payer health care

To say that there’s a political disconnect in the fight for a national single payer health care delivery system is to state the obvious. The struggle for M4ALL has grown due to decades of grassroots organizing alongside the gradual worsening of Americans’ health insurance coverage, with support now reaching 70% in the general public as reported by FOX News after the November elections. Yet now in the middle of a pandemic, where the USA accounts for a quarter of the world’s infections, and a third of the deaths, the USA’s for-profit healthcare system has no national plan or coordinated response. Instead, since so few Americans are going to the doctor this year, there is resounding joy in the industry as profits mount simultaneously with the despair of millions.

The Obama-fication of ‘The Squad’ Strengthens The Right At The Expense Of The Left

January 16, 2021 Danny Haiphong, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Democrats, Green New Deal, Medicare for all, The Squad

Black Agenda Report has long understood the Democratic Party to be a graveyard for social movements in the United States. An online push led by Jimmy Dore and the Movement for a People’s Party to #Forcethevote only further confirmed the true function of the Democratic Party. The call was simple. So-called “progressive” Activists pushing #Forcethevote asked “progressive” members of the Democratic Party to withhold their vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House in exchange for a floor vote on Medicare for All. Democrats have grown in number while the Democratic Party’s control of the House has shrunk, thereby making Nancy Pelosi’s path to Speaker of the House more precarious.

Tennessee Capital: Group Demands Racial Equality And Medicare For All

January 14, 2021 Kathleen Serie, FOX17. Resist! Black Lives Matter (BLM), Medicare for all, State Capital, Tennessee

Nashville, TN - A social justice group out of Knoxville, Tennessee made the trek to the State Capitol building on Tuesday, demanding that lawmakers take immediate action on issues like Medicare for all, and the fight for racial equality. This comes on the first day of the legislative session. Earlier Tuesday afternoon when the demonstration was still happening, the rally organizers said their groups wasn't as big as they had hoped it would be, partly because of what happened at the U.S. Capitol last week. But despite their small numbers, they say their message carried big importance. "What's that spell? Black Lives Matter! What's that spell? Black Lives Matter! What's that spell? Black Lives Matter!" demonstrators chanted.

DSA’s Moment Of Truth

January 13, 2021 Shamus Cooke, Counterpunch. Educate! Democratic Socialists of America, Force the Vote, Medicare for all, The Squad

Now that Democrats control the House, Senate, and the Presidency, expectations have been raised around covid relief, rent relief, a Green New Deal, cancelling student debt and Medicare For All. Covid has especially elevated the demand of Medicare For All: the trillion dollar healthcare industry that annually leaves tens of thousands of uninsured dying unnecessary deaths — while bankrupting hundreds of thousands more — has proven a historic failure in the face of the pandemic, while pushing millions more into the realm of the uninsured. The totality of the disaster is similar to a poorer nation in the throes of war or famine.

This Is The Time To Push For National Improved Medicare For All

January 4, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Congress, Force the Vote, Medicare for all, Nancy Pelosi

This past weekend, new members of Congress voted for the speaker of the House. Given the slim majority of Democrats, progressives urged members of Congress who ran on a platform of Medicare for All to negotiate a floor vote for the Medicare for All bill in exchange for their support for Nancy Pelosi. Given the recession, pandemic, the millions who have lost their health insurance, growing support for Medicare for All and this rare opportunity of holding political power, the floor vote was seen as an important demonstration that progressives in Congress would fight for the people's interests this year. The campaign went by the hashtag #ForceTheVote.

In A Crisis, A Compromise Solution Is Worse Than No Solution At All

December 31, 2020 Ted Rall, Counterpunch. Strategize! ACA, Health Care, Medicare for all

The raging argument on the left between progressives who argue for radical change and centrists who advocate incrementalism is hardly new. Nearly a century ago, progressive titan and Wisconsin governor Robert La Follette and FDR were often at loggerheads over the same question. Roosevelt, La Follette complained, was too quick to compromise with reactionaries. FDR insisted that “half a loaf is better than no bread.” While that might seem intuitively obvious, La Follette had a ready reply. “Half a loaf, as a rule, dulls the appetite, and destroys the keenness of interest in attaining the full loaf.” That can be dangerous. The average adult male requires approximately 2500 calories of nutrition per day.

A View On Health Care From 2028

December 31, 2020 Chet Gardiner, Popular Resistance. Create! Health Care, Medicare for all, National Improved Medicare for All

I just had my third heart attack. Let me tell you about my previous two. The first was 16 years ago in 2012. After wasting 15-20 minutes with an ER admitting clerk demanding my “insurance information” before I was allowed access to care, a triage nurse hustled me 'backstage'. I was diagnosed with a “minor” MI stopped by doses of nitroglycerin. The following day the artery that had closed up was stented. The day after that I was kicked loose to the street. The 'retail' cost for my two day stay in the hospital and the procedure was around $250,000. My insurance “negotiated” that down to $22,000, co-pay was $2,200 plus $300 per month for prescription drugs over the next year.

Meet The Pseudo-Left Imperialists Fighting Against Universal Healthcare

December 25, 2020 Dan Cohen, The Grayzone. Resistance Report Congress, Media, Medicare for all, Pseudo-Left

It’s no coincidence that the pundits who are circling the wagons around AOC and seething at a comedian for pushing for a Medicare For All floor vote are also a bunch of pseudo-left imperialists. They’ve positioned themselves as guard dogs and gatekeepers of the Democratic Party, a pro-war, pro-Wall Street political cartel that fights the authentic anti-imperialist left harder than it takes on right-wing Republicans. If there’s anything positive to take away from this episode, it’s that we now know who’s part of the struggle to improve the lives of working people in this country and ends wars abroad – and who’s standing in the way.

No Co-Sponsor Of ‘Medicare For All’ Has Lost Reelection In The Past Decade

December 24, 2020 Richard Lachmann, Michael Schwartz, and Kevin Young, Commondreams. Educate! Democrats, Elections, Health Care, Medicare for all

It's common sense: Democratic politicians who support "radical" notions like Medicare for All, free college, or preserving a habitable planet via a Green New Deal guarantee their own defeat. A recent New York Times interview with Pennsylvania Congressman and corporate Democrat Conor Lamb states simply that Medicare for All is "unpopular in swing districts," an idea presumably so obvious that it requires no documentation. Lamb asserts that opposition to Medicare for All and other progressive policies "separates a winner from a loser in a [swing] district like mine." The Democratic Party's army of political strategists has used this logic for decades, to explain both victories and defeats. Wunderkind party consultant David Shor, for example, assures us that "boring, moderate" Democrats systematically outperform the "ideological extremists."

The Case For Forcing A Floor Vote On Medicare For All

December 17, 2020 Briahna Joy Gray, Current Affairs. Strategize! Congress, COVID-19, Medicare for all, Progressivism

On November 27th, YouTube pundit and comedian Jimmy Dore proposed a provocative plan to advance the Medicare for All movement: refuse to re-elect Rep. Nancy Pelosi D-CA as Speaker of the House until she brings Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s Medicare for All bill H.R. 1384 to a floor vote. Because last month’s elections whittled down the Democratic majority in the House, it would take only a handful of Democrats to hold Pelosi’s speakership hostage. The “Squad,” composed of Reps. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), could theoretically find sufficient support from among the ranks of the nearly 100 members of the Progressive Caucus.

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