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Medicare for all

Biden Lifts Health Care Plan From Insurance Lobbyists

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

On Contact: Covid-19 And America’s Health Care Crisis

On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to Dr. Margaret Flowers about the Covid-19 pandemic and the catastrophic response to the public health crisis under America's for-profit healthcare system. Without national coordination, or universal and free national health care, Americans are faced with uneven or absent care due to hospital closures, reductions in hospital beds and services. Lawmakers and hospital administrators compete to purchase basic supplies leading manufacturers to hike prices. 

Biden Could Enact Medicare For All By Executive Action

Journalist David Dayen presented a convincing case Tuesday that President-elect Joe Biden, once sworn into office come January, would have the legal authority to immediately provide complete Medicare coverage to everyone in the country via executive action due to the Covid-19 pandemic—though the very serious question remains: would he? During the primary season in March, Biden said he would veto a Medicare for All bill should one ever reach his desk, but with the coronavirus infection rate surging—and some scenarios projecting an overall death toll as high as 360,000 by the time the inauguration takes place...

Beyond COVID-19: The Power Struggle Over Alternatives For Health Care Reform

Today we face the COVID-19 pandemic, with its resultant economic downturn and systemic racism—the triple crises that have exposed the serious problems of U. S. health care. It is now obvious to most observers that the system is broken, raising the question of how it can be put together through the political process after a hotly contested election season filled with disinformation and confusion about potential reform alternatives. Corporatization, privatization, a shift from not-for-profit to for-profit health care, and the growth of investor-owned corporate health care have been dominant themes in the transformation of U. S. health care since the 1980s.

The Imperative To Achieve National Improved Medicare For All

Biden's healthcare plan looks like a replay of the health reform process of 2009-10 when the Democrats effectively divided the movement in support of national improved Medicare for all and pushed through the so-called Affordable Care Act (ACA), which passed without Republican support.  Health insurance and pharmaceutical corporate profits have soared since then while people struggle to afford healthcare. In a time of the COVID-19 pandemic when over 250,000 people have already died and the University of Washington predicts over 500,000 deaths by the end of February, we cannot allow a repeat of the failed ACA.
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