Medicare

Improved Medicare For All Means Something. Don’t Dilute It.

August 9, 2018 Kay Tillow, Healthoverprofit.org Educate! Health Care, Medicare

On July 13, 2018, in an article1 on Vox, Tim Higginbotham and Chris Middleman of the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) Medicare for All campaign condemned Paul Krugman, Adam Green, the Center for American Progress, and Andy Slavitt for their efforts to co-opt and water down the “Medicare for All” slogan into meaningless vague principles and inadequate programs. They are absolutely right! Higginbotham and Middleman’s analysis of those who seek to use and abuse the growing popularity of “Medicare for All” while abandoning the struggle for a real national single payer program is excellent. The door-to-door grass roots proposal of the DSA is compelling with its plan to reach into the heart of every community. But there is a problem embedded in Higginbotham and Middleman’s core principles that threatens to destroy all of their good work and do damage to the robust and growing single payer movement.

Happy Birthday Medicare!

July 31, 2018 Mark Dudzic, Labor Campaign for Single Payer Educate! Medicare, National Improved Medicare for All, Single payer health care

On July 30, Medicare turned 53. For over half a century, it has provided healthcare as a right to all Americans over 65 and many disabled Americans. It has saved countless lives and kept millions out of poverty. Together with Social Security, it has been the most popular and successful social program in U.S. history. As we honor their achievement, let us rededicate ourselves to building a diverse grassroots movement, backed by the resources and organizing capacity of America's unions, that is powerful enough to take on the medical industrial complex and establish an expanded and improved Medicare system that covers everyone from the cradle to the grave.

An Unhappy Birthday For Medicare And Medicaid

July 27, 2018 By Martha Burk, Otherwords.org Educate! Health Care, Medicaid, Medicare

July 30 marks a very important anniversary in our modern political history. Fifty-three years ago in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law, creating two programs that would disproportionately improve the lives of older and low-income Americans — especially women. Fast-forward to 2018, and both programs are very much under siege. Nowhere is the struggle starker than in the House Republican budget — titled “A Brighter American Future” — now on Capitol Hill. The importance of Medicare as a source of women’s health coverage can’t be over-emphasized. Older and disabled women make up more than half the total beneficiaries, and two-thirds of those 85 and over.

The Myth Of Medicare’s Projected Insolvency

June 10, 2018 Don McCanne, PNHP Educate! Medicare, National Improved Medicare for All, Single payer health care

Every year the Medicare trustees project the year in which the funds for Part A of Medicare will be inadequate to pay the full costs for that year, based on anticipated revenue and spending. Each year the media then report the pending insolvency of Medicare. This is nonsense. Although revenues and demographics may change, adjustments are made to keep the program fully funded. Only if Congress were to decide to destroy Medicare would funding be reduced below sustainable levels. This is particularly ironic since this year the Republicans in their budget have already made a statement that we do not have to have adequate revenues to pay our bills - producing a budget with a trillion dollar deficit. Our job is to elect representatives who support Medicare - not just for current beneficiaries but for everyone, in an improved version. The inevitable political support would ensure full funding forever.

Let’s Not Negotiate Against Ourselves: Demand Medicare For All

May 9, 2018 Staff, Laborforsinglepayer.org Strategize! Class Struggle, Health Care, Medicare

Like Medicare and Social Security, the proposals in the House (HR 676) and Senate (S 1804) for Expanded and Improved Medicare for All are social insurance programs. All Americans would receive comprehensive cradle to grave coverage. Healthcare would be equitably financed through taxes with no significant financial barriers to care. Choose Medicare, on the other hand, would create a “Medicare Part E” plan that would effectively be a private insurance product purchased in the marketplace. Access would be limited to those who choose to buy it (and can afford to do so) or whose employer deigns to offer it as a benefit. Except for those currently eligible for Medicaid under the ACA, its costs would be fully paid for by premiums–with, as in the ACA, some income-based subsidies– not public financing.

Ten Million Americans Could Bring H.R. 676 Into Reality Land—Relief For Anxiety, Dread And Fear

March 24, 2018 Ralph Nader, Nader.org Create! Health Care, Medicare

Polls show that over 125 million adults in our country already favor full Medicare for all, with free choice of doctor and hospital without stifling networks. I say ‘already’ because, as of yet, there is no major national campaign underway showing that an ‘everybody in, nobody out’ system of health insurance costs less, with better outcomes, is simpler, without maddeningly inscrutable or fraudulent bills, co-pays, deductibles and additional trap doors set by a bunch of greedy corporations. The campaigns that exist today are receiving too little on-the-ground assistance for such a widely-supported issue. A super-majority of only 535 members of Congress—Senators and Representatives—can make that decision. The bill—H.R. 676, the ‘Expanded & Improved Medicare for All Act’—is now supported by 121 House Democrats—two thirds of all the Democrats in the House of Representatives. So that’s a good start.

The Health Care Bait-And-Switch

March 12, 2018 Glen Ford, Blackagendareport.com Educate! Health Care, Medicare, Single payer health care

On the campaign trail in January of 2016, Hillary Clinton told Iowa voters that Bernie Sanders’ single payer health care proposal was an idea whose time would never come. "People who have health emergencies can't wait for us to have a theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass ," said the presumed shoo-in for president. Two years later, one-third of Democrats in the Senate have endorsed Sanders’ Medicare for All Act and half the Democrats in the U.S. House have signed on to Rep. John Conyers’ Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, HR 676 . Polls show 75 percent of Democrats favor “expanding Medicare to provide health insurance to every American,” and 31 percent of the public at-large wants health care to be the first problem the Democrats tackled if they win the White House in 2020.

New Proposal Designed To Confuse Public And Prevent Medicare For All

February 24, 2018 Margaret Flowers, HealthOverProfit.org Educate! Health Care, Medicare

The Center for American Progress (CAP), a Washington-based Democratic Party think tank funded by Wall Street, including private health insurers and their lobbying group, unveiled a new healthcare proposal designed to confuse supporters of Medicare for All and protect private health insurance profits. It is receiving widespread coverage in ‘progressive’ media outlets. We must be aware of what is happening so that we are not fooled into another ‘public option’ dead end.* The fact that CAP is using Medicare for All language is both a blessing and a curse. It means Medicare for All is so popular that they feel a need to co-opt it, and it means that they are trying to co-opt it, which will give Democrats an opportunity to use it to confuse people. This effort could be preparation for the possibility that Democrats win a majority in Congress in 2018 or 2020.

Which Path To National Improved Medicare For All?

February 2, 2018 Margaret Flowers, Healthoverprofit.org Strategize! Health Care, Medicare, Single payer health care

Two states with a long history of state-based healthcare reform efforts, California and New York, are hard at work organizing for state bills labeled as single payer healthcare plans. Other states are moving in that direction too. This raises questions by single payer advocates: Can states create single payer healthcare systems? Does state-level work help or hinder our goal of National Improved Medicare for All (NIMA)? The movement for NIMA gained momentum throughout 2017, largely due to rising premiums under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Republican efforts to worsen the healthcare crisis. Supporters of NIMA mobilized to build support for single payer legislation in Congress, spoke out at Town Halls and pressured lawmakers. As a result, the House bill, HR 676: The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act...

How Big Medicine Can Ruin Medicare For All

November 16, 2017 Phillip Longman, theguardian.com Educate! Health Care, Medicare, Single-Payer

By Phillip Longman for The Guardian - In 2013, Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described “democratic socialist,” couldn’t find a single co-sponsor for his healthcare plan, which would replace private insurance with Medicare-like coverage for all Americans regardless of age or income. Today, the roll call of supporters for his latest version includes the leading lights of the Democratic party, including many with plausible presidential aspirations. It’s enough to make an exasperated Dana Milbank publish a column in the Washington Post under the headline ‘The Democrats have become socialists’. But have they? Actually, no. Real socialized medicine might work brilliantly, as it has in some other countries. In the United Kingdom, the socialist government of Labour’s Clement Attlee nationalized the healthcare sector after the second world war, and today the British government still owns and operates most hospitals and directly employs most healthcare professionals. The UK’s National Health Service has it problems, but it produces much more health per dollar than America’s – largely because it doesn’t overpay specialists or waste money on therapies and technologies of dubious clinical value. Though they smoke and drink more, Britons live longer than Americans while paying 40% less per capita for healthcare.

CBO: House GOP Tax Plan Triggers $25 Billion In Medicare Cuts

November 15, 2017 Ethan Wolff-Mann, finance.yahoo.com Educate! Electoral Politics, Medicare, Taxes

By Ethan Wolff-Mann for Yahoo Finance - If the House GOP tax plan passes, it is projected to cut revenue significantly, likely increasing the deficit by $1.456 trillion from 2018 to 2027, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation and Congressional Budget Office (CBO). With a number that large, Congress’s “pay as you go” rules that prevent unchecked spending would fall into place, a move that could cut Medicare’s budget by as much as $25 billion for 2018. In a letter to House minority whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the CBO explained that without any more money to offset the fall in revenue, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would be required to issue a “sequestration order” to reduce spending in 2018 by $136 billion. The effects of this sequestration order would trigger automatic cuts to various programs, including Medicare. According to the CBO, this could be as much as 4% for Medicare, which amounts to $25 billion in 2018. Furthermore, all non-exempt programs would be eliminated, which include some farming subsidies, border security, and student loan help. Others, like Social Security, would remain untouched. At the same time, the tax plan’s changes to the estate and gift taxes would cut revenue $151 billion from 2018 to 2027, according to the JCT.

Current Taxes And Tax Reform Undermine Social Security & Medicare

October 26, 2017 Sam Pizzigati, www.otherwords.org Educate! Medicare, New Economy, Reform, Social Security, Taxes

By Sam Pizzigati for Other Words - You probably pay about four times more of your income to Social Security than millionaires, who want to cut their taxes and your benefits. How much did your paychecks total last year? You know the answer, of course. So does the Social Security Administration. The totals for every American’s paycheck income are sitting in Social Security’s computers. Once every year, Social Security does a serious data dump out of those computers to let us know just how much working Americans are actually making. The latest totals — covering 2016 — have just appeared. Most of us, the new numbers show, are simply not making all that much. In fact, nearly half of our nation’s employed — 49.3 percent — earned less than $30,000 in 2016. A good many of these Americans lived in poverty. In 2016, families of four that earned less than $24,339 ranked as officially poor. We don’t have an “official” figure for middle class status. But the Economic Policy Institute has calculated the costs of maintaining a no-frills middle class existence in various parts of the United States. In Houston, one of our nation’s cheaper major cities, a family of four needed $62,544 in 2016 to live a bare-bones middle class lifestyle.

Does The Gig Economy Mean It’s Time For Medicare-For-All?

October 12, 2017 Charlie Simmons, www.mercurynews.com Create! Creative Economy, Medicare, Medicare for all

By Charlie Simmons for The Mercury News - Silicon Valley is the engine of the rapidly growing gig-economy. Consumers love the convenience of having goods and services delivered right to their door at the push of a button. Many workers are enjoying the benefits of making their own hours and minimal corporate oversight. But there’s one big problem: many of these workers are classified as 1099 contractors, rather than employees. The 1099 system gives workers the flexibility to fully choose how and when they work, but it also demands very little from companies, who do not have to cover transportation costs, offer paid vacation, or contribute into 401(k) accounts. That’s the perfect system for Silicon Valley’s tech start-ups. Most of them are in aggressive growth stages and are trying to expand to new cities, recruit new workers and bring on new customers. This way, they only pay workers for the actual time they spend on their service. While debate about the merits of the gig-economy continues, it’s clear that it’s here to stay. If we are shifting to a system of self-employment, we need to rethink how we deliver crucial worker protections and services that our nation’s labor groups have fought for and won, including overtime protections, weekends, redress from unjust dismissal, and — most importantly — expanded and improved health insurance.

Senate Republicans Aren’t Just Aiming To Destroy Obamacare And Medicaid

September 22, 2017 Steven Rosenfeld, www.alternet.org Educate! Health Care, Medicare, Obamacare, Senate

By Steven Rosenfeld for AlterNet - The Senate Republicans’ latest anti-Obamacare bill has bigger goals than destroying the Affordable Care Act and dismantling Medicaid. This bill aims to blow up the very foundation upon which a national health care system could be built—even if it roils private insurance markets via massive premium hikes for 2018. This overarching goal—to destroy the health care system’s structural underpinnings that could be used to create a national health care system—was made clear in the opening boasts of the Senate bill's co-sponsor, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, when he introduced the bill on the same day Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, introduced a Medicare for All bill. “If you want a single-payer health care system, this is your worst nightmare,” Graham boasted on September 13, referring to his own bill. “Hell no to Berniecare!” If that wasn't clear enough, Graham doubled down on Tuesday, when in an appearance with Vice President Mick Pence, Graham said, “federalism versus socialism, you pick.” Then on Wednesday, a Pence aide told reporters the vice president was leaving a U.N. Security Council meeting on peacekeeper reforms “to speak with leader McConnell on continuing momentum behind Graham-Cassidy.”

Insurance Industry Pays Senators To Not Support Improved Medicare For All

September 16, 2017 Andrew Perez, www.maplight.org Educate! Congress, Health Care, Insurance, Medicare

By Andrew Perez for MapLight - Democratic senators who haven’t signed on to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” proposal have received twice as much cash from the insurance industry as the bill’s sponsors, MapLight has found. The insurance industry has donated an average of $23,600 since 2010 to senators who have co-sponsored Sanders’ bill, according to a MapLight review of campaign finance data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Democratic senators who have not yet supported his legislation, including Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent, have received an average of $55,500 from the industry. The independent senator from Vermont has been pitching a government-run, single-payer health care system since 1993. But the idea became popular among progressive voters during his 2016 primary campaign against eventual Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and is picking up support. About one-thirdof American adults polled in June said they now support a single-payer health care system. Sanders, who formally proposed his “Medicare for All” plan on Wednesday, has picked up support from 16 of the Senate’s 46 Democrats. Supporters include potential 2020 presidential contenders, such as Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Kamala Harris, D-Calif.; Cory Booker, D-N.J.; and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. A majority of House Democrats are backing a similar proposal introduced in January by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich.

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