It is the war that few are speaking about. You hear about Medicare for All ad nauseam because new Progressive legislators like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and old stalwarts like Bernie Sanders are keeping it in the psyche of every American and Democratic politician. Here is the real story.
Behind the scenes the battle is fierce. The Democratic Congress is rewriting H.R. 676, the original legislation, the gold standard promoting Medicare for All. It is distressing that they gave up on the H.R. 676 number it has had north of 15 years especially since there is a lot of literature and activism built around that number. One wonders if it is the beginning of a betrayal.
According to Common Dreams,
“For the past 16 years, HR 676 was our gold standard bill defining a national improved Medicare for All single-payer healthcare system for the United States,” said Margaret Flowers of Health Over Profit for Everyone. “It was based on the 2003 Physicians Working Group proposal by Physicians for a National Health Program.”
“Now that the Democrats can no longer ignore that their base is demanding a single-payer health system, we have lost both HR 676 by number and its status as the gold standard. From what we have heard, as we have still not seen the text of the draft as promised, the new health bill being written by Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) has an unnecessarily long transition period and maintains the for-profit providers in the system. The delayed transition means more preventable deaths and suffering. Keeping the for-profits means higher costs and lower quality of care.”
Jayapal’s bill is being written behind closed doors.
Last month, single-payer advocates called on Jayapal to share the draft text of HR 676 with the single payer movement for review and input. She has refused.
Kay Tillow of Unions for Single Payer says that “unless the movement acts quickly to assure HR 676’s ban on for-profit institutions is maintained, Jayapal’s new bill will remove this vital section of HR 676.”“It’s a compromise that there is no need to make,” Tillow wrote recently. “We are getting hearings in this Congress. Why should we take the impact of the for-profits out of the discussion before the debate starts? We gain nothing. The ban on for-profits has been in HR 676 since the beginning. It did not stop 124 congresspersons from signing on to it. It did not stop unions, organizations, cities, counties, and many others from endorsing it. It was one of the popular provisions that all of those who have dealt with these for-profit hustlers welcomed.
The threats are not only from within but form without. America’s Health Care Future, a Medical Industrial Complex’s ad hoc alliance of private health care interest is going to be intentional in its attempt to destroy any possibility of Medicare For All.
As I explain in the video below in this blog post. They are currently putting two arguments into the ethos to see if it sticks. It is the job of activists to ensure the misinformation does not take whole. Please listen to the entire video and share this post with as many people as you can. We will not get help from the media or from the establishments of either party. Unlike what we did during the Affordable Care Act negotiations, we must be proactive and in-your-face while leaving no stone or misinformation unanswered and unchallenged.
The plutocrats are using two arguments against Medicare for All. The first is that it will cost so much that your taxes will go up. The second is that you will lose your private insurance. Both statements are true with some very important caveats and I explain in the video.
In short, taxes will go up but you will no longer pay any health insurance premiums and every American will have medical coverage from birth to death. You will be left with more money in you pocket because in addition to no insurance premiums you won’t have deductible, co-pays, in and out of network costs etc.
The original idea is to get rid of health insurance companies. They do not provide healthcare, they restrict healthcare to make passive shareholders a profit and overpaid executives an undeserved large salary.
[Still in In Progress]