One of the reasons people are not more concerned with the current state of our private insurance and why many fear Medicare for All is that Progressives many times do not describe the ills of our system in graphic terms.
Message Medicare for All and Medicaid Expansion graphically
A recent caller to Politics Done Right asked me to explain what Texas was doing about the Medicaid Expansion to the Affordable Care Act. His request gave me the opportunity to explain what accepting the program would mean to Texas.
For the first three years of the Affordable Care Act, the Medicaid Expansion cost states nothing extra. In other words, the state incurred no additional cost for insuring its poor citizens.
After three years, states are responsible for 10% of the cost to insure their poor citizens. That arrangement is a hell of a bargain for states. Yet, Texas like many other Red States for ideological reasons chose not to take the expansion and left many of their citizens uninsured.
We must get graphic as we describe that the Republican Texas Legislature has invoked death sentences on its citizens. The Red States are knowingly causing the deaths of many of its citizens.
Recently I wrote the following in a blog post titled “How to stop the Republican legislature from killing Texans with ACA expansion denial” where I pointed out the following.
Many define Texas as a Red State. The reality is that it is a non-voting state and one that is ill-informed by a media that in the aggregate, “toe” the Republican line. Texans who vote for politicians in the Republican Legislature who are anathema to policies that give healthcare to their constituents are supporting the deaths of many of their friends, families, and loved ones unknowingly.
This is the narrative we must continue to use both for the ACA and Medicare for All. We must not be antiseptic in our language. People are dying.