Now that supporters of Medicare for All are taking the lead in the 2020 Democratic Primary, many private insurance supporting Centrists are in panic mode. They are in the process of setting up super PACs to support an anemic Biden, their candidate of choice.
Americans know best. The predatory nature of our health industrial complex is reaching the breaking point and people will react. The Democratic Party is blessed with many candidates who have finally seen the light. But it won’t be easy. The scare tactics and coercion is active and well.
It was recently reported that a Biden-kinked firm was testing messages to undercut Medicare for All.
A new poll by a firm linked to Joe Biden is testing messages designed to undercut support among Democrats for Medicare for All, one of the most contentious issues splitting the party’s top presidential contenders.
The survey, commissioned by the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, found that primary voters start off favoring the government-run health care system by a margin of 70% to 21%, but can be persuaded to oppose it. The study showed that Democrats are most swayed by the arguments that the program would impose a heavy cost on taxpayers and threaten Medicare for senior citizens.
Employer-based insurance anyone
Recently, Common Dreams published an article by Bill Lueders, Editor of The Progressive, that details the travails of dealing with employer-based health insurance. He wrote about the inefficiency, the attempt to charge and double charge, the ridiculously high deductibles, and more. Everyone should read the entire article but especially his closing paragraphs below.
Everyone whose life intersects with the U.S. health-care industry knows that much of the “care” provided isn’t care at all but machinations related to billing. It’s shitty coverage that just keeps getting shittier. I have liked most of my doctors but would love to see the organizations they work for be put out of business. Maybe they would, too.
In fact, a recent poll found that 55 percent of voters back a Medicare-for-All system that would diminish the role of private insurers if they are able to retain access to their preferred providers. And at least one-third of insured Americans report difficulty affording premiums, deductibles, and drugs.Yet politicians including Joe Biden still think they can gin up mass fear over the prospect of leaving behind predatory insurers in favor of a system that costs less and works better. At the July 31 debate, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio pushed back.
“The folks I talk to about health insurance say that their health insurance isn’t working for them,” de Blasio said. “There’s tens of millions of Americans who don’t even have health insurance, tens of millions more who have health insurance they can barely make work because of the co-pays, the deductibles, the premiums, the out-of-pocket expenses.”
Harris also put in a bad word for the health care status quo, saying, “I have met so many Americans who stick to a job that they do not like, where they are not prospering simply because they need the health care that that employer provides. It’s time that we separate employers from the kind of health care people get.”
The disagreement among Democrats over exactly how to reform health care is legitimate. It’s worth weighing whether a complete and immediate changeover is as feasible as a plan that would allow people to try out a public option and see how they like it. I personally favor a complete and immediate changeover, at least as an aspirational starting point, but there is nothing wrong with having this discussion.
Just don’t pretend that most Americans have warm fuzzies for their employer-based health insurance plans. They don’t.
For too long Americans have accepted a broken health insurance and health care system. It is not there to provide health care but to enrich a few. We must take it out of their hands as they have proven that to them, excessive profits are more important than your well-being, than humanity.