Medicare Blog

why don't politicians fight for medicare for all

by Margret Rogahn Published 2 years ago Updated 1 year ago
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What are some of the arguments against Medicare for all?

That said, there are several arguments against Medicare for All that might sound more plausible than the Enslaved Physicians Argument. Here are a few that I see a lot: The life expectancy differences between the U.S. and countries with socialized systems are the result of less healthy lifestyles in the U.S.

Are Democrats trying to take away your health insurance?

“Now, what Democrats are saying is, 'If you like your insurance, we're going to take it away from you,' from 180 million people that get their insurance from their employer and like it or 20 million Americans who are on Medicare Advantage, and love it," Bennet said on NBC's Meet the Press. "That seems like a bad opening offer for me."

What did Castro say about Medicare for all?

He has backed proposals to lower Medicare’s eligibility age to 50 and to create a Medicaid-based public health-care option on state insurance marketplaces. March 11: “Medicare for All is the best way to ensure that every American has access to quality, affordable health care.” Castro is no longer running for president.

What has Elizabeth Warren said about Medicare-for-all?

She co-sponsored Sanders’s bill in 2017 and has also backed proposals to lower Medicare’s age of eligibility to 50 and to create a Medicaid-based public health-care option on state insurance marketplaces. Feb. 15: “We need Medicare-for-all to bring dignity to millions.”

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How many senators support Medicare for All?

Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and fourteen of his colleagues in the Senate on Thursday introduced the Medicare for All Act of 2022 to guarantee health care in the United States as a fundamental human right to all.

How Medicare for All would hurt the economy?

The real trouble comes when Medicare for all is financed by deficits. With government borrowing, universal health care could shrink the economy by as much as 24% by 2060, as investments in private capital are reduced.

Who popularized Medicare for All?

The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, also known as Medicare for All or United States National Health Care Act, is a bill first introduced in the United States House of Representatives by Representative John Conyers (D-MI) in 2003, with 38 co-sponsors.

Who opposes universal health care?

the California Medical AssociationBut the state's largest association of doctors, the California Medical Association, opposes the bill. “It will disrupt people's health care at the worst possible time,” said Ned Wigglesworth, a spokesperson for Protect California Health Care, a coalition formed to oppose AB 1400.

Why is universal health care bad for the economy?

Even under universal coverage, some may decline coverage because their costs are too high. These costs include out-of-pocket costs for premiums, time spent filling out forms, and the availability of information about health care coverage.

What are the cons of free healthcare?

List of the Cons of Universal Health CareIt requires people to pay for services they do not receive. ... It may stop people from being careful about their health. ... It may limit the accuracy of patient care. ... It may have long wait times. ... It limits the payouts which doctors receive. ... It can limit new technologies.More items...•

Which political party brought in Medicare?

The first iteration of Medicare was called Medibank, and it was introduced by the Whitlam government in 1975, early in its second term. The federal opposition under Malcolm Fraser had rejected Bills relating to its financing, which is why it took the government so long to get it established.

Is Medicare for All single payer?

Medicare for All is only one type of single-payer system. There are a variety of single-payer healthcare systems that are currently in place in countries all around the world, such as Canada, Australia, Sweden, and others.

What are the pros of Medicare for All?

Pros and Cons of Medicare for AllUniversal healthcare lowers healthcare costs for the economy overall, since the government controls the price of medication and medical services through regulation and negotiation.It would also eliminate the administrative cost of working with multiple private health insurers.More items...•

Why are Americans against universal healthcare?

Beyond individual and federal costs, other common arguments against universal healthcare include the potential for general system inefficiency, including lengthy wait-times for patients and a hampering of medical entrepreneurship and innovation [3,12,15,16].

Do American doctors want universal healthcare?

The poll of 1,306 healthcare professionals found that 49% of physicians agree with the Medicare for All concept, 47% of nurses and advanced practice registered nurses favor it, followed by 41% of those in health business/administration and 40% of pharmacists.

Does Canada have free healthcare?

Canada has a universal health care system funded through taxes. This means that any Canadian citizen or permanent resident can apply for public health insurance. Each province and territory has a different health plan that covers different services and products.

Why is the GOP terrified of Medicare for all?

Now we know why the GOP is truly terrified of “Medicare for all”: It will wipe out the Republican Party’s control of the House, Senate, White House, and most state governments. Because it could make it very easy for every citizen over 18 to vote.

What would happen if the GOP was out of power?

With the GOP out of power at the state level, Democrats (and the few remaining ethical Republicans) could replace gerrymandering with good-government solutions like the non-partisan district-drawing commission put into place by California.

How many people were purged in 2014?

Republican voter suppression is thriving in the U.S.: The Brennan Center documents a 33 percent increase in voters purged during the 2014-1016 election cycle (16 million), compared with the 2006-2008 cycle (12 million purged), as the GOP has made ID and purges (along with fear mongering about brown-skinned people) their main electoral strategy. In just the past year, as many as an additional 14 million voters have been purged from rolls nationwide, while over the past two decades every Republican-controlled state has introduce rigid ID laws.

Why do Republicans control the state legislature?

And, at the state level, in many—perhaps a majority—of the so-called “red states,” Republicans hold control of state legislatures and governors’ offices only because of voter suppression, ranging from voter-roll purges to voter ID laws.

When did the GOP start a voter suppression campaign?

The GOP stepped up their voter suppression game in 1980 when Heritage Foundation, ALEC, and Moral Majority co-founder and Reagan campaigner Paul Weyrich famously said, “I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people; they never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down .”

What did the white conservatives do to prevent poor people from voting?

Here in the U.S., ever since Jim Crow, racist white “conservatives” have used a variety of means to prevent poor people, people of color, low-income working people, students, and older people from voting. Techniques have varied over the years, starting with poll taxes and so-called “literacy tests,” and now are carefully calibrated by cutting voting sites, reducing early voting, and even disenfranchising North Dakota’s Native American population.

Does Canada have Medicare?

But it’s a virtual certainty that the deep-dive think tanks and “wise elders” of the GOP also know how easy it is to vote in Canada and other developed countries, in very large part because of the national ID card that Canada’s (and most of Europe’s) Medicare for all programs provide at great ease and no cost.

Why is Medicare for All important?

And, in fact, a Medicare for All system affords more people more choice, because there are millions of people right now without healthcare who are denied the choice entirely.

Why are antibiotics less desirable than other drugs?

As a 2008 “call to arms” from the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) put it, “ [Antibiotics] are less desirable than other drugs to drug companies and venture capitalists because they are more effective than other drugs.”. That last point may sound counterintuitive.

What does "losing your insurance" mean?

Survey questions that imply Medicare for All means “losing your insurance” are actually misleading and tell us little. “Losing” implies that people will have less insurance after the transition to Medicare for All, which is what they’re worried about.

What does socialization mean in healthcare?

Socialization means that healthcare will be rationed by a cold and heartless bureaucracy.

Can you change your private insurance company?

But here’s the thing: If you have private insurance, abstract “market forces” aren ’t denying your claim. That’s being done by individual gate-keepers who work for your insurance company. “Yes,” a critic might reply, “but I can change my private insurance company if I dislike my individual gate-keepers, whereas with the government I’m stuck.” But the wonderful thing about living in a democracy—which our fictitious critic forgets—is that we can choose our individual gate-keepers. If you’re unhappy with the way the healthcare system is being run, you have the right to vote out the people who are overseeing it. And, in fact, a Medicare for All system affords more people more choice, because there are millions of people right now without healthcare who are denied the choice entirely.

Is Medicare for All a net reduction?

So would Medicare for All. It doesn’t follow, however, that instituting Medicare for All would represent a net reduction rather than net increase in most people’s personal autonomy and freedom of choice.

Does Medicare for All cover poor health?

There may be some truth in that assessment, but it’s also the case that poor health makes it more difficult to lead a healthy lifestyle. Medicare for All will provide all Americans with the preventative care they need, dealing with health issues before they snowball into something much worse.

Heal the Sick, Tax the Rich: M4A and Class Struggle

As the growing popularity of Medicare for All demonstrates, people are tired of incremental changes like Obamacare, and rear-guard battles to save it.

Bringing Socialist Politics into the Mainstream

As its popularity grows, Medicare for All is becoming a standard by which working people can evaluate the commitment of politicians and unions to represent their interests.

The DSA Medicare for All Campaign

Medicare for All is not a cure for all of the problems in America today. And DSA, both at the national and the chapter level, should not turn itself into a single-issue campaign organization.

Who pays providers with co-pays?

For Americans who currently have private insurance through their employers, insurance companies are the intermediaries that pay providers (hospitals and doctors), and patients often cover a part of the cost with a co-pay.

Which amendment prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion?

Would you seek to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion?

Is Kirsten Gillibrand running for president?

Kirsten Gillibrand (Dropped out) U.S. senator, New York. Gillibrand is no longer running for president. A co-sponsor of Sanders’s 2017 bill, Gillibrand has also backed proposals to lower Medicare’s age of eligibility to 50 and to create a Medicaid-based public health-care option on state insurance marketplaces.

Is Harris's Medicare for All a private plan?

Harris released a new health-care plan — her own version of Medicare-for-all that aims to move all Americans into a Medicare program after 10 years but would allow private, and more tightly regulated, plans to continue offering insurance — days before the second Democratic debate.

Does Harris have a health care plan?

Harris released a new health-care plan days before the second Democratic debate. “ [W]e will allow private insurers to offer Medicare plans as a part of this system that adhere to strict Medicare requirements on costs and benefits,” the plan said.

Is Medicare for all a single payer system?

Medicare-for- all would move the United States in the direction of a single-payer system, where the government steps in (rather than insurance companies) as the intermediary between patients and providers in health-care transactions.

Does Bernie Sanders have private health insurance?

Booker co-sponsored Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Medicare-for-all bill, but has said he wouldn’t do away with private health insurance. He has backed proposals to lower Medicare’s eligibility age to 50 and to create a Medicaid-based public health-care option on state insurance marketplaces.

Who said "People read into Medicare for all what they want to read into it"?

Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, said, “People read into ‘Medicare for all’ what they want to read into it.”

How many members of Congress have signed on to the Medicare for All Act?

More than 120 members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors of a bill called the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, up from 62 in 2016. And at least 70 have joined Capitol Hill’s new Medicare for All Caucus.

What is Medicare for all?

In precise terms, Medicare for all means bringing all Americans under the government’s insurance program now reserved for people 65 and over, while single-payer health care would have the government pay everyone’s medical bills. But few are speaking precisely.

Does single payer cut doctors' income?

But analysts across the board agree single-payer would cut revenue for doctors — many say by about 12 percent on average.

Is Medicare for all a popular idea?

After decades in the political wilderness, “Medicare for all” and single-payer health care are suddenly popular. The words appear in political advertisements and are cheered at campaign rallies — even in deep-red states. They are promoted by a growing number of high-profile Democratic candidates, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Representative Beto O’Rourke in Texas.

Do Americans pay more for Medicare?

But many Americans pay far more than that when you count premiums, deductibles, co-payments and out-of-network charges. Estimates of the tax increases required to support a Medicare-for-all or single-payer system are all over the map, depending on how the plan is structured, the prices paid to providers and drug makers, and the generosity of benefits.

Do Canadians pay more taxes than Americans?

Canadians generally pay higher taxes than Americans do — specifically a goods and services tax, and higher taxes on the wealthy. In Germany, working people pay 7.5 percent of income as a contribution toward comprehensive insurance.

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