medicare for all

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">not quite sure how this differs from single-payer, but trump trying to kill ACA and roll back medicare/medicaid in states wg kty and arkanas work requirements, team red v blue on aca.</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">aha note how anti-commie gubmint BS been used to thwart death panel&nbsp; ark pjt crooked hillary:</font></div><div><p dir="ltr" style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; line-height: 1.38;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; line-height: 1.38;"><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-protection-the-deciding-moment/" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-protection-the-deciding-moment/</font></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; line-height: 1.38;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; line-height: 1.38;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.youtube.com/ 404</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; line-height: 1.38;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; line-height: 1.38;"><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-influence-there-are-politicians-who-work-on-behalf-of-corporations-and-those-who-work-on-behalf-of-humans/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-influence-there-are-politicians-who-work-on-behalf-of-corporations-and-those-who-work-on-behalf-of-humans/</font></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; line-height: 1.38;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; line-height: 1.38;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...<span palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem">How Public Opinion Is Influenced by Concentrated Money</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; line-height: 1.38;"><span palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></p><p palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Poll after poll has shown that Americans overwhelmingly support reform of our health-care system.</span> People are concerned about costs and quality of care. Yet in 1993, when President Bill Clinton proposed that the government offer some form of health-care protection to the nation’s <b>40-plus-million uninsured, the insurance industry spent an estimated $100 million on lobbying and $60 million on advertising and provided members of Congress with about 350 free trips.</b></font></p><p palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What actually happened as a result of all this spending is extraordinarily ironic. Industry polls showed that people cared more about being able to choose their own doctor than most other medical issues. Taking advantage of this, an infamous series of ads featuring “<b>Harry and Louise” warned Americans that under a government-run health insurance program they would lose their ability to select the doctor of their choice.</b></font></p><p palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The advertising worked. People panicked, and American public opinion swung from strong support for Clinton’s proposals to overwhelming fear of them. The Internet became flooded with insulting e-mails about the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">evils of “Hillary’s” insurance proposal.</span></font></p><p palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even more ironically, those fears have been realized today—without the Clinton proposal. Back in 1993 you could pretty much go to any doctor you wanted (assuming you were insured), and your insurance would almost always pay for it. Overtly restricting that ability was never part of the Clinton proposal, but because of the power of the Harry and Louise ads people came to believe that it was.</font></p><p palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And within a few years, insurance companies and HMOs (health maintenance organizations) began to crack down on consumers who wanted to select their own doctors. Today fewer Americans have that privilege than in 1993, even though it’s fully available to citizens of virtually every country that has a national health-care program…which is every developed country in the world except the United States.</font></p><p palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);">It turns out there is a strong reason why the insurance industry was eager to invest so much cash in advertising and lobbying to keep the government from competing with it in the realm of health care: profits.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;For every $100 that passes through the hands of the government-administered Medicare programs, between $2 and $3 is spent by Medicare on administration, leaving $97 to $98 to pay for medical services and drugs. But of every $100 that flows through corporate insurance programs and HMOs, $10 to $45 sticks to corporate fingers along the way</span><span style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);">. As Yale University Professor of Public Policy Theodore R. Marmor, author of The Politics of Medicare, said, “The costs of administering private insurance are somewhere between 5 and 10 times the costs of administering Medicare.”</span><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-influence-there-are-politicians-who-work-on-behalf-of-corporations-and-those-who-work-on-behalf-of-humans/#5" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: border-box; backface-visibility: hidden; transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgb(156, 22, 44) 0px -2px 0px inset;">5</a></font></p><p palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After all, Medicare doesn’t have lavish corporate headquarters and corporate jets, nor does it pay expensive lobbying firms in Washington to work on its behalf. It doesn’t pay out profits in the form of dividends to its shareholders. And it doesn’t compensate its top executives with more than $1 million a year</span>, as does each of the largest of the American insurance companies. The result, as Professor Marmor points out, is that Canadians—who receive health care at one-half the cost of comparable services in the United States because no insurance companies are in the middle—“are somewhat healthier than citizens of the United States, use more hospital days per thousand, and visit their physicians more often” because services are freely available.<a href="https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-influence-there-are-politicians-who-work-on-behalf-of-corporations-and-those-who-work-on-behalf-of-humans/#6" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; backface-visibility: hidden; transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgb(156, 22, 44) 0px -2px 0px inset;">6</a></font></p><p palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet most citizens of the United States have no idea what it’s like to live in a country with national health care. When our family lived in Germany for a year in the late 1980s, we were amazed at how smoothly its health-care system worked: we could make any appointment with any physician, and they were excellent at what they did. But even describing the reality of that experience draws uncomprehending stares from Americans, who have been fed a steady corporate diet of very one-sided information.</font></p><p palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>This is why when President Obama decided he wanted one of the main legacies of his presidency to be a solution to America’s health-care mess, he first met privately and secretly with the pharmaceutical, hospital, and health insurance industries. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He cut a deal with them,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> if news reports are to be believed (and they were not denied by the Obama administration), that he would protect their interests and give them tens of millions of new customers if they would hold back and not spend hundreds of millions of dollars to destroy his attempts the way they had with Clinton</span>.</font></p><p palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Something really rotten has taken hold of the American political system when the president of the United States must go to big corporations on bended knee and get their approval before suggesting legislation.</font></p><p palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Polluters Pass “Go”</font></span></p><p palatino="Palatino" linotype="Linotype" palladio="Palladio" urw="URW" l="L" book="Book" antiqua="Antiqua" baskerville="Baskerville" bookman="Bookman" old="Old" bitstream="Bitstream" charter="Charter" nimbus="Nimbus" roman="Roman" no9="No9" garamond="Garamond" apple="Apple" itc="ITC" narrow="Narrow" new="New" century="Century" schoolbook="Schoolbook" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></span></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">the progressive 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">In California, Lim noted, Democrats pushed for single-payer until Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it—then resisted single-payer when they held legislative majorities and had Democratic governor Jerry Brown in office.</span></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">aha covid reveal or ATTACKS [VIRUS PICKS THE LOCK] SYSTEMIC STRUCTUTAL PRPOLEMS/INEQUALITY:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-americas-wealthiest-are-profiting-in-the-time-of-the-pandemic/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-americas-wealthiest-are-profiting-in-the-time-of-the-pandemic/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;is understandably tempting to drop all the blame for America’s catastrophic response to COVID-19 on the big desk in the Oval Office. But there’s more to the story than epic incompetence, grift and delusion at the highest levels of government. The stark divide in the level of health care from testing to treatment is divided by wealth and the legacy of systemic racism.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/coronavirus-american-failure/614191/?utm_source=email-promo&utm_medium=cr&utm_campaign=ed-yong-cover-actives&utm_content=20200803&utm_term=sep-20&silverid=NjQyNTQ5Mzk0OTM0S0" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the words of Ed Yong of the Atlantic</a>: “Chronic underfunding of public health neutered the nation’s ability to prevent the pathogen’s spread. A bloated, inefficient health-care system left hospitals ill-prepared for the ensuing wave of sickness. Racist policies that have endured since the days of colonization and slavery left Indigenous and Black Americans especially vulnerable to COVID-19.” Yong could also add&nbsp;<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/it-cost-me-everything-in-texas-covid-19-takes-a-devastating-toll-on-hispanic-residents?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=river" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Hispanics</a>&nbsp;to that list, along with virtually any person of limited economic means, regardless of race.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the land of the free and the home of the brave,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/your-income-predicts-how-well-you-can-socially-distance/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">income and zip code determine everything.</a>&nbsp;And this is not a new phenomenon. In a recent article in&nbsp;<a href="https://mondediplo.com/2020/08/02populism-expertise" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Le Monde Diplomatique</a>, historian&nbsp;<a href="https://tcfrank.com/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Thomas Frank</a>&nbsp;quotes physician&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shadid" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Dr. Michael A. Shadid</a>, who was a longtime advocate for cooperative health care from the 1920s onward until his death.&nbsp;<b>In his 1947 book,&nbsp;<a href="https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchCode=LCCN&searchArg=med47000058&searchType=1&permalink=y" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Doctors of Today and Tomorrow</span></a>, Shadid made the case for socialized medicine on the grounds that “[p]oor people get sick quicker, stay sick longer, need medical aid most, get it least. Some are poor because they are sick. Others are sick because they are poor.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nothing has fundamentally changed since Shadid’s time. The United States continues to have the most expensive health care system in the world, yet a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.axios.com/the-us-health-care-system-is-not-the-best-in-the-world-9369a2bf-70b7-4222-b428-c7024a6875f3.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">2019 comparison of health indicators</a>&nbsp;in the United States versus those of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member countries’ average<b>&nbsp;reveals a system that persistently produces inferior outcomes relative to other nations (in spite of higher expenditures) and has done so for decades.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>cOVID-19 has both amplified and revealed these long-standing flaws</b>, tragically reflected in its death count, but it is by no means a historical anomaly. Earlier pandemics reveal a similar pattern, suggesting a more widespread systemic problem: namely, that the high death counts relative to the rest of the world are an inescapable consequence of our for-profit, pervasively oligopolistic health care system. The problems of a for-profit health care system are exacerbated by the diversion of resources and skills into militarism, and unequal food distribution systems’ effect on diet and obesity. All of these pre-existing problems contribute to higher mortality rates, as does access to proper medical care, which is heavily circumscribed by income.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In terms of fatalities, COVID-19 now ranks as one of the most severe&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/basics/past-pandemics.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">pandemics in modern history</a>, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The most deadly was the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">1918 influenza pandemic</a>: 50 million deaths globally out of a worldwide population of&nbsp;<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/spanish-flu-largest-influenza-pandemic-in-history" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">1.8 billion</a>, or 2.7 percent, while the U.S. recorded&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">675,000</a>&nbsp;fatalities, or 0.65 percent on a per capita basis out of a population of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2740912/#:_{:text=The%20estimated%20population%20of%20the,generally%20put%20at%2020%20million.}" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">103 million</a>. The only “good” thing that can be said about the 1918 tragedy is that the United States fared relatively better than the rest of the world, by this measure.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By contrast, a notable feature of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/basics/past-pandemics.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">four major pandemics over the past 63 years</a>* (the 1957-1958 H2N2 influenza virus, the 1968 H3N2 influenza virus, the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus or so-called “swine flu,” and COVID-19 today) is America’s persistent underperformance in terms of fatalities relative to the rest of the world in spite of the vastly higher sums the country devotes to health care expenditures (in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2019#:_{:text=The%20U.S.%20Spends%20More%20on%20Health%20Care%20Than%20Any%20Other%20Country&text=Notes%3A%20Current%20expenditures%20on%20health.&text=In%202018%2C%20the%20U.S.%20spent,%2C%20Switzerland%2C%20spent%2012.2%20percent.}" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">both absolute terms and as a percentage of GDP</a>). For all of the talk about&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism#:_{:text=American%20exceptionalism%20is%20the%20theory,from%20that%20of%20other%20nations.}" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">American exceptionalism</a>, the only thing “exceptional” about the U.S. health care system is this profound systemic failure.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1957-1958-pandemic.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">1957 H2N2 flu virus</a>&nbsp;caused 1.1 million deaths globally out of a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">worldwide population of 2.9 billion</a>, or 0.038 percent on a per capita basis; whereas in the United States, it caused about&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1957-1958-pandemic.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">116,000</a>&nbsp;deaths out of a U.S. population of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">178 million</a>, or 0.065 percent on a per capita basis. The 1968&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1968-pandemic.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">H3N2 virus</a>&nbsp;resulted in 1 million fatalities worldwide out of a global population of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">3.6 billion</a>, or 0.028 percent on a per capita basis; in the United States, there were 100,000 deaths out of a population of 203 million, or 0.049 percent on a per capita basis. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">2009 H1N1 virus</a>&nbsp;caused far fewer overall deaths both globally and within the U.S., with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2012/06/cdc-estimate-global-h1n1-pandemic-deaths-284000" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">284,000 fatalities globally</a>&nbsp;and a mere&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">12,469 fatalities in the U.S.</a>; per capita fatality rates were the same (.004 percent on a per capita basis). But COVID-19 has reflected the reversion to American underperformance:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">as of August 13</a>, confirmed global fatalities (out of a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">worldwide population of 7.8 billion</a>) were 749,776, or 0.0096 percent on a per capita basis, versus&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">169,488 deaths in the United States</a>&nbsp;out of an existing population of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">331 million</a>, or 0.051 percent on a per capita basis.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Even more disturbing is that American fatalities are profoundly impacted by income disparities.</b>&nbsp;Low-income communities and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) are experiencing substantially higher rates of mortality. Examining by zip code the geographic distribution of the segments of the population most likely to die from COVID-19—BIPOC, as well as people over the age of 65, and those of any age who are&nbsp;<a href="https://data.cms.gov/stories/s/COVID-19-Nursing-Home-Data/bkwz-xpvg" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">nursing home residents</a>&nbsp;(other than those in luxury elderly care facilities)—these three overlapping segments account for most deaths. It may be that in the northern states these most vulnerable people are heavily concentrated in densely populated areas and thus are quickly exposed to infection and die relatively soon after COVID-19 starts spreading in their area. The New York experience&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/nyregion/coronavirus-deaths-nyc.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">validates that assessment</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In the southern and western states, these most vulnerable populations are more widely scattered across vast suburban and rural areas, which likely explains why the United States as a whole has experienced rolling hot spots,</b>&nbsp;in which the more diffuse population centers become infected and die relatively later after the initial outbreaks of the virus that were largely experienced in heavily urbanized regions. We see this pattern manifested in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.azfamily.com/news/continuing_coverage/coronavirus_coverage/arizona-covid-19-hot-spots-pop-up-in-areas-with-large-minority-populations/article_56680d10-c31a-11ea-a716-d7541550164d.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a recent Arizona compilation of new cases by zip code</a>, as AZ Family reports using analysis by CBS 5 Investigates. Arizona has been one of areas most badly affected by COVID-19 during the summer months, and the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.azfamily.com/news/continuing_coverage/coronavirus_coverage/arizona-covid-19-hot-spots-pop-up-in-areas-with-large-minority-populations/article_56680d10-c31a-11ea-a716-d7541550164d.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">AZ Family</a>&nbsp;report illustrates that the hotspots for new cases are dominated by zip codes with “large minority populations” living in areas that are rural or on the outskirts of urban centers.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Why is this significant? David Dayen of the American Prospect&nbsp;<a href="https://prospect.org/coronavirus/unsanitized-virus-heads-to-where-hospital-beds-are-scarce/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">explains</a>: “Rural hospitals… are in total crisis in the U.S., with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/19/us-rural-hospital-closures-report" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">19 closures last year</a>&nbsp;and 120 since 2010. As hospital networks consolidate and strive for ever-greater profits, rural hospitals that fail to bring in the necessary revenue fall away.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In&nbsp;<a href="https://prospect.org/coronavirus/unsanitized-virus-heads-to-where-hospital-beds-are-scarce/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the same piece</a>, Dayen quotes a study from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00581" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Health Affairs</a>, which reports that “49 percent of the lowest-income communities had no ICU beds… whereas only 3 percent of the highest-income communities had no ICU beds.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” He&nbsp;</span><a href="https://prospect.org/coronavirus/unsanitized-virus-heads-to-where-hospital-beds-are-scarce/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">highlights</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;an extreme example of this problem, originally reported by&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/Texas-Mexico-border-coronavirus-crisis-US-15454210.php" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Houston Chronicle</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">: the Rio Grande Valley, along the Texas-Mexico border, “home to 1.3 million residents… [with] no public hospital. Starr County is one of the only in America to have to resort to triage, choosing who to care for and who to send home to die.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Dayen’s analysis illustrates the fundamental flaw in the system: Levels of provision are a function of profitability; they do not reflect health care priorities. Hence the lowest-income hospitals are often shut down, which means worse health care outcomes for residents in these poorly serviced areas.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The other problem in Texas is that the state historically has also featured a high concentration of undocumented (largely Hispanic) immigrants (<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/interactives/u-s-unauthorized-immigrants-by-state/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the second-highest “unauthorized immigrant” population in the U.S.</a>, behind only California), who are being forced to work even when sick, since they are, by virtue of their undocumented status, largely excluded from any and all virus-relief economic aid and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.texmed.org/July14Journal/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">access to primary health care</a>.</b>&nbsp;As ProPublica&nbsp;<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/it-cost-me-everything-in-texas-covid-19-takes-a-devastating-toll-on-hispanic-residents?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=river" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">noted</a>: “Texas is also the largest state in the nation that refused to expand health insurance for low-income residents under the Affordable Care Act…&nbsp;<a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/14/texans-health-insurance-jobs-pandemic/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Nearly a third of adults</a>&nbsp;under 65 in Texas lack health insurance, the worst uninsured rate in the country, and more than 60% of those without health insurance in the state are Hispanic.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Furthermore,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/it-cost-me-everything-in-texas-covid-19-takes-a-devastating-toll-on-hispanic-residents?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=river" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">living in crowded multigenerational settings</a>, workers infected on the job come home and risk spreading the illness to their parents and grandparents</b>&nbsp;(many of whom may also have problematic immigration status in the country and risk deportation if they seek to address their health issues). Consequently, Hispanics are now suffering some of the worst health outcomes in the U.S.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">With this information in context, it’s clear the more we lay blame at Trump’s feet, the further we’re going to be from confronting that COVID-19 fits neatly into a decades-old pattern of pandemic response. American health care can literally impoverish its citizens even as it undermines their physical well-being. Breaking the pattern can only happen if Americans keep putting pressure on institutionalized racism, get serious about inequality, and flip the switch on our employer-based private health care system</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">*<a href="https://bit.ly/3gyTU5X" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Franklin “Chuck” Spinney</a>&nbsp;provided research assistance on the compilation and analysis of the pandemic data.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="" href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/imi-articles/?author=Marshall+Auerback" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Marshall Auerback</a><span style="outline-color: initial; outline-width: initial;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></span><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;is a market analyst and commentator.</b></b></b></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article was produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/economy-for-all/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Economy for All</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute</font></span></b></b></b></p></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></b></b></b></div></div></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/cant-get-cancer-from-poor-people-heres-why-the-billionaire-class-supports-coronavirus-care-for-all-but-never-medicare-for-all/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/cant-get-cancer-from-poor-people-heres-why-the-billionaire-class-supports-coronavirus-care-for-all-but-never-medicare-for-all/</font></a></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>‘Can’t get cancer from poor people’: Here’s why the billionaire class supports ‘coronavirus care for all’ but never ‘Medicare for all’</b></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Credit: Gage Skidmore</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Andrea Germanos / Common Dreams April 7, 2020</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Sirota, senior advisor and speechwriter for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, gave a scathing account Monday of what he believes is driving foes of Medicare for All to embrace universal coverage for the treatment of COVID-19, dubbed “Coronavirus Care for All” by the progressive writer.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The highly contagious nature of the coronavirus is leading the affluent political class to look after their own interests, wrote Sirota. The wealthy are thus in this case backing a healthcare system in which “workers are only permitted to get the absolute minimum amount of free healthcare that may prevent them from infecting billionaires.” </b>Sirota made the argument Monday evening in a publicly available Facebook post, in which he noted that President Donald Trump and Sanders rival former Vice President Joe Biden are supporters of such a system.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Sirota</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@davidsirota</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If you are wondering why Trump, Biden & Third Way simultaneously vilify Medicare for All but suddenly support Coronavirus Care For All -- it isn't a contradiction.&nbsp;</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It almost certainly has to do with class and self-interest: https://www.facebook.com/rocktheboat/posts/10158336887095536 …</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Billionaires and lobbyists, wrote Sirota, can count on “gold-plated private health insurance,” and aren’t at risk when a low-wage worker is suffering from a serious—and expensive—but non-contagious health issue such as cancer.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Private heath insurance affords no such buffer when it comes to COVID-19.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A “billionaire Manhattanite and that Washington lobbyist may have great health insurance,” wrote Sirota, but “they and their families are indeed personally jeopardized by that grocery worker being unable to afford COVID testing and treatment, because that grocery worker can spread the disease to the food supply and the larger community.”</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sirota put the motivation for the narrowly focused government-backed coverage in harsh terms:</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A more simple way of saying this is: the affluent political class supports Coronavirus Care For All because they fear getting COVID from poor people, but that same affluent political class opposes Medicare for All because they can't get cancer from poor people and so they don’t care that poor folk cant afford chemo—and they certainly don’t want to pay higher taxes to fix that.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In feudal terms: the peasantry is only allowed to be given the minimal amount of free healthcare that makes sure the gentry don’t get infected—nothing more.</b></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This anti-Medicare for All but pro-COVID-19 care for all mentality puts a spotlight on a harsh truth, wrote Sirota: “the rich and powerful will only act out of fear, never out of a sense of moral solidarity—and only in narrow ways that serve their own interests.”</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read Sirota’s full post here and below:</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald Trump, Joe Biden and the corporate-funded group Third Way have all been critics of Medicare for All, but suddenly all of them now say they support Coronavirus Care for All. Some have asked why they would support free universal COVID treatment but not, say, free universal cancer treatment?</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The answer is that in a political system owned by billionaires, workers are only permitted to get the absolute minimum amount of free health care that may prevent them from infecting billionaires.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Think about the difference between COVID and deadly diseases like cancer that are mass killers, but that are not contagious or socially spread. A billionaire Manhattanite or a well-heeled Washington lobbyist have gold-plated private health insurance, and they and their families are not personally jeopardized by a low-income grocery worker getting cancer and being unable to afford chemotherapy.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Billionaires and lobbyists, in other words, are not jeopardized by our current corporate-run health care system—and so a democracy controlled by that affluent class blocks Medicare for All, even during a lethal pandemic.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By contrast, COVID is an infectious disease that spreads through populations—and the spread is self-reinforcing. The more people who are infected, the more likely it is to further spread.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When it comes to that kind of disease, we are biologically all in it together—whether we want to admit it or not. And so while that billionaire Manhattanite and that Washington lobbyist may have great health insurance, they and their families are indeed personally jeopardized by that grocery worker being unable to afford COVID testing and treatment, because that grocery worker can spread the disease to the food supply and the larger community.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Put another way, billionaires and lobbyists are in fact directly jeopardized by a lack of free COVID testing and treatment for all—and so a democracy controlled by that affluent class suddenly supports Coronavirus Care for All.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A more simple way of saying this is: the affluent political class supports Coronavirus Care For All because they fear getting COVID from poor people, but that same affluent political class opposes Medicare for All because they cant get cancer from poor people and so they don’t care that poor folk cant afford chemo—and they certainly don’t want to pay higher taxes to fix that.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In feudal terms: the peasantry is only allowed to be given the minimal amount of free health care that makes sure the gentry don’t get infected—nothing more.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now sure, it would be nice to live in a country where the affluent class actually cared about the working class. That’s not America.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here, the simultaneous vilification of Medicare for All and embrace of Coronavirus Care for All reminds us that as a political force, the rich and powerful will only act out of fear, never out of a sense of moral solidarity—and only in narrow ways that serve their own interests.</font></b></b></b></div></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/no-the-coronavirus-is-not-an-equalizer-black-people-are-being-infected-and-dying-at-higher-rates/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/no-the-coronavirus-is-not-an-equalizer-black-people-are-being-infected-and-dying-at-higher-rates/</font></a></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/how-ceos-behave-like-closet-socialists/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/how-ceos-behave-like-closet-socialists/</font></a></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>How CEOs behave like closet socialists</b></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg poses a question during the CEO Summit. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Paul Adler / YES! Magazine February 28, 2020</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Progressives and socialists in the United States are working towards major economic changes such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. It is urgent that we empower national government to take over such critical functions in society as health insurance and the transition to a green economy. But we often encounter pushback: Many Americans worry about the risks of giving control over so much of our lives to a central authority. Our opponents cite the failure of the USSR.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We need to convince people that centralized economic planning can be democratic and effective. One way is to point to a working model of what that looks like, one they are already familiar with. In my recent book, The 99% Economy, I argue that we can find just such a model in a strange place—in many of our biggest capitalist businesses.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A working model, right under our noses</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many corporate CEOs behave like closet socialists. In public, they defend the superiority of markets over planning. But inside their own corporations, where they could leave their various business units to compete with each other, they rely instead on comprehensive strategic planning. Such planning aims to ensure that the various business units that make up the corporation coordinate their production, investment, and other plans to achieve the best outcomes for the corporation as a whole. Yes, some corporations try to emulate the market in their internal operations, but that approach is relatively rare. In most firms, the activity of business units is coordinated by a strategic plan—just like a government-run health insurance program, a national health service, or a national energy system.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In this internal planning process, corporations confront in miniature the same challenges that&nbsp; bedeviled centralized economic planning in the old USSR. But our corporations have developed effective techniques to deal with those challenges—techniques that could be deployed on a wider scale and to similar advantage in socialist planning.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Consider Kaiser Permanente</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Consider how Kaiser Permanente orchestrates its strategy process. KP is the largest private-sector health care provider and one of the largest private health care insurance companies in the U.S., with more than 12 million health plan members, 696 hospitals and medical offices, and more than 217,000 employees.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many things about the way KP operates anger us progressives—it’s a basically capitalistic enterprise that often puts its own profits over the needs of its workers and patients. But there’s a lot to admire about its planning.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Instead of letting its 22,000 doctors compete with each other as little independent businesses and haggle with insurance companies over prices and services, and instead of putting its hospitals in competition with each other for patients and doctors, KP draws them all into a strategic planning process aimed at maximizing the performance of the system as a whole.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As in many other big enterprises, KP’s strategic goals are informed by both top-down leadership and bottom-up input about opportunities and challenges. Through this vertical and horizontal dialogue, the organization determines goals and mobilizes towards achieving them.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One key feature of KP’s planning is the role of its unions. In 1996, KP formalized a partnership relationship with a coalition of most of its unions, representing the vast majority of its employees. While this labor-management partnership was originally conceived as a labor-relations strategy designed to minimize the risk of strikes, it soon evolved into the organization’s operating strategy. Management came to see that front-line employees could contribute to organizational performance if given a chance.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The leaders of the union coalition worked with KP’s top national leaders to develop a shared set of strategic goals. And the labor-management partnership put into place structures for joint planning and decision-making at every level—national, regional, medical center, and department—to advance those goals. On the front lines, 3500 Unit-Based Teams with management and union co-leads were mobilized to contribute to them.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The result is a health care delivery system that offers impressive levels of efficiency and clinical quality, levels that would be unattainable if KP were organized internally as a market-based, competitive system. One of the many advantages of planning over competition is that­—unlike much of the rest of the U.S. health care system—KP units have a strong incentive to invest in preventive care and community health.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In this way, Kaiser Permanente shows how socialists would solve our health care crisis: nationalize the entire industry and implement an expanded version of this type of strategic management process in the new National Health Service.</b>&nbsp;Having nationalized ownership and having thus turned the entire health care delivery system into a public agency, we could overcome the limits imposed by capitalism on KP’s planning. Employees’ voices could be guaranteed, rather than being a conditional privilege accorded by an enlightened management. Financing would be determined by democratic deliberation, rather than subject to the veto power of investors. Patients and community voices would be brought into the governance of the agency on an equal footing.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beyond health care</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now pivot from health care to, say, the automobile industry, whose products and processes have proven so toxic to the environment. We can nationalize the auto companies and their suppliers. We can integrate them into a national transportation industry planning council to rebalance public and private transportation options. Our democratically elected representatives would develop economic, social, and environmental goals for the industry—just like GM or Ford executives develop strategic goals for their companies today, but on a bigger scale, and with much deeper and wider participation. Workers in the transportation industry as well as the wider community would work in regional and sector councils to formulate their input on these goals and develop plans to achieve them.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Their plans would be funded by the national investment bank in accordance with criteria developed democratically at the national and local levels. We would rationalize the internal structure of this industry, greatly reducing costs by eliminating unnecessary variation in components, designs, and processes. We would task the national investment bank to invest in creating new job opportunities in regions hit by the resulting downsizing.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some worry that such gargantuan public enterprises would be unaccountable. But socialism would replace the very unreliable accountability provided by the market (remember Enron anyone? Or the banking collapse of 2008?) with a more robust, democratic form of accountability through regulators, courts, legislative oversight, and public advocacy.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our Aristotle problem</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As progressives and socialists, we have to find some way to help people form a mental image of the better world we want to create. But it’s hard for many Americans to imagine that centralized economic planning could be democratic and effective.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We shouldn’t underestimate this challenge. Consider this: Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle—one of the greatest minds of his era or indeed any other—was convinced that if the right to vote were extended to women and slaves, Greece’s glorious political democracy would degenerate into rule by the rabble. Yet most of us today are committed to political democracy with universal suffrage, even if we accept that its implementation is never perfect.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To deal with the many challenges we face today, the democratic principle must be extended from the political realm to the economic. But we have grown up in a capitalist world. It is as difficult for us to imagine the expansion of democratic decision-making to the economic realm as it was for Aristotle to imagine the expansion of democratic rights to women and slaves.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perhaps pointing to the central planning that already operates in our big corporations can help people overcome this hurdle.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paul S. Adler is currently Harold Quinton Chair of Business Policy and Professor of Management and Organization, Sociology, and Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California. He began his education in Australia, moved to France, and was employed as a research economist for the French government. He came to the USA in 1981, and before arriving at USC in 1991, was affiliated with Barnard College, Harvard Business School, and Stanford’s School of Engineering.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></b></b></b></div></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">m<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/medicare-for-all-is-cheaper-multiple-studies-say-m4a-is-more-cost-effective-than-a-public-option/" style="font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" color="color" transition="transition" all="all" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" font-size="font-size" letter-spacing="letter-spacing">edicare for All is cheaper: Multiple studies say M4A is more cost-effective than a public option</a></font></b></b></b></div><div class="header-list-style" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="grid-post-box-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 12px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/igor-derysh/" title="Posts by Igor Derysh" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Igor Derysh</a>&nbsp;/&nbsp;<a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/salon/" title="Posts by Salon " class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Salon&nbsp;</a></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">February 22, 2020</span></font></b></b></b></div></div><div class="item-content entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 18px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two new studies found that the Medicare for All plan proposed by candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., would cost less than the public option…</font></b></b></b></p></div><div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 1219</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font></b></b><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">no lnx</b></font></b></b></b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Corporate media’s mantra is ‘anyone but Sanders or Warren’ — and they’re doing the work of the extremely wealthy</b></div><div>
</div><div>Written by Norman Solomon / Common Dreams December 2, 2019</div><div>Anyone who’s been paying attention should get the picture by now. Overall, in subtle and sledgehammer ways, the mass media of the United States—owned and sponsored by corporate giants—are in the midst of a siege against the two progressive Democratic candidates who have a real chance to be elected president in 2020.</div><div>
</div><div>Some of the prevalent media bias has taken the form of protracted swoons for numerous “center lane” opponents of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The recent entry of Michael Bloomberg has further jammed that lane, adding a plutocrat “worth” upwards of $50 billion to a bevy of corporate politicians.</div><div>
</div><div>The mainline media are generally quite warm toward so-called “moderates,” without bothering to question what’s so moderate about such positions as bowing to corporate plunder, backing rampant militarism and refusing to seriously confront the climate emergency.</div><div>
</div><div>Critical reporting on debate performances and campaign operations has certainly been common. But the core of the “moderate” agenda routinely gets affirmation from elite journalists who told us in no uncertain terms four years ago that Hillary Clinton was obviously the nominee who could defeat Donald Trump.</div><div>
</div><div>This year, Sanders has taken most of the flak from reporters and pundits (often virtually indistinguishable), serving as a kind of “heat shield” for Warren. But as Warren gained ground in polling this fall, the attacks on her escalated—to the point that she now has a corporate media bullseye on her political back.</div><div>
</div><div>The disconnect between voters and corporate media is often huge. Meanwhile, with fly-on-the-wall pretenses, media outlets that have powerfully distorted proposals like Medicare for All are now reporting (with thinly veiled satisfaction) that voters are cool to those proposals.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Washington Post, owned by one of the world’s richest people Jeff Bezos, has routinely spun </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Medicare for All </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">as some sort of government takeover.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;In a prominent Nov. 30 news story that largely attributed Warren’s recent dip in polls to her positioning on healthcare, the Post matter-of-factly—and falsely—referred to Medicare for All as “government-run healthcare” and “a government-run health plan.”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Such pervasive mass-media reporting smoothed the way for deceptions that have elevated Pete Buttigieg in polls during recent weeks with his deceptive “Medicare for All Who Want It” slogan. That rhetoric springboards from the false premises that Medicare for All would deprive people of meaningful choice and would somehow reduce coverage.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In late September, with scant media scrutiny, Buttigieg launched an ad campaign against Medicare for All that has continued. Using insurance-industry talking points, he is deliberately confusing the current “choice” of predatory for-profit insurance plans with the genuine full choice of healthcare providers that top-quality Medicare for everyone would offer.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Mainstream media outlets are ill-positioned to refute such distortions since they’re routinely purveying such distortions themselves. Warren’s backtracking step on Medicare for All in mid-November was a tribute to media pressure in tandem with attacks from centrist opponents.</div><div>
</div><div>The idea of implementing some form of a substantial “wealth tax” has also been denigrated by many corporate-employed journalists. Countless pundits and political beat reporters have warned that proposals like a wealth tax, from Warren and Sanders, risk dragging Democrats down with voters. The truth is that such proposals are unpopular with the punditocracy and the extremely wealthy—while it’s a very different matter for most voters, who strongly favor a wealth tax.</div><div>
</div><div><b>On the same day this fall, the New York Times and the Washington Post published stories on Democratic elites’ “anxiety” about the presidential election.&nbsp;</b>The Post wrote that Democrats “fret” Warren and Sanders “are too liberal to win a general election.” (With disdain, the article made a matter-of-fact reference to “the push for liberal purity.”) The Times similarly wrote of “persistent questions about Senator Elizabeth Warren’s viability in the general election.” Contrary voices were absent in both news stories.</div><div>
</div><div>Assessing those articles, FAIR.org media analyst Julie Hollar pointed out: “The pieces interviewed a number of big donors and centrist party leaders, who fretted about their preferred candidate’s struggles and expressed hope for someone more corporate-friendly than Warren to enter the race and challenge her rise.”</div><div>
</div><div>Hollar added: “The thinking of powerful people in the Democratic Party is worth writing about. But it’s crucial not to just take their claims at face value. . . . What establishment Democrats are really worried about, of course, is their own power in the party, which is threatened by a surging left wing. Don’t look to their establishment media counterparts to report on that transparently.”</div><div>
</div><div>Part of the problem is the TV network that many Democrats (mistakenly) trust. MSNBC is becoming notorious for its hostility to Bernie Sanders, often expressed through egregious omission or mathematical fib if not direct antipathy.</div><div>
</div><div>Ongoing media analysis is crucial, but even more important is activist pushback against the 24/7 onslaught of corporate-minded propaganda, often couched as common sense and incontrovertible reality. Among the needed counterpunches are these:</div><div>
</div><div><b>Support progressive media outlets as they provide independent coverage of the presidential campaign</b></div><div>Widely share, via email forwarding and social media, online pieces that you like. (Hopefully including this one.)</div><div>Recognize, challenge, and organize against the corporate-media echo chamber that affects so many voters</div><div>You shouldn’t have to be an active supporter of Bernie Sanders (as I am) or of Elizabeth Warren to voice outrage about corporate media biases. What’s at stake includes democracy—the informed consent of the governed—and so much more.</div><div>
</div><div>History is unfolding in real time. It’s not a product on the media shelf, to be passively bought and consumed. As Bernie 2020 campaign co-chair Nina Turner says, “All that we love is on the line.”</div><div>
</div><div>Norman Solomon is co-founder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” and “Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America’s Warfare State.” He is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.</div></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">much debated, eliz w dinged for not saying tax up //bernie</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eliz W puts out plan, no MC tax increase</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></b></b></b></div><div><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/a-health-insurance-whistleblower-reveals-how-the-industry-will-lie-and-attack-elizabeth-warrens-medicare-for-all-plan/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">health insurance whistleblower reveals how the industry will lie and attack Elizabeth Warren’s Medicare for All plan</font></a></b></b></b></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/wendell-potter/" title="Posts by Wendell Potter" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Wendell Potter</a>&nbsp;/&nbsp;<a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/independent-media-institute/" title="Posts by Independent Media Institute" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Independent Media Institute</a></font></span></b></b></b></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; font-style: italic;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now that we’ve seen Senator Elizabeth Warren’s plan to pay for Medicare for All without raising taxes on the middle class, let me tell you what is happening in Washington.…</font></b></b></b></p></div></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/medicare-for-alls-biggest-critics-are-just-playing-dumb/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/medicare-for-alls-biggest-critics-are-just-playing-dumb/</font></a></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Medicare for All’s biggest critics are just playing dumb</b></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Amanda Marcotte / Salon October 22, 2019</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After four Democratic primary debates in which the first hour was dominated by pundits — as well as centrist candidates — raising the alarm about how to pay for the widely popular Medicare for All proposal, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has finally agreed to release a funding proposal. In a sense this is odd, since, as Sen. Bernie Sanders repeatedly reminds voters, he is the one who “wrote the damn bill.”</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Warren feels obligated to do this because she, rather than Sanders, is increasingly the main or even sole target of opponents like South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is sending out missives declaring: “Elizabeth Warren Just Dodged Questions on Middle Class Taxes Again.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But there’s a problem with Buttigieg’s approach, as well as with all the pundit concern over potential about tax increases to pay for Medicare for All: This framing is painfully, incredibly, mind-bogglingly stupid. As Warren and Sanders keep pointing out — and as journalists and centrist politicians keep pretending not to hear — those tax raises will at least be offset by the end of private insurance, most likely leading to an overall decrease in health care costs.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is so obvious, in fact, that we can safely assume that when Buttigieg or debate moderators or journalists keep asking<b> concern-troll questions </b>about Medicare for All and higher taxes, they are deliberately playing dumb, for the sole purpose of baiting the two progressive candidates near the top of the polls. The entire exercise is despicable. It confuses the issue, to the great shame of journalists who are supposed to be clarifying issues for voters. It feeds Republican talking points, to the great shame of Democrats who should not be eager to give Donald Trump ammunition he can use against the eventual nominee in 2020.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“New study: Full-scale ‘Medicare for All’ costs $32 trillion over 10 years,” screams a typically alarmist headline at The Hill.</b></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Buried, however, multiple paragraphs into the article — well past where most people read — the piece admits that Americans “would no longer have to pay premiums or deductibles for their care, resulting in <b>$886 billion in savings for people over 10 years,</b>” and that the plan would <b>make sure the 32 million currently uninsured Americans would be covered.</b></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">This is in line with other studies, even the one conducted by the conservative Mercatus Center at George Mason University, which have found that the $32 trillion government price tag would represent a significant savings for the country on health care spending.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>There’s a recurring problem in the way this issue is framed by mainstream media and “moderate” Democratic framing of this issue: The nonsensical assumption that people hate paying taxes so much they’d rather let insurance companies gouge them than pay slightly higher taxes while overall health care spending goes down. </b>This is like claiming that an $100-a-month public transit pass is somehow more expensive than paying hundreds of dollars a month on car payments, insurance and gas. It’s flat-out asinine.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet, time and again, pundits and journalists and politicians act like they’re too dense to understand that two dollars is more than one dollar, even if that one dollar is taxes.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Note that, for some unexplained reason, there is little or no debate about the funding of other health care proposals. Other candidates’ “Medicare for some” policies aren’t free, but the fact that no one asks how they’ll be paid for shows the extreme bad faith that is shaping this entire discussion.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Obviously, the real point of constantly asking Warren about funding Medicare for All is to get her on the record saying that she plans to raise taxes. That’s a genuinely puzzling goal, because the only possible purpose of such a video clip is to give Trump fodder for a 2020 campaign ad.</b> Why Buttigieg and the Democratic debate moderators seem to think they are obliged to be Trump’s unpaid opposition researchers is truly a mystery.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There are many criticisms that can be leveraged against Medicare for All that don’t involve playing so dumb that you don’t understand basic math. There are genuine concerns that Republicans will undermine and gut any Medicare for All plan when they gain power. </span>There’s legitimate reason to fear that women’s health care will be severely restricted, due to still-powerful forces of sexism in this country. There are valid questions to raise about price controls and expanding access in rural and other underserved areas. There are questions about whether the economic shocks of transforming our health care system so rapidly will have unintended consequences.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But nah. All we get instead is a big, stupid debate that presumes spending more money is better than spending less money, so long as that larger sum goes to the predatory insurance industry consumers supposedly love so much.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It also assumes, for some bizarre reason, that Americans enjoy having to live with the nonstop stress of having overly complicated health insurance programs that are full of loopholes and excuses to deny coverage to any person with an actual human body who is foolish enough to seek medical care. Warren, in particular, has tried to talk about the immeasurable but significant quality-of-life issues that a single-payer system might address. But that has mostly been ignored in a debate shaped solely by the bizarre Reagan-era assumption that money spent on taxes is bad and money spent on private insurance is good.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There should be much more attention to these questions, so it was great to see comedian Rob Delaney open up to the New Yorker about how living in the U.K. — where health care is not just a single-payer system, but one directly run by the government — helped spare his family extra misery and grief when his toddler son died of cancer.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“What we didn’t have to do was spend hours, days, weeks, months on the phone with billing offices or insurance companies making sure this MRI would be covered,” Delaney told New Yorker writer Emily Nussbaum, noting that the time saved “was time that we got to spend with our son.”</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“So, yeah, I want to abolish private health insurance in the United States,” he added.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nearly everyone in the country can relate on some level, since the entire point of the private insurance industry is to make profits by finding excuses to deny care — even if that means torturing families who are going through difficult times by making them spend hours on the phone or fill out endless paperwork to get coverage they have already paid for. The inhumane nature of the current system is largely being neglected in this rush to frame this entirely as a fiscal issue. This isn’t about budgets and taxes. It’s about forcing people to spend huge amounts of money on private services that, by design, frequently fail to provide the services we pay for.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite Warren’s best efforts, she is probably not going to make this debate go away by announcing that she has a plan for that. The problem is not that journalists or centrist Democrats don’t understand how we’re going to pay for Medicare for All. They understand just fine: We’ll pay for it by redirecting the money that currently going to private insurance into a more cost-effective government system. Some people, most notably the insurance industry and their lobbyists, don’t like that idea. So these bad-faith questions that focus on taxes to the exclusion of other costs will continue to be asked, no matter how often Warren or Sanders answer it.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The good news, however, is that the American public is increasingly not fooled. A PRRI survey released on Monday shows that 63% of Americans support a Medicare for All plan that “would replace private health insurance with government-backed health insurance coverage for all Americans.” Even 31% of Republicans favor such a plan.</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No matter how much pundits and centrists and Republican politicians bang on about taxes, most Americans aren’t that dumb, and understand that the bottom-line issue is the important part. They want to save money on health care costs and have guaranteed access, period. Private health insurance companies are simply not allowing that to happen. We need to have a real debate about health care, one that focuses on what people care about — cost, access and services — and get past the bad-faith bogeyman of higher taxes.</font></b></b></b></div></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">delaney&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">booed in ca conv</span></font></b></b></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/ocasio-cortez-warns-lobbyist-backed-democrats-they-will-lose-the-presidency-to-trump/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/ocasio-cortez-warns-lobbyist-backed-democrats-they-will-lose-the-presidency-to-trump/</font></a></b></b></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></b></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></b></b></b></div><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></b></b></b><div><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></b></b></b></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/conservative-democrats-dark-money-funded-rural-voter-project-has-everything-to-do-with-sinking-medicare-for-all/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/conservative-democrats-dark-money-funded-rural-voter-project-has-everything-to-do-with-sinking-medicare-for-all/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two conservative former Democratic senators, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana, have launched the One Country Project, a 501(c)(4) not-for-profit organization that aims to attract rural voters to the Democratic Party. However, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/05/14/medicare-for-all-opponents-one-country-project/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Maplight’s</a>&nbsp;Andrew Perez, working in partnership with The Intercept, the organization is also a “dark money” group, using the two former lawmakers to push an anti-Medicare-for-all agenda.</font></p><div class="p1_16" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perez found that “the One Country Project’s website is registered to an executive at Forbes Tate Partners, a lobbying and public relations firm founded by former Clinton administration officials.” Forbes Tate Partners is leading lobbying efforts for Partnership for America’s Health Care Future (PAHCF), which, according to Maplight, is a “health industry-backed nonprofit created to crush momentum for a comprehensive universal health care system.”</font></p><div class="p2_16" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heitkamp had previous ties to Forbes Tate Partners, hiring a subsidiary called Columbia Campaign Group for polling and media campaign consulting for her 2018 Senate bid. Her former chief of staff, Tessa Gould, is now a partner there. The Heitkamp campaign, Perez reports, paid Gould $35,000 for consulting in March, part of the over $6 million the campaign had left over from a last-minute infusion of donations after Heitkamp declined to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.</font></p><div class="p3_16" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heitkamp railed against Medicare-for-all in a May&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/heidi-heitkamp-democrats-dont-ditch-the-aca-for-medicare-for-all/2019/05/08/b77780cc-71a9-11e9-9f06-5fc2ee80027a_story.html?utm_term=.b1c65c001c08" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">op-ed</a>&nbsp;for The Washington Post, writing that “polling indicates that most Americans are satisfied with the health care they receive and do not want their coverage options taken away and replaced with a one-size-fits-all government program.” Both Heitkamp and Donnelly campaigned against such a proposal in their reelection bids, and both lost to Republicans.</font></p><div class="p4_16" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Two conservative former Democratic senators, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana, have launched the One Country Project, a 501(c)(4) not-for-profit organization that aims to attract rural voters to the Democratic Party.&nbsp;</b>However, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/05/14/medicare-for-all-opponents-one-country-project/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Maplight’s</a>&nbsp;Andrew Perez, working in partnership with The Intercep<b>t, the organization is also a “dark money” group, using the two former lawmakers to push an anti-Medicare-for-all agenda.</b></font></p><div class="p5_16" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="article-item__content am2-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perez found that “the One Country Project’s website is registered to an executive at Forbes Tate Partners, a lobbying and public relations firm founded by former Clinton administration officials.” Forbes Tate Partners is leading lobbying efforts for Partnership for America’s Health Care Future (PAHCF), which, according to Maplight, is a “health industry-backed nonprofit created to crush momentum for a comprehensive universal health care system."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heitkamp had previous ties to Forbes Tate Partners, hiring a subsidiary called Columbia Campaign Group for polling and media campaign consulting for her 2018 Senate bid. Her former chief of staff, Tessa Gould, is now a partner there. The Heitkamp campaign, Perez reports, paid Gould $35,000 for consulting in March, part of the over $6 million the campaign had left over from a last-minute infusion of donations after Heitkamp declined to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.</font></p><div class="p7_16" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heitkamp railed against Medicare-for-all in a May&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/heidi-heitkamp-democrats-dont-ditch-the-aca-for-medicare-for-all/2019/05/08/b77780cc-71a9-11e9-9f06-5fc2ee80027a_story.html?utm_term=.b1c65c001c08" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">op-ed</a>&nbsp;for The Washington Post, writing that “polling indicates that most Americans are satisfied with the health care they receive and do not want their coverage options taken away and replaced with a one-size-fits-all government program.” Both Heitkamp and Donnelly campaigned against such a proposal in their reelection bids, and both lost to Republicans.</font></p><div class="p8_16" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before Donnelly left the Senate, he told&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/28/politics/donnelly-medicare-for-all-cnntv/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">CNN’s Dana Bash</a>&nbsp;that “when you talk Medicare-for-all … you start losing the people in my state.” He added, “When we start talking about, ‘Hey, we’re going to work together with the insurance companies to lower premiums,’ that’s what connects.”</font></p><div class="p9_16" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to his work with the One Country Project, Donnelly joined lobbying Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, which also has ties to anti-Medicare-for-All efforts through its lobbying for health care industry clients, who have also donated to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).</font></p><div class="p10_16" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to reporting by Alex Kotch in&nbsp;<a href="https://readsludge.com/2019/04/23/health-industry-lobbyists-pump-more-money-into-democrats-congressional-campaign-arm/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Sludge</a>, “Vic Fazio, a senior advisor at lobbying firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and former California Democratic congressman, has raised nearly $130,000 for the DCCC this year. He has lobbied for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), a PAHCF member and the nation’s largest pharmaceutical trade association.”</font></p><div class="p11_16" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Support for broader health coverage is growing among Americans, though they remain divided on terminology, and on whether to abolish private insurance. According to an April 2019 poll from the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kff.org/slideshow/public-opinion-on-single-payer-national-health-plans-and-expanding-access-to-medicare-coverage/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Kaiser Family Foundation</a>, 56% of Americans support a national health plan or Medicare-for-all.</font></p><div class="p12_16" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Yet,” the KFF report continues, “how politicians discuss these different proposals does affect public support.” The poll found 63% of respondents said they support Medicare-for-All or universal coverage, while 59% say they support a national health plan, and 46% support socialized medicine. The most common theme, researchers report, “is a desire for universal coverage.”</font></p><div class="p13_16" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A February&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/428958-poll-voters-want-the-government-to-provide-healthcare-for" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">poll</a>&nbsp;from The Hill-HarrisX found that just 13% of respondents favored a health care system controlled entirely by the government with no private insurance and 32% of respondents favored universal coverage, operated by the government, that still included room for supplemental private insurance. Another 26% want a public option that doesn’t compete with private insurance.</font></p><div class="p14_16" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mostly, there’s a lot of confusion. As Mohamed Younis, editor-in-chief of Gallup,&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/428994-gallup-editor-says-most-americans-want-to-see-a-change-to" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">told</a>&nbsp;The Hill TV’s Krystal Ball, “Folks are clearly saying the system is still sort of broken to some degree, but there isn’t a lot of consensus around how to fix it in one way or another.”</font></p><div class="p15_16" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neither Heitkamp nor Donnelly responded to Maplight’s requests for comment.</font></p></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/private-health-insurance-stocks-in-free-fall-as-medicare-for-all-gains-momentum/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Private health insurance stocks ‘in free fall’ as Medicare for All gains momentum</font></a></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/jake-johnson/" title="Posts by Jake Johnson" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Jake Johnson</a>&nbsp;/&nbsp;<a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/common-dreams/" title="Posts by Common Dreams" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Common Dreams</a></font></span></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With comprehensive Medicare for All legislation now introduced in both chambers of Congress and&nbsp;bolstered by surging grassroots support, health insurance stocks are “crumbling” as investors grow increasingly fearful that single-payer…</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; font-style: italic;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/its-the-for-profit-health-care-industry-telling-us-we-cant-afford-medicare-for-all/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/its-the-for-profit-health-care-industry-telling-us-we-cant-afford-medicare-for-all/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>