Two prominent candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination are not just opposing Medicare for All – they keep denouncing and distorting it.
Joe Biden recently called Medicare for All “ridiculous.” And when Pete Buttigieg launched an advertising campaign against Medicare for All this fall, he declared that – unlike the proposals from Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren – his healthcare policy prescription “doesn't dictate it to the American people and risk further polarizing them.”
But we aren’t aiming to “dictate” to the American people. The California Democratic Party has long supported single-payer Medicare for All because “healthcare is a human right not a privilege.”
We are deeply dismayed that Buttigieg and Biden have opened up a double-barreled assault on Medicare for All. Their inaccuracies have forced us to respond by laying out the facts. The “public option” plans they’re touting would not fulfill the human right of healthcare for huge numbers of Americans. Millions would remain uninsured, millions more underinsured. And those plans don’t make economic sense.
Mayor Buttigieg is using the slogan “Medicare for all who want it.” But Congressman Ro Khanna has pointed out that such a setup “won't bring the administrative costs down of private insurers or maximize negotiation with Big Pharma and hospitals.” And: “This means higher premiums, higher drug costs, higher deductibles, and more denied claims for the middle class.” This also means less healthcare for lower-income people.
Major sources of Buttigieg’s and Biden’s funding are in harmony with their current hostility toward Medicare for All. “Pharmaceutical, health insurance, and hospital industry donors have flocked to Mayor Pete all year,” investigative journalist Alex Kotch reported. “As of mid-2019, he was second only to Donald Trump in overall campaign cash from donors in the health sector. Among Democratic candidates, he was second to former Vice President Joe Biden in terms of pharmaceutical and health insurance donations.”
Sadly, Buttigieg is claiming that Medicare for All would precipitously dump people off of health coverage and deprive them of “choice.” Those are 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 enhanced Medicare for everyone would offer.
Meanwhile, Biden has been using scare tactics and sending out absurd messages like this recent tweet: “Let’s put this in perspective: if you eliminate every single solitary soldier, tank, satellite, nuclear weapon, eliminate the Pentagon and it would only pay for 4 months of Medicare for All. 4 months. Where do the other 8 months come from? Your paycheck.”
That’s not the kind of leadership we need for healthcare in our country.
This statement has been endorsed by Amar Shergill, the Chair of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party.
“Medicare for All has the potential to achieve major cost savings in its operations relative to the existing U.S. healthcare system. We estimate that, through implementation of Medicare for All, overall U.S. healthcare costs could fall by about 19 percent relative to the existing system.”
– Economic Analysis of Medicare for All, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts / Amherst, 2018
“The efficiencies of a single-payer system would make universal coverage affordable and give everyone in the United States their free choice of doctors and hospitals. But that goal will remain out of reach if private insurers are allowed to continue gaming the system.... Some proposals, including those by Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, would offer a Medicare-like public plan for sale alongside private plans on the insurance exchanges now available under the Affordable Care Act. These buy-in reforms would minimize the need for new taxes, since most enrollees would be charged premiums. But tens of millions would remain uninsured or with coverage so skimpy, they still couldn’t afford care.”
– Dr. David Himmelstein and Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, cofounders of Physicians for a National Health Plan, writing in The Nation, October 21, 2019
“With costs rising painfully, insurance companies denying care and nearly 30 million people still uninsured, America desperately needs an honest health policy discussion. That’s why it has been so disappointing over the past several weeks to watch multiple candidates parrot right-wing attacks on ‘Medicare for All,’ like claiming that it will greatly increase spending on healthcare or ringing alarms about raising taxes on the middle class.
“The truth is the opposite: Medicare for All would sharply reduce overall spending on healthcare. It can be thoughtfully designed to reduce total costs for the vast majority of American families, while improving the quality of the care they get.
“Over my career, I have witnessed the problems with our healthcare system firsthand. As a pediatrician, I have seen how our fragmented, expensive system hurts children and families. As a researcher at Harvard Medical School, I have studied the causes of waste and overspending in our system. And as President Barack Obama’s head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, I led the existing Medicare system and helped stand up Obamacare....
“The case for Medicare for All is simple. It would cover everyone – period.... [I]t would be simpler, easing the onerous burdens of billing for doctors, endless paperwork for all healthcare professionals, and navigating the confusing coverage system for patients and families. Compared with some candidates’ plans that retain our patchwork of coverage, Medicare for All wins twice: on both simplicity and savings....
“The country deserves a real debate about healthcare – not one that misleads Americans about how public financing of healthcare would affect them. A real debate would show that Medicare for All, though not a perfect solution, is the best option we have to get healthcare costs and quality back on track, lifting an exhausting burden off American families and businesses.”
– Dr. Donald M. Berwick, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Obama administration, writing in USA Today on October 22, 2019
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This informational flier was not authorized or funded by any candidate or campaign organization. It was entirely produced and financed by Action for a Progressive Future / RootsAction.org. For further information, call or text to (415) 488-3606.
This flier as a PDF.
Joe Biden recently called Medicare for All “ridiculous.” And when Pete Buttigieg launched an advertising campaign against Medicare for All this fall, he declared that – unlike the proposals from Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren – his healthcare policy prescription “doesn't dictate it to the American people and risk further polarizing them.” But we aren’t aiming to “dictate” to the American people. The California Democratic Party has long supported single-payer Medicare for All because “healthcare is a human right not a privilege.”
We are deeply dismayed that Buttigieg and Biden have opened up a double-barreled assault on Medicare for All. Their inaccuracies have forced us to respond by laying out the facts. The “public option” plans they’re touting would not fulfill the human right of healthcare for huge numbers of Americans. Millions would remain uninsured, millions more underinsured. And those plans don’t make economic sense.
Mayor Buttigieg is using the slogan “Medicare for all who want it.” But Congressman Ro Khanna has pointed out that such a setup “won't bring the administrative costs down of private insurers or maximize negotiation with Big Pharma and hospitals.” And: “This means higher premiums, higher drug costs, higher deductibles, and more denied claims for the middle class.” This also means less healthcare for lower-income people.
Major sources of Buttigieg’s and Biden’s funding are in harmony with their current hostility toward Medicare for All. “Pharmaceutical, health insurance, and hospital industry donors have flocked to Mayor Pete all year,” investigative journalist Alex Kotch reported. “As of mid-2019, he was second only to Donald Trump in overall campaign cash from donors in the health sector. Among Democratic candidates, he was second to former Vice President Joe Biden in terms of pharmaceutical and health insurance donations.”
Sadly, Buttigieg is claiming that Medicare for All would precipitously dump people off of health coverage and deprive them of “choice.” Those are 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 enhanced Medicare for everyone would offer. Meanwhile, Biden has been using scare tactics and sending out absurd messages like this recent tweet: “Let’s put this in perspective: if you eliminate every single solitary soldier, tank, satellite, nuclear weapon, eliminate the Pentagon and it would only pay for 4 months of Medicare for All. 4 months. Where do the other 8 months come from? Your paycheck.”
That’s not the kind of leadership we need for healthcare in our country.
This statement has been endorsed by Amar Shergill, the Chair of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party.
“Medicare for All has the potential to achieve major cost savings in its operations relative to the existing U.S. healthcare system. We estimate that, through implementation of Medicare for All, overall U.S. healthcare costs could fall by about 19 percent relative to the existing system.”
– Economic Analysis of Medicare for All, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts / Amherst, 2018
“The efficiencies of a single-payer system would make universal coverage affordable and give everyone in the United States their free choice of doctors and hospitals. But that goal will remain out of reach if private insurers are allowed to continue gaming the system.... Some proposals, including those by Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, would offer a Medicare-like public plan for sale alongside private plans on the insurance exchanges now available under the Affordable Care Act. These buy-in reforms would minimize the need for new taxes, since most enrollees would be charged premiums. But tens of millions would remain uninsured or with coverage so skimpy, they still couldn’t afford care.”
– Dr. David Himmelstein and Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, cofounders of Physicians for a National Health Plan, writing in The Nation, October 21, 2019
“With costs rising painfully, insurance companies denying care and nearly 30 million people still uninsured, America desperately needs an honest health policy discussion. That’s why it has been so disappointing over the past several weeks to watch multiple candidates parrot right-wing attacks on ‘Medicare for All,’ like claiming that it will greatly increase spending on healthcare or ringing alarms about raising taxes on the middle class.
“The truth is the opposite: Medicare for All would sharply reduce overall spending on healthcare. It can be thoughtfully designed to reduce total costs for the vast majority of American families, while improving the quality of the care they get.
“Over my career, I have witnessed the problems with our healthcare system firsthand. As a pediatrician, I have seen how our fragmented, expensive system hurts children and families. As a researcher at Harvard Medical School, I have studied the causes of waste and overspending in our system. And as President Barack Obama’s head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, I led the existing Medicare system and helped stand up Obamacare....
“The case for Medicare for All is simple. It would cover everyone – period.... [I]t would be simpler, easing the onerous burdens of billing for doctors, endless paperwork for all healthcare professionals, and navigating the confusing coverage system for patients and families. Compared with some candidates’ plans that retain our patchwork of coverage, Medicare for All wins twice: on both simplicity and savings....
“The country deserves a real debate about healthcare – not one that misleads Americans about how public financing of healthcare would affect them. A real debate would show that Medicare for All, though not a perfect solution, is the best option we have to get healthcare costs and quality back on track, lifting an exhausting burden off American families and businesses.”
– Dr. Donald M. Berwick, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Obama administration, writing in USA Today on October 22, 2019
________________________________
This informational flier was not authorized or funded by any candidate or campaign organization. It was entirely produced and financed by Action for a Progressive Future / RootsAction.org. For further information, call or text to (415) 488-3606.
This flier as a PDF.
