Nancy Pelosi, who has great taxpayer-funded health insurance and has a net worth of $120 million, doesn't understand what Medicare does for people; why should she? Since I started getting it, I've been shocked when I talk with members of Congress who are absolutely clueless about the massive-- and massively important-- program they fund. It's time for Pelosi to move along. Didn't she promise to give up the speaker's gavel? Why the hell is she running for Congress again?Yesterday, Elizabeth Warren announced her how-you-pay-for-it proposal for Bernie's Medicare-for-All plan, an excellent response to the insurance industry critics.And it's not just the special interests directly. It's also Biden, Mayo Pete and that Bennet guy who, believe it or not, is running for president-- instead of working for the citizens of Colorado who foolishly elected him senator. The crooked candidates the insurance industry is financing are on the warpath. Warren's rise in the polls has prompted sustained attacks by all of them about how she would pay for her plans. "As someone known to come up with politically savvy ways to sell dense policy ideas communicating the gist of this 20-page proposal will be a major test of her candidacy."Michael Bennet, who no one has heard of outside of his own state-- other than a few people who noticed his anti-progressive debate performances-- sports a 0.5% RealClearPolitics polling average, a bit more than fellow conservatives John Delaney (0.2%) and Steve Bullock (0.0%). His Iowa average is also 0.5% but his New Hampshire and Nevada averages are 0.0% in each state. In South Carolina he shoots all the way back up to 0.5%. But he isn't dropping out. He has a strong anti-healthcare message and must fear the Republican Party isn't delivering it well enough on their own. "Voters are sick and tired of politicians promising them things that they know they can’t deliver," he said in a statement. "Warren's new numbers are simply not believable and have been contradicted by experts. Regardless of whether it's $21 trillion or $31 trillion, this isn't going to happen, and the American people need health care."The Biden campaign was just as negative about Warren's proposal, sending corporate stooge, Kate Bedington, out to tell the media that "The mathematical gymnastics in this plan are all geared towards hiding a simple truth from voters: it's impossible to pay for Medicare for All without middle-class tax increases." Senator Warren responded by questioning whether Biden is running in the right primary: "Democrats are not going to win by repeating Republican talking points. So, if Biden doesn’t like that, I’m just not sure where he’s going."In introducing her proposals, Warren suggested starting with Bernie's Medicare-for-All Act-- "which I have cosponsored. The bill provides a detailed proposal for how to achieve our end goal. But as economists and advocates have noted, the legislation leaves open a number of key design decisions that will affect its overall cost, and the bill does not directly incorporate specific revenue measures. While much of this ambiguity results from the reasonable choice to delegate significant implementation discretion to the Executive Branch, it has also allowed opponents of Medicare for All to make up their own price tags and try to scare middle class families about the prospect of tax increases-- despite the conclusions of expert after expert after expert that it is possible to eventually move to a Medicare for All system that gives both high quality coverage for everybody and dramatically lowers costs for middle class families."Sean McElwee summarizes Warren's proposal by explaining it "would not raise taxes on the middle class, but raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy instead." He also offers how the specifics poll with voters:
• Senator Warren’s Medicare for All financing plan, that doesn’t raise taxes on the middle class, is supported by a 57-30 percent margin among voters, and it is supported by a 53-32 percent margin among independents as well. Fully 1 in 3 Republicans support this financing plan as well• Voters clearly support the goal of universal health coverage, with 59 percent of voters saying they would be more supportive of legislation if they thought it would achieve universal coverage. Seventy-four percent would be more supportive of Medicare for All if they knew it eliminated uncertainty as to whether or not a patient could see any doctor without worrying about their coverage• Opponents of Medicare for All tend to have more comprehensive coverage already and therefore likely do not perceive any benefits to them of moving to a different system. In contrast, those with less coverage or with more uncertainty about their current coverage favor Medicare for All• A Democrat running on Medicare for All would defeat Trump in a hypothetical election matchup, a finding consistent across repeated experiments using multiple vendors• Voters report that media coverage of Medicare for All overall is mixed, with those who say they have heard a lot about Medicare for All splitting evenly on whether what they’ve heard has been positive or negative• Voters know the healthcare positions of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, but there is more uncertainty around the beliefs of other candidates like Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden• Medicare for All is not viewed as political extremism, with more voters saying that it is reflective of common goals seen in other democratic countries than saying it is reflective of a socialist takeover of healthcare by the government
It took progressives 6 decades to pass Medicare, fighting conservatives the whole way, conservatives from both parties, many of them bought out-- meaning bribed-- by special interests. And all along the way, the conservatives chipped away at it-- removing pieces and narrowing who would be covered. The plan the Bernie and Elizabeth are trying to pass is more like original Medicare than the current system is. And corrupt conservatives from both parties are still trying to stop it-- not just the entire GOP, but scumbags like Biden, Buttigieg and Bennet as well.The B-Team
