Month: February 2020

Single Payer on the Ropes as Bernie is Top Banana in the Health Industry Donations Sweepstakes

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The Candidates

Pete Buttigieg —
“Senator Sanders’ plan by definition abolishes private
plans like what… [union] workers have. Mine does not.”

Amy Klobuchar —
“I’m the only one on the debate stage when asked ‘Do you have a
problem with a Socialist leading the Democratic ticket’ and I said
yes”

The knives are out dear readers. We may be on the cusp of losing our best chance to finally join the rest of the developed world with universal single payer healthcare. Buttigieg’s plan is a thinly disguised sell-out to the wealthy hedge and private equity funds and corporate healthcare companies who have a gilt-edged oar in the healthcare water and are determined to keep it. To counter the Bernie threat, they send out paid stenographers masquerading as Democratic candidates to spin the public with one of two fairy tales — private healthcare with a few tweaks (very few) will do just fine as it always has (for rich folks). Credit Pete Buttigieg with that lie. Waiting in the wings, the queen of the fear mongerers, Amy Klobuchar, clutching her pearls and forecasting catastrophic consequences if even a whiff of what she calls socialism (single payer healthcare) is allowed to displace privatized healthcare. Tell that fairytale to nearly half of American adults (84½ million) with little or no insurance. The only obstacle in the way of the Democratic stampede to protect the status quo appears to be Bernie Sanders. But questions abound. If you judge a candidate by his donors, Bernie appears to be in bed with the enemy. SA recounts the troubling tale in Single Payer on the Ropes as Bernie is Top Banana in the Health Industry Donations Sweepstakes. Have we placed our bets on the wrong horse?

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Progressive Alert

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Obama - Buttigieg

Were you surprised at Pete Buttigieg’s performance in the Iowa Caucuses? Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Twice. First, on August 1, 2019, Suspicious Angels published Will a Charm Offensive and Oodles of Money Land Pete Buttigieg in the Oval Office? Ask Barack Obama — an exposé laying out chapter and verse how he planned to rise through the ranks to the top tier using the Obama playbook. Again, on December 3, 2019, Suspicious Angels published What makes Pete Buttigieg Run — spelling out how he intends to grab the nomination. And now he appears to have won Iowa. The same way Obama did with a staff of former Obama campaign advisers, scooping up largesse aplenty from the same democratic moneybags that bankrolled Obama, enticing super delegates to hop on the Buttigieg express if the selection process requires a second round. One thing is certain — Buttigieg is out to win it all. Remember the high hopes we had for Obama? “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. For all our sakes, read (or reread) both.

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Single Payer Healthcare or a Public Option? 159,000 Doctors Got It Wrong

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Patients Not Profits

Read all about it. Headlines trumpet a revolutionary about-face among thousands of doctors on how to fix U.S. crumbling healthcare. “Major Doctors’ Group Calls for U.S. to Read all about it. Headlines trumpet a revolutionary about-face among thousands of doctors on how to fix U.S. crumbling healthcare. “Major Doctors’ Group Calls for U.S. to Assure Coverage for All (The Washington Post and The New York Times); “In Historic Shift, Second Largest Physician’s Group in the U.S. has New Prescription: It’s Medicare-for-All (Common Dreams). It sounded like a dream come true and though we hate to admit it, Suspicious Angels swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Until we actually read the report and realized it was another attempt to “make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” The author of the report, The American College of Physicians, is the second largest medical society in the U.S. with a membership of 159,000 internists (aka primary care physicians). You might say they didn’t really take a position coming out somewhere between single payer and a public option. In contrast, the largest medical society, the American Medical Association with 218,000 members, in June, 2019 voted to oppose single payer or even its second-class cousin, a public option. Thoughts of an approaching revolution called single payer is having another effect. The billionaire class is in a tizzy. Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks, declared that single payer was “un-American.” So Assure Coverage for All (The Washington Post and The New York Times); “In Historic Shift, Second Largest Physician’s Group in the U.S. has New Prescription: It’s Medicare-for-All (Common Dreams). It sounded like a dream come true and though we hate to admit it, Suspicious Angels swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Until we actually read the report and realized it was another attempt to “make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” The author of the report, The American College of Physicians, is the second largest medical society in the U.S. with a membership of 159,000 internists (aka primary care physicians). You might say they didn’t really take a position coming out somewhere between single payer and a public option. In contrast, the largest medical society, the American Medical Association with 218,000 members, in June, 2019 voted to oppose single payer or even its second-class cousin, a public option. Thoughts of an approaching revolution called single payer is having another effect. The billionaire class is in a tizzy. Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks, declared that single payer was “un-American.”

So what’s the real deal? Will we settle for a public option or go whole hog like the rest of the developed world with single payer? It’s time to rally around the flag. But which flag? You may find the answers in “Single Payer Healthcare or a Public Option? 159,000 Doctors Got It Wrong”

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