For most of us, the result on November 5 was a real shocker. Despite what the polls predicted, American voters, 66% of those eligible to vote, trooped to the polls and pronounced the verdict: throw the bums out. And they did. Giving a thumbs down to the whole team which dashed the hopes of the […]
| Pete Buttigieg — “Senator Sanders’ plan by definition abolishes private plans like what… [union] workers have. Mine does not.” Amy Klobuchar — |
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?
That Sound You Hear is the Stampede of Democratic Hopefuls
Running Away from National Health Insurance
National health insurance was MIA in the first Democratic debate. Over two nights 18 of the 20 candidates declined to get behind it. Make that 19 as one, Kamala Harris, seeing which way she thought the wind was blowing, walked back her support the next day. Their excuse: 158 million Americans who get their health insurance at work and are allegedly invested in corporate healthcare. And what a great deal they’re getting — premiums up 55% in the last decade, rising twice as fast as wages and three times as fast as inflation. Workers forced to give up 10 to 12% of their pay to cover their health insurance premiums and 85% paying deductibles as high as $2,000. What’s not to like? Thanks to corporate media the lies and misstatements of the corporate health industry get widespread coverage. More than one-half of Americans believe they will still have to pay premiums, deductibles, and copays under a national health plan. Thanks to the hundreds of millions of dollars the healthcare lobby showers on Congress, many of them sing from the same hymnal. We make the case for national health insurance with every sector of the economy paying their fair share: wealthy individuals and corporations, the finance industry, and taxpayers. It’s time for America to join the rest of the world and deliver healthcare to anyone who needs it.
The American people dearly love to be fooled, to worship politicians
of whom they have created portraits which bear little or no
resemblance to the originals.”
-The Nation, Summer, 1924
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