"That may take the record as the most ignorance-filled statement coming from you, Mr. Sage, with all due respect."
It was a Facebook exchange. Facebook comments are primary source documents. Reading political polls and commentary is like checking with a weatherman. Reading Facebook closely is like looking outside to see if it is windy or raining.
He was responding to this comment by me:
"If Medicare for All were really a slam dunk popular program we would already have it. Medicare for All will be strongly opposed because a great many people will think of it as a loss to themselves, i.e. people who already have some health insurance: seniors, people with jobs with benefits, veterans. It will be hard fought."
The election of Bernie Sanders, or any other "real progressive," to the White House won't be a victory and an end. It will be a beginning, the start of a new phase in the war, one that has persisted for since employer based health insurance started during World War Two. Powerful political forces are lined up to oppose Medicare for All.
My Facebook critic said it was the "corporate overlords," not the American people, who opposed Medicare for All. I think he considers it a popular program being suppressed by anti-democratic forces.
The election of Sanders won't eliminate those forces. Powerful entrenched interests will still be there, and they will be more energized than ever if a progressive is elected. They will have all the tools of persuasion available to them to defend their turf, including unlimited campaign donations. Republicans would lose a few seats in a Blue Wave election, but they are not going away.
Neither is K Street.
And neither is the American public. The current system of health insurance coverage is haphazard and there are people who are badly served by it, but there are big blocks of people who are personally doing just fine.
I experienced the complicated health insurance system up close, as an employee of a large company and in an occupation that put me in daily contact with people who generally have health insurance from one source or another. Seniors have health insurance via Medicare. Well paid employees have health insurance. Those two groups represent high voter turnout groups. They have something to lose.
Many Millennials see the world--and this issue--differently than seniors, and it may explain some of why Sanders is popular with young people. Sanders wants to shake things up, and young people, especially ones experiencing the gig economy, have everything to gain and little to lose from a major reset of the health care system. Millennials have less to lose.
The generations talk past each other. This and other Facebook exchanges reveal that Millennial Sanders supporters can hardly believe that a great many people are actually satisfied with the current patchwork of health insurance. How can they possibly be content with such an expensive, complicated, gap-ridden system??? Such ignorance!
People over 65 are the most predictable part of the GOP and Trump base. Many of them will wonder how can Sanders and young "socialists" can possibly be so eager to upset the apple cart on a system they rely on??? Such riskiness!
The election of Sanders or some other progressive candidate on a platform of Medicare for All will not just face the combined forces of special interest money and power and universal opposition by the GOP. He or she will face the worried skepticism of many of the 85 to 90 percent of Americans who are getting by with the current system.
People getting by know the system is flawed, but they have theirs. The cost to their employers are substantial, but obscured. Insofar as they value the benefit, they consider it something they have earned, so its loss would be a pay cut.
And Trump will appeal to their fears.
PERSONAL NOTE: I am 69 and get Medicare. I like it. I personally am very open to a major "reset" of the American health care system, with universal access, including Medicare for All, because I think it is essential America de-couple health care with employment. It won't be easy to implement. The system was path-dependent. We have what we have because of how we got here.
"If Medicare for All were really a slam dunk popular program we would already have it. Medicare for All will be strongly opposed because a great many people will think of it as a loss to themselves, i.e. people who already have some health insurance: seniors, people with jobs with benefits, veterans. It will be hard fought."The election of Bernie Sanders, or any other "real progressive," to the White House won't be a victory and an end. It will be a beginning, the start of a new phase in the war, one that has persisted for since employer based health insurance started during World War Two. Powerful political forces are lined up to oppose Medicare for All.
My Facebook critic said it was the "corporate overlords," not the American people, who opposed Medicare for All. I think he considers it a popular program being suppressed by anti-democratic forces.
 |
| Sanders leads a movement. |
Neither is K Street.
And neither is the American public. The current system of health insurance coverage is haphazard and there are people who are badly served by it, but there are big blocks of people who are personally doing just fine.
I experienced the complicated health insurance system up close, as an employee of a large company and in an occupation that put me in daily contact with people who generally have health insurance from one source or another. Seniors have health insurance via Medicare. Well paid employees have health insurance. Those two groups represent high voter turnout groups. They have something to lose.
Many Millennials see the world--and this issue--differently than seniors, and it may explain some of why Sanders is popular with young people. Sanders wants to shake things up, and young people, especially ones experiencing the gig economy, have everything to gain and little to lose from a major reset of the health care system. Millennials have less to lose. The generations talk past each other. This and other Facebook exchanges reveal that Millennial Sanders supporters can hardly believe that a great many people are actually satisfied with the current patchwork of health insurance. How can they possibly be content with such an expensive, complicated, gap-ridden system??? Such ignorance!
People over 65 are the most predictable part of the GOP and Trump base. Many of them will wonder how can Sanders and young "socialists" can possibly be so eager to upset the apple cart on a system they rely on??? Such riskiness!
The election of Sanders or some other progressive candidate on a platform of Medicare for All will not just face the combined forces of special interest money and power and universal opposition by the GOP. He or she will face the worried skepticism of many of the 85 to 90 percent of Americans who are getting by with the current system.
 |
| Preview of the coming campaign. |
People getting by know the system is flawed, but they have theirs. The cost to their employers are substantial, but obscured. Insofar as they value the benefit, they consider it something they have earned, so its loss would be a pay cut.
And Trump will appeal to their fears.
PERSONAL NOTE: I am 69 and get Medicare. I like it. I personally am very open to a major "reset" of the American health care system, with universal access, including Medicare for All, because I think it is essential America de-couple health care with employment. It won't be easy to implement. The system was path-dependent. We have what we have because of how we got here.
2 comments:
The argument that "if we wanted it we'd have it already" does not apply in this instance as it does, for instance, to immigration reform. While undocumented immigration is an accepted economic advantage, with benefits to all parties, healthcare is more like suffrage, where a disadvantaged minority is agitating for their rights. Once we recognize it as a right it will become predestined and we will look back at our present system the way we look back at slavery or powdered wigs.
For profit healthcare is a historical artifact of a corrupt political system that endures due to foot dragging on campaign finance reform and Democrats' lack of commitment to the issue.
Will MFA be a winning 2020 issue? Not unless Democrats go all in and mount an aggressive offense...until they do Millennials and otherwise sympathetic voters will not trust them, and decline to vote or waste their vote on "principled" third party candidates, insuring another four years of deeper regressive hole digging.
It would be RELATIVELY easy to get universal access to care. The much harder part is to do it in a sustainable way. The current system is inefficient -- including all the employees who are paid by insurance companies to deny valid claims and all the people who are employed by providers to collect from insurance companies. If we took insurance companies out of the system (and everyone had the same policy) then we would save enough money to cover everyone.
When Congress privatized most of Medicare it became less efficient: private insurance companies work hard to cover mostly healthy people over 65. Reversing the bonus to insurance companies for privatized Medicare would save money and allow more people to get access to health care.
Ken Rosenberg, Portland, OR
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