May, 26 2021, 12:00am EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sumer Shaikh, Green New Deal Network, sshaikh@greennewdealnetwork.org
McKenzie Wilson, Data for Progress, mckenzie@dataforprogress.org
POLL: Voters Support Economic Renewal Plan Centering Climate, Labor, and Justice
New polling from Data for Progress, Green New Deal Network shows national voters overwhelmingly support the THRIVE Act.
WASHINGTON
Today, Data for Progress and Green New Deal Network released a new poll finding that voters support a comprehensive and justice-oriented approach to creating new jobs and infrastructure: the THRIVE Act, a $10 trillion community investment over the next 10 years that tackles the multiple overlapping crises in their communities, from pollution and climate change to unemployment.
- Nearly two-thirds of voters support the THRIVE Act, regardless of whether the framing of the bill centers on labor, climate, or justice
- Voters overwhelmingly back all of the THRIVE Act's main policy objectives, with every objective earning broad bipartisan support, including reinvesting in healthcare and education institutions, ensuring a just transition to clean energy, combating environmental injustice, creating 15 million new jobs, and cutting climate pollution in half by 2030
- A majority of voters support the THRIVE Act's plan to direct 50% of investments to communities that are most impacted by climate change, pollution, and the clean energy transition. Voters support these investments in impacted communities by a +40 point margin.
- Voters across party lines support the THRIVE Act: Republican voters support several of the THRIVE Act's measures, including reinvesting in public institutions (55 percent support) and ensuring a just transition to clean energy (52 percent support)
- Over three-quarters of likely voters are concerned about the impacts of air and water pollution and unemployment on their communities, while over two-thirds are concerned about climate change, racism, and injustice
"With social, economic, and environmental crises impacting communities across the country, voters want to see Congress pass an economic recovery package that not only creates jobs, but also advances climate and racial justice," said Danielle Deiseroth, Senior Climate Analyst at DFP. "The urgency of the climate crisis calls for an aggressive whole-of-government response, and it's why voters back the scale and ambition of the THRIVE Act that meets this moment."
"It's clear that the American people want the government to start working for them in a big way by making a significant investment in new jobs, infrastructure, and the fight against climate change - all while being grounded in justice and equity," said Lauren Maunus, Advocacy Director for Sunrise Movement. "Voters want to see a transformation of our economy and society to the scale of the THRIVE Act, and ignoring our demands will only isolate young people and jeopardize Democrats' chances in 2022, 2024 and beyond."
Data for Progress is a multidisciplinary group of experts using state-of-the-art techniques in data science to support progressive activists and causes.
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Sanders (I-Vt.) took to the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon to ask for unanimous consent to pass the Medicare Dental, Hearing, and Vision Expansion Act, which is spearheaded in the House of Representatives by Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas).
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After Crapo (R-Idaho) rose to stop the bill from advancing, he and Sanders had a brief exchange in which the Republican agreed to working on achieving the "outcome" of the federal healthcare program covering dental, vision, and hearing.
In Sanders' remarks on the Senate floor about his bill, he sounded the alarm about efforts by President Donald Trump, billionaire Elon Musk, and congressional Republicans to cut government healthcare programs and Social Security.
"Yeah, we have more nuclear weapons than any other country, we have more billionaires than any other country, but we also have one of the highest rates of senior poverty of any country on Earth. We might want to get our priorities right," said Sanders, who has long fought for achieving universal healthcare in the United States via his Medicare for All legislation.
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To pay for his expansion plan, Sanders calls for ensuring that Medicare pays no more for prescription drugs than the Department of Veterans Affairs and addressing the tens of billions of dollars that privately administered Medicare Advantage plans overcharge the federal government annually.
In a statement about the bill, Doggett highlighted that "this expanded care could help prevent cognitive impairment and dementia, worsened chronic disease, and imbalance leading to falls with deadly consequences. This is an essential step to fulfilling the original promise of Medicare—to assure dignity and health for all."
Welcoming their renewed push for Medicare expansion, Public Citizen healthcare advocate Eagan Kemp declared that "at the same time Trump and his cronies in Congress try to rip healthcare away from millions and push for further privatization of Medicare, Sen. Sanders and Rep. Doggett are showing what one of our top priorities in healthcare should be—improving traditional Medicare."
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The Trump administration said Tuesday that it would resume military aid to and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine after that country's leadership endorsed a U.S. proposal for a 30-day cease-fire in the war defending against Russia's three-year invasion and occupation.
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The watchdog group Public Citizen on Tuesday released a research brief about the hundreds of millions of dollars Medicare Advantage companies have spent on lobbying ahead of a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing for Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Oz, a heart surgeon and former television host, is President Donald Trump's nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS)—an agency in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is led by conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Health experts and others have sounded the alarm about Oz since Trump announceded his nomination in November, with many opponents highlighting the doctor's investments in companies with direct CMS interests and his push to expand Medicare Advantage when he unsuccessfully ran as a Republican to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate in 2022.
Medicare Advantage is a type of CMS-approved health insurance plan from a private company that seniors can choose for medical coverage instead of government-administered Medicare. Critics often call it a "profit-seeking healthcare scam."
Public Citizen's brief points out that last year, "more than half of all seniors eligible for Medicare were enrolled" in these private plans that "cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars and deliver inferior care compared to traditional Medicare."
"Since their inception in 2003, Medicare Advantage plans are estimated to have cost taxpayers more than $600 billion in overpayments," the document notes. "These overpayments are expected to grow to $1 trillion over the next decade."
"Just seven companies account for 84% of all Medicare Advantage enrollment," the brief continues. "While lobbying disclosures do not reveal how much is spent on a single issue, disclosures reveal that these seven companies spent more than $330 million combined lobbying on all issues over the last five years, according to data from OpenSecrets."
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