SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
single payer
Medicare for All Advocates Welcome Obama DNC Remarks as 'New Opening for Reform'
The former president said Democratic nominee Kamala Harris "knows we can't stop" at the Affordable Care Act.
Aug 21, 2024
A brief aside in former President Barack Obama's 35-minute speech at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night provided a glimmer of hope that a Kamala Harris victory in November could be a catalyst for transformational change to the United States' disastrous for-profit healthcare system.
Obama—who before becoming president described himself as a "proponent of a single-payer universal healthcare program"—told Democratic delegates, leaders, and activists gathered inside the United Center in Chicago that the party should be "proud of the enormous progress that we've made through the Affordable Care Act," the 2010 law commonly known as Obamacare.
"But," the former president added, "Kamala knows we can't stop there, which is why she'll keep working to limit out-of-pocket costs."
Obama's remarks were far from an explicit endorsement of Medicare for All, a longstanding progressive goal that Harris backed as a senator and continued to support—at least in name—as a 2020 presidential candidate.
But longtime single-payer advocate Michael Lighty told Common Dreams on Wednesday that Obama's acknowledgment that the ACA has not been nearly enough to rein in the nation's out-of-control healthcare costs and crack down on the rampant abuses of the for-profit insurance industry "signals a new opening for reform" if Harris defeats Republican nominee Donald Trump.
"I was struck by the juxtaposition of 'access to affordable coverage,' which is the usual centrist frame for healthcare reform, and this reference to going beyond the ACA," Lighty said in response to Obama's comments. "It recognizes that rising costs overall and out-of-pocket costs especially are unsustainable."
"The cost frame is good for Medicare for All advocates," he added, "if we 'prosecute' the argument for the savings generated by Medicare for All."
Research has repeatedly shown that a Medicare for All system of the kind envisioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—the leading single-payer advocates in Congress—would cost less than the status quo while providing everyone in the U.S. with comprehensive insurance coverage for free at the point of service.
Under the nation's current for-profit system—which leaves tens of millions of Americans uninsured or underinsured and struggling to afford their out-of-pocket costs—annual healthcare spending is projected to rise to $7.7 trillion by 2032, according to federal estimates.
"It is clear that the North Star of a Harris-Walz administration is consistent with what Senator Bernie Sanders said from the DNC stage last night: guaranteeing healthcare to every person in this country."
Despite co-sponsoring Sanders' Medicare for All bill in the Senate in 2017 and campaigning on a proposal that donned the "Medicare for All" label during the 2020 Democratic primary, Harris has not made the popular progressive idea part of her 2024 platform.
A Harris campaign official toldPolitico earlier this week that Medicare for All is "no longer part of" the vice president's healthcare policy agenda, which has thus far focused largely on slashing prescription drug costs and relieving the burden of medical debt.
But Medicare for All advocates, who have seen support for the proposal surge at the state and local levels amid federal inaction, are not disheartened by the vice president's decision to sideline single-payer in her 2024 campaign.
Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, pointed to the newly unveiled Democratic platform's support for expanding Medicare benefits to include dental, vision, and hearing services as part of a viable "path forward."
"It is clear that the North Star of a Harris-Walz administration is consistent with what Senator Bernie Sanders said from the DNC stage last night: guaranteeing healthcare to every person in this country, so if you get sick you get the care you need," Lawson told Common Dreams. (The Democratic platform states that "healthcare should be a right in America, not a privilege"—a line popularized by Sanders.)
"As president," said Lawson, "it is clear that Kamala Harris would use every tool at her disposal to rein in the corporate greed, delays, and denials of the current system and continue building step by step towards a goal of universal guaranteed healthcare."
Rose Roach, national coordinator of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer, offered a similar assessment, telling Common Dreams in an email on Wednesday that while President Joe Biden "was clear that he did not support Medicare for All," he "supported important improvements to traditional Medicare that begins to build the public infrastructure we'll need for Medicare for All when it does pass"—specifically the drug price negotiation program and new constraints on corporate-run Medicare Advantage plans.
"The Labor Campaign for Single Payer believes VP Harris is equally committed to securing and protecting traditional Medicare and will work with the movement to continue the work of stabilizing our public Medicare program," said Roach. "Improving and expanding traditional Medicare, protecting it from the privatizers who are overbilling Medicare while inflicting obstacles for enrollees to access care via onerous prior authorizations and outright claims denials, is job one."
"Doing so not only offers the infrastructure building we need on the pathway to Medicare for All," Roach added, "but it also makes traditional Medicare affordable for enrollees, unions who negotiate retiree health benefits, and even for employers who offer retiree benefits. It's a win-win."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Marketplace Subsidies: Poll Tax on the Poor, Giveaways for the Rich
Subsidizing the for-profit insurance industry with taxpayer dollars is a disaster that must not continue.
Jul 30, 2024
When the Biden Administration “ended” the Covid-19 public health emergency in March 2023 for over 20 million poor children and adults on Medicaid through “Medicaid Unwinding,” it had just extended Exchange health insurance subsidies which provided billions of taxpayer dollars to health insurance corporations, for that same pandemic.
Nowhere is the dictum “socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor” more apparent than in the decision to end continuous enrollment in Medicaid, which protected millions of poor children and adults during the pandemic from being kicked off Medicaid, and to enhance, and then continue, the Exchange health insurance subsidies through the Inflation Reduction Act.
But KFF.org, a nonprofit health policy research, polling, and news organization, is sounding the alarm: “The results of the 2024 elections will likely play a major role in whether the enhanced subsidies are extended beyond 2025.” Meaning, vote for the Democratic candidate, or these subsidies will be cut off.
If the Democrats want our votes, we must stop being satisfied with crumbs and raise our demands for a national, single payer, publicly financed, publicly owned health care system for all.
Who benefits from the subsidies on the Exchanges, also aptly called “The Marketplace”? Yes, people who earn “too much” to qualify for Medicaid (or who live in states which have not expanded Medicaid) but not enough to pay for private health insurance, benefit to some extent—but only in a warped kind of way. Depending on their level of poverty, these individuals and their families might qualify for zero-premium monthly payments with hefty deductibles.
KFF.org has a nifty calculator where you plug in your state, income, and size of family and figure out how much a “silver plan” will cost you. Keep reading the fine print, because even if you have $0 monthly premiums, your out-of-pocket annual costs could be as high as $6,300. This means that you pay $6,300 per year, or 6.3% of your annual income, before the insurance company starts to pay a penny for your care. Clearly, poor people benefit if they don’t get sick.
How much would a family of four, earning about $40,000 per year, pay for this “silver plan” without subsidies from the Exchanges? Over $1,400 per month! Wait! Is the insurance company giving poor people premiums for free?
No, not really. The government, using tax dollars, pays the insurance company $1,400 for the monthly premium (the calculations are a bit more complicated, but this is the general gist of the scam). The government pays the insurance company $17,796 annually to provide the family with a silver plan, plus the family pays the plan $6,300 out-of-pocket, if they need health care that year. The health insurance plan pockets over $24,000 every year before it spends a penny on care. And that’s if the plan doesn’t deny the family care, or make their doctor go through enough prior authorizations to discourage seeking care they’ve paid for.
In 2022, health insurance companies offering plans through the Exchanges made $20 billion. If the subsidies are extended permanently, as KFF suggests, the price tag, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will be closer to $28 billion per year.
So, this election cycle, who is going to be voting for the Democrats? All the insurance company CEOs! They know who signs their checks.
There is an easier, more equitable, much less expensive way to fix this. Eliminate insurance companies and profits from health care altogether. If the Democrats want our votes, we must stop being satisfied with crumbs and raise our demands for a national, single payer, publicly financed, publicly-owned health care system for all. The health of our nation depends on it.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'We Need Medicare for All Yesterday': US Healthcare Spending to Hit $7.7 Trillion
"The jaw-dropping figures," said one advocate, "highlight the need to move to Medicare for All immediately."
Jun 14, 2024
A federal analysis released this week projects that U.S. healthcare spending is set to rise to $7.7 trillion by 2032 and account for nearly 20% of the nation's economy, findings that single-payer advocates described as yet another indictment of the country's for-profit system and further evidence of the need for Medicare for All.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) Office of the Actuary said Wednesday that it expects national healthcare expenditures to outpace U.S. economic growth over roughly the next decade, "resulting in an increase in the health spending share of GDP from 17.3% in 2022 to 19.7% in 2032."
The CMS analysis showed that U.S. healthcare spending grew at a rate of 7.5% last year, with overall expenditures reaching $4.8 trillion. CMS said it projects health spending will rise by 5.6% annually over the coming years, with overall spending reaching $7.7 trillion by 2032.
Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement Thursday that the coming surge in healthcare spending "has nothing to do with improving care and everything to do with price-gouging, monopolization, and wealth extraction by insurance corporations, Big Pharma, and for-profit hospitals."
Despite spending more on healthcare per capita than any other rich nation, the U.S. consistently ranks last among its peers in health outcomes.
Weissman on Thursday pointed to an academic analysis published earlier this week in JAMA Internal Medicine detailing the massive costs of Medicare Advantage, a federally funded program run by private insurance companies. The paper notes that private Medicare Advantage plans have overcharged the federal government to the tune of $612 billion since 2007—much of which insurers pocket as profit.
"We have known for decades that healthcare costs in the U.S. are out of control," said Weissman. "The jaw-dropping figures from CMS highlight the need to move to Medicare for All immediately so that we can finally start to make healthcare more affordable for taxpayers, while ensuring everyone in America can access the care and medicines they need."
Studies have repeatedly shown that transitioning to a Medicare for All system—as proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and more than 120 other members of Congress—would save the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars a year and countless lives compared to the status quo, which leaves tens of millions of people uninsured, underinsured, and unable to afford lifesaving treatments and medications.
Peer-reviewed research published in 2022 estimated that more than 338,000 coronavirus-related deaths could have been prevented in the U.S. if the country had a single-payer system that guaranteed coverage to all people as a right.
"Other countries spend far less per capita on healthcare while guaranteeing coverage and providing higher quality care," Weissman said Thursday. "It is time that we do the same."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular