David Sirota strikes again...

[brooklynite]

BERN NOTICE: The Hamptons & the Obi-Wan Kenobi Principle

Criticizing Medicare for All may get applause at donor parties in the Hamptons, but the attacks are helping Bernie Sanders in the rest of America

Bern Notice is a production of the Bernie 2020 campaign. Please forward this on to your friends and tell them to subscribe. The views expressed here are solely of the bylined author.

Kamala Harris today proved the old adage: promises made to big donors in the Hamptons don’t stay in the Hamptons.

According to Bloomberg News, Harris visited the wealthy enclave this weekend, and told donors that she is now “uncomfortable” with Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation -- which Harris is actually co-sponsoring. Harris generated big headlines a few months back when she unequivocally declared that she wanted to get rid of private insurance, but her spokesperson today said that “she isn't running on Bernie's plan anymore.”

“Anymore”...priceless.

As unions and grassroots groups have helped build momentum for Medicare for All, Harris and many other 2020 Democrats have spent the past few weeks trying to short circuit Medicare for All and preserve the private insurance industry whose premiums, deductibles and co-pays now cost $28,000 a year to cover the average family of four. All that money isn’t buying better care for millions of Americans -- but it is helping health industry CEOs get paid $2.6 billion last year alone.

The Harris flip flop is a reminder that while Medicare for All received an enthusiastic response at Bernie’s Fox News townhall in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania -- it doesn’t get that kind of response on the big dollar fundraising circuit in the Hamptons. It also probably wouldn’t elicit a great response at Joe Biden’s first fundraiser hosted by a major insurance CEO.

And so Harris, Biden and other Democrats aren’t spending lots of their time attacking Donald Trump and the GOP for doing the bidding of their health care industry donors. Instead, they are attacking the Medicare for All framework that now has the support of the majority of Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. House. They are also refusing to join a pledge to reject campaign cash from insurance executives and lobbyists.

Now the question is: what are the political ramifications of this battle in the Democratic presidential primary? New polling and economic data provide some important clues.

The Obi-Wan Kenobi Principle

Obi-Wan Kenobi warned Darth Vader that “if you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine” -- and that principle now appears to be at play in the politics of health care. Indeed, it seems the more other candidates defend their insurance industry donors and attack Bernie’s plan to replace private insurance with a Medicare for All system, the better it is for Bernie.

According to recent surveys from CNN, ABC/WashPost, Reuters and Morning Consult, Bernie is now the most trusted candidate on the health care issue.

One reason the attacks may be boomeranging is because of Americans’ underlying sentiments about Sanders’ signature Medicare for All legislation. Consider two points:

A strong majority of voters support Medicare for All, according to recent polls from from HarrisX (70% support), RealClear Opinion Research (65% support), Morning Consult (55% support), YouGov (52% support) and ABC News/Washington Post (52% support).

A strong majority of voters support Medicare for All replacing private insurance, according to polls from RealClear Opinion Research, Morning Consult, YouGov, Business Insider and Tulchin Research.

As Bernie put it at the recent presidential debate: "People don't like their health insurance companies, they like their doctors.”

Insurance CEOs Are Eating Americans’ Wages

Why is there such a hunger for fundamental change in our current corporate-run health care system? Because health care costs are gobbling up more and more of Americans’ wages and time, without delivering better results:

The Wall Street Journal reports that between 1990 and 2017, “average per capita personal health-care expenditures rose about 276%.”

Axios reports that “health spending by families who get their insurance from large employers has grown two times faster than wages over the last decade.

Axios reported that two decades ago, “the average health insurance coverage for a family consumed 14% of the average household income.” By 2017, that number was up “to about 31% of take-home pay.”

Overall, the results of all this spending aren’t better care, better outcomes or better coverage:

The Economist notes that “America spends about twice as much on health care as other rich countries but has the highest infant-mortality rate.”

CNBC reports that “an estimated 530,000 families turn to bankruptcy each year because of medical issues and bills.”

In the Atlantic, People’s Policy Project director Matt Bruenig reported that “America’s level of uninsurance leads to more than 35,000 unnecessary deaths every year.”

While all this is great for the health insurance companies that are pumping campaign cash into elections, everyone else is drowning in paperwork and legal red tape:

A recent Washington Post report documents that “for many people in medical debt, a trip to the emergency room leads to the courtroom” where they are sued for failing to pay bills they can’t afford.

While Democrats like Harris are now aiming to preserve or expand private insurers’ role in Medicare through Medicare Advantage plans, Modern Healthcare reports that federal officials found that such plans “plans could be denying needed medical services to maximize profits.” A recent New York Times oped by public policy researchers also noted that “private insurers make Medicare extraordinarily confusing, increasing costs for beneficiaries and their own profits.”

Data published in the Harvard Business Review shows “that from 1990 to 2012, the number of workers in the U.S. health system grew by nearly 75%” but “nearly 95% of this growth was in non-doctor workers.”


Taken together, journalist Dave Dayen says the corporate-run health care system creates a giant tax on Americans’ free time.

“Once insured, Americans must make sure their health care providers, from primary care physicians to specialists, are in-network,” he wrote in the New Republic. “There are reimbursement claims and deductibles and co-pays to be aware of. Those who have a health savings account have to file their receipts to use their own funds to pay for health care, which sounds simple but can be a bureaucratic nightmare, if some horror stories can be believed.”

Back in January, Harris was touting Bernie’s Medicare for All bill by noting it would attack this very problem. She said his legislation would mean “you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require….Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on.”

That’s exactly what Bernie is proposing — and why the new attacks on his legislation in defense of the insurance industry are actually helping him.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

1. The is nothing in that piece that is not true.

Thanks for posting!

[crazytown]

2. "A strong majority of voters support Medicare for All replacing private insurance"?

Where are those polls?

[George II]

9. There's quite a bit in that piece that is not true.

[Autumn]

3. No linkey dinkey?

[brooklynite]

4. Personal email

[Hassin Bin Sober]

6. What's your email sign-in and password?

[zackymilly]

8. I'm tired of hearing about his emails! n/t

[Autumn]

10. "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails,"

[George II]

14. I get them, too. The only thing is that I never gave him the email address to which he sends them..

Wonder how he got it?

On the other hand, I did give it to the DNC in December 2015.

[sheshe2]

19. ...

[Eliot Rosewater]

26. Do you speak Russian? I dont, but the more I think about it the more I think we need to.

[ehrnst]

37. You, too?

Weird, huh?

[sharedvalues]

27. Thanks for posting

[TexasTowelie]

5. It looks like the only one being berned are Bernie's Democratic competitors.

It doesn't come as a surprise that Bernie's staff of Jill Stein supporters take aim at actual Democrats.

[Eliot Rosewater]

28. Or folks who are NEVER to be found when saying something positive about ANY democrat is

being done, NEVER.

So sick of this fucking GAME

[George II]

7. One of the most ridiculous points in that long drawn out "stump speech" is the last one....

Characterizing a difference of opinion on how to achieve eventual universal healthcare as a "defense of the insurance industry"! Where does he come up with that? There are several good plans being proposed better than the still less than fully-defined "Medicare for All" plan. The fact that others have different plans means they're "defending" the insurance industry? Ludicrous.

Probably the second most ridiculous point follows - that "attacking" (i.e., presenting something different) his legislation, which really isn't to the legislation stage anyway, is "helping him". If that were the case he'd be leading in the polls in every state and nationally.

In fact, he's no better than second in any, and in many states he's third or fourth. If that's helping, then have at it.

[oasis]

39. +1 billion. nt

[Me.]

11. "if you strike me down,

I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine”

Hey Mr. Sirota, can you spell the word delusional?

[Vegas Roller]

18. lol

[Uncle Joe]

12. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread brooklynite.

[Moostache]

13. I want people to start making a bigger deal of the profit motive in health care...

Medicare for All starts by first and foremost removing the profit motive from healthcare distribution. No longer does an insurance company need to balance patient care, premiums AND a massive bonus and salary for the CEO and the CFO and the board members and the executive committee of the organization...

Every dollar taken out in profits is a dollar or premium or cost that the patient paid out but received NOTHING in return for...no treatment, no doctor's visit, no diagnosis, no tests....NOTHING.

Profit-seeking is fine in building cars, or homes or designing web pages or clothing, or a myriad of other things....profit-seeking has no place in health care, no place in prisons, no place in public education (where BTW....football coaches making $8M+ a year and being the highest paid state employee is NOT 'ok' either...) at all.

Human rights should NEVER be subject to accounting analysis, EVER!

[Hassin Bin Sober]

15. K and R!

[melman]

16. Sounds good

Thanks for sharing!

[Vegas Roller]

17. lol

[rzemanfl]

33. I see both your lols and raise you one.

[betsuni]

20. Fox News townhall good. Hamptons Democrats bad.

Got it.

[mcar]

21. Bernie is afraid of Kamala

[Me.]

22. He Should Be

'cause she's not afraid of him

[mcar]

23. Yep

[Cha]

24. Yes.. And, Elizabeth.. and Biden..

They're afraid of them all.. yet they don't try to broaden their base. Really weird.

[mcar]

25. It is weird

He seems to think he can play the same tune.

[Eliot Rosewater]

30. Yep, do any of his supporters ever look at what he has ACTUALLY accomplished in

T W E N T Y

N I N E

Y E A R S

?

[mcar]

32. A good question

[guillaumeb]

29. Recommended.

Money is speech. So proclaimed the SCOTUS.

And this "speech" speaks far louder than the voices of actual voters.

[highplainsdem]

31. Sirota's wrong about the polling on MFA. It polls really well only when voters don't understand it.

When it's explained to them that it means giving up private insurance, and when they're polled on a public option as well as an alternative to MFA, they prefer the public option.

A number of recent polls have confirmed that.

Medicare For All polls really well only when people misunderstand it as Medicare For Alll Who Want To Buy Into It.


http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/medicare-for-all-polls-public-option-kaiser-popular-misunderstood.html

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/medicare-for-all-poll-obamacare-public-option-biden_n_5d3f13d1e4b01d8c977f25cf

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/27/politics/medicare-for-all-vs-public-option-black-democrats/index.html

[emmaverybo]

36. As usual, good research. Thanks, highplainsdem.

[lunasun]

34. Kick

[TwilightZone]

35. I hope he got clearance from Disney.

Otherwise, he might be getting a cease-and-desist notice shortly.

[Cha]

38. kick