Nancy Pelosi: 'I'm Not a Big Fan of Medicare For All'

[highplainsdem]

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/nancy-pelosi-im-not-a-big-fan-of-medicare-for-all/

-snip-

“I’m not a big fan of Medicare For All,” Pelosi said. “I welcome the debate–I think that we should have health care for all, I think the Affordable Care benefit is better than the Medicare benefits.”

“Being respectful of the point of view,” she continued but it is expensive, and who pays is very important, and what are the benefits that come in there.

I would think that hopefully as we emerge into the election year, the mantra would be more health care for all Americans, because here is a comfort level that people have with their current, private insurance that they have, and if that is to be phased out, let’s talk about it, but let’s not just have one bill that do that.

“Remember November: this is the time we have to win the electoral college, otherwise we will be faced with another president again who does not really care about increasing health benefits,” she said.

“Can you win the electoral college with Medicare for All?” Westin asked.

“Well, it would increase the vote in my own district,” Pelosi said, chuckling. “But that is not what we need to do in order to win the electoral college.”

-snip-

Video from the Bloomberg TV intervew at the link.

[redqueen]

1. "let's talk about it, but let's not just have one bill that do that."

If it is just one bill I doubt it will get through Congress.

I'd think we'd have to drastically reshape Congress before that could happen.

[Amimnoch]

25. Very much so.

2020 is not going to be the congress. Just getting the Senate majority by 50/50 with VP decider is a long shot, and the odds that all 50x would be able to come to terms of a bill of that magnitude.. well.. fantasy.

2022 is a better map, but that will depend on how our POTUS and congress manages things 2020 to 2022.

This shouldn’t even be a topic of presidential contention at this time.. but here we are..

[ritapria]

2. "People have a comfort level with the private insurance they have "

I respectfully disagree with Nancy on that score ……...People reaching the age of 65 are happy to get on Medicare

[ehrnst]

6. People reaching the age of 65 are happy to get on Medicare.

There are those who maintain their employer sponsored insurance if they are still employed. (nt)

[airplaneman]

9. my insurance from employer was crap compared to medicare - I don't know anyone

who would agree with you . I forked out 16K for insurance, co-pays, deductibles the year prior to medicare and on medicare I wont spend 4K with significantly more heath problems.
-Airplane

[brooklynite]

11. My insurance from employer is great...

Mo pre-approvals to see specialists, no significant out of pocket costs.

The point is, nobody disagrees that YOU should be able to join Medicare; just don't require it of everyone.

[ehrnst]

14. I'm talking about people that you don't know who are fearful that they will get less

than they have now.

Union members who fought years for coverage, those who are in government, and those who are currently on Medicare want to know that they aren't going to lose what they have.

Many Medicare recipients are very worried about what might happen to their plan with a massive chang.

The RW talking points on social media right now are trying to convince those on Medicare that funding and services on their plans will diminish as those who "haven't worked all these years like you did for these benefits" will get access to them.

And one of the reasons that the California didn't get their single payer plan further was that they were going to have to utilize Medicare and Medicaid funds to finance it. Those in CA on Medicare, and those with family utilizing Medicaid didn't think that they had enough information on the new plan to support it.

It's way, way more complicated than you think, and there is no politician running for office that's going to make it sound more complicated and expensive than you think it might be.

[airplaneman]

7. Yes I found that retiring at 62 was not an option for me due to health care insurance costs

Now that I am 65 I find my spendable income will double if I wait until my wife turns 65 (I will be 68) again due to health care costs. There is no option besides financial devastation for many including me. I fear being forced to retire against my will a persistent threat.
-Airplane

[emmaverybo]

10. But they still, many of them, keep private insurance to get better coverage, low prescription costs.

And these private plans can be paid for by retirement benefits. The total Medicare fee may be paid too. For some, with these plans, the only medical costs are small co-pays and a few dollars per prescription. Some plans provide coverage abroad for urgent care and emergency, even for retiring abroad. Also free gym membership.

I think M4All supporters should research why people would want to keep their plans before making assumptions.

[emmaverybo]

55. Some of us have Medicare and private; together they give 100 percent coverage, with very low drug

costs, minor co-pays, free gym, even out of country coverage. I had a low paying job and worked very long hours for this retirement benefit, as have many retirees.

Some get Medicare advantage PPO at affordable rates ; some have the plan paid in total as part of benefits.

It is not only employed people in numbers who like their private insurance, but a healthy percentage of retired.

[YOHABLO]

3. This is the centrist talking point. ''How, who, is going to pay for it?"

Let's audit the Pentagon and see how much waste is going on, say the over payments for as much as a bolt for a fighter jet> (F-35 $89 mil per unit) Jeff Bezos who makes 125 million per day, whose company pays no income tax. So don't tell me the richest country in the world can't pay for it. It's just BS.

[ehrnst]

8. Actually those are different issues.

Just like when Trump takes money from Puerto Rico recovery to pay for border patrol, we acknowledge that's not the way that the money was approved to be spent.

Yes, the Pentagon and every other government agency should indeed be accounting for and justifying the dollars spent, but we need to be careful about setting the precedent of simply moving lots of money from one place to another quickly.

If we haven't been able to tax the wealthy thus far, I'm not sure what makes people think that simply passing one law will change all of that.

We've seen what happened to the ACA.

and to save the life of a straw man... no, I'm not defending the amount spent on the DoD. I do know that many small businesses, and freelancers make their living on the DoD - mom and pop restaurants and caterers and delivery services and event suppliers near a base, freelance actors and filmmakers and sound recordists who create training videos for the Pentagon, caterers, and many more.

Because the government has privatized so much, cuts to the DoD are going to affect other parts of the economy, with consequences on those who are responsible for those cuts.

And if taxing the wealthy was simple, wouldn't it have been done by now?

Again.... I'm not justifying the tax evasion of Bezos and others like him. I'm pointing out that we didn't get to this situation overnight, and we're not going to reverse it overnight. Not even in two years...

[YOHABLO]

13. Counties with the highest median household income in U.S.all reside around D.C.

Loudoun County, Virginia.
Fairfax County, Virginia.
Howard County, Maryland.
Falls Church city, Virginia.
Arlington County, Virginia.

Can anyone say LOBBYISTS?

[ehrnst]

16. What does that have to do with the topic we were discussing?

Red Herring, anyone?

[YOHABLO]

17. If you can't figure it out then there's no use in explaining to you.

[ehrnst]

18. That's one tried and true way to avoid answering a question.

Insult the person who is asking it instead...

[Thekaspervote]

4. I glad to hear madam speaker give her opinion. She knows better than any one what will

Pass and what won’t

[brooklynite]

12. C'mon, I'm sure the blogosphere knows better.....

[highplainsdem]

19. +1,000,000

[paleotn]

52. Yea, and that Civil Rights Act. It'll never pass either...

Just can't budge those dixiecrats, so why bother? And Medicare legislation. That's just crazy stuff. A non starter. Just like the 13th Amendment. One would have to be insane even to try passing that.


Just sayin' You don't try and you're guaranteed not to succeed. Funny how that works.

[Tarheel_Dem]

15. K&R

[Cha]

20. Good for Nancy coming out

out with it.. she helped us win 2018 on Health Care!

Mahalo, hpd !

[abqtommy]

21. That's ok. I remember not long ago when Nancy wasn't a fan of impeachment either. My, how

things can change!

[redstateblues]

54. I wasn't either until the "call"

Even tho I’m in favor of impeachment now the end result will be the same as it was before impeachment. Ain’t going nowhere unfortunately

[aikoaiko]

22. Well, Nancy wasn't keen on impeachment either when she was first presented with it.

She'll get on board if others lead the way.

[KayF]

23. she will go along with it

if it's going to happen, there will have to be a big movement, a lot of people that "aren't big fans" of it will have to be pushed into supporting it.

[emmaverybo]

56. Push them? If it is so great for everyone why would you have to push them into supporting it?

[KayF]

59. because it's not as great for some people

people that have a lot of money and have sway with Pelosi and the others.

[emmaverybo]

60. Here's what M4All supporters miss: some millions, not rich, worked for benefits which they got in

the form of employer and retirement benefits-provided health insurance plans. For many of these folks, the plans are affordable (or completely paid for by their benefits) and provide 100 percent coverage including hospitalization, low drug costs, even no deductibles. Also, yes, they do cover chronic illness, along with almost any but elective or experimental treatments, extensive screenings depending on health history, excellent doctors and specialists, good hospitals and clinics.

Now these folks should be altruistic, except that they know Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, though in need of shoring up, improving, and protection, are also good programs. They also know it will take some time before M4All, if ever, is passed and then implemented. Same for its funding.

And no, higher taxes and the three or four hundred or so back in their paychecks does not recompense them, and they also suspect longer waiting times, doctor and nurse shortages, possibly not the bells and whistles they have now(gym, out of country urgent care and emergency, moving out of country coverage).

Facing the facts of private healthcare or Medicare advantage plans for these millions would help M4All supporters frame arguments, but ignoring or mocking their reservations and choices only alienates, especially when assuming they are part of rich people’s corruption or shills for private insurance. Telling them the 10 million people who still won’t be covered will have to suck lemons because of them when trillions can be raised for M4All also won’t work.

Be honest about funding problems. Don’t use NHS as a good model; it is riddled with problems. And get to know more about what they are hesitant about. You all will have to anticipate their challenge, among many others a new and huge bureaucracy and the fight for it will present. Myths about them or their plans does not help advance a case.

[Dirty Socialist]

24. How about non-profit health insurance companies?

Couple with price controls? I think it would work, would be less expensive, and be much easier to implement.

[SMC22307]

26. Medicare at 55. I'm tellin' ya, we'd CLEAN UP. (n/t)

[Dirty Socialist]

27. That's another good idea

[SMC22307]

30. Seriously, think of the 55-64 year olds who could possibly retire...

if not for exorbitant health insurance costs. I have a couple of friends around 62 who are practically counting the days to 65...

[Dirty Socialist]

31. I'm 55 myself

I think it’s a good idea

[Mariana]

44. Why won't anyone campaign on that?

It's a fantastic idea. Most in the 45-65 age group vote Republican, and this could turn a lot of them.

[SMC22307]

45. It would turn them. We're told Medicare for All is too "radical"...

and maybe it is, but this is a winner. I'm counting the years until 65 and I know I'm not alone...

[Quixote1818]

28. I like her but she is way, way, way off on this! I really don't understand this position. nt

[tirebiter]

29. Nancy understands a lot of things

That others get around to understanding eventually. She did have to know ACA well enough to get it through the House. And like with impeachment she understands timing.


“Can you win the electoral college with Medicare for All?” Westin asked.

“Well, it would increase the vote in my own district,” Pelosi said, chuckling. “But that is not what we need to do in order to win the electoral college.”

[empedocles]

32. Pelosi's joke, '['W]ell, it would increase the vote in my own district', Pelosi said chuckling'.

But that is not what we need to do in order win the electoral college.'

[Just a light chuc,ling joke, or a chuckling joke resonating across this, and a number of other issues - and and other proponents'.

[Stargleamer]

33. Well, I'm not a big fan of people going bankrupt because. . .

they can't afford their medical bills.

[roody]

34. Check her donors for

Insurance and big pharma.

[Gothmog]

36. 'This is going to cause down-ballot damage':

I and other true Democrats have been working hard to turn Texas blue. We hope to pick up six congressional seats in addition to the two seats we flipped in 2018. We have a chance to defeat Cornyn in the Senate. The Democrats picked up 12 seats in the Texas House and need 9 more to take control of the Texas House prior to the next redistricting session. If Biden is the nominee, Texas will be a battleground state. If Warren or sanders is the nominee. Texas will not be a battle ground state and we can forget about keeping the two seats that we flipped in 2018

Speaker Pelosi is worried about losing control of the House with a weak top of the ballot ticket with a program that will kill down ballot candidates
.

Link to tweet

The most-vulnerable Democrat in Colorado’s state House, Bri Buentello, is dreading door-knocking in her rural district now that Elizabeth Warren dropped her massive “Medicare for All” plan into the presidential arena.
“This is going to cause down-ballot damage in swing districts and states if she’s the nominee,” Buentello says, describing how her Pueblo-area constituents — who voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in 2016 — were already echoing criticisms about a giant, one-size-fits-all big government run plan that cancels private health insurance and raises taxes.
Story Continued Below

The fear of blowback is indicative of the broad and largely negative response to Warren’s proposal from centrist, moderate and rural Democrats — many of whom, like Buentello, back Joe Biden in the primary. And it exposes the fault line between those who fret about winning voters in the center and the activist progressive base propelling Warren to the front of the Democratic pack.

The long-awaited plan to raise the $20.5 trillion she says is needed to pay for single-payer health care in America is Warren’s attempt to answer critics after weeks of questions from rival candidates about the cost of her proposal and the prospect of higher taxes. Warren promised, as she has in the past, that "not one penny in middle-class tax increases” is necessary to finance the effort.

[WA-03 Democrat]

41. You are so wrong

The woman who stood up to T Rump and is leading the fight to save our country is just a corporate whore. Your purity is noted.

[Gothmog]

35. Pelosi: 'I'm not a big fan of Medicare for All'

Link to tweet

[Joe941]

37. She will follow the leaders of the democratic party in time.

I trust her.

[MrsCoffee]

39. She is a leader of the Democratic Party.

Stood the test of time leader.

Third most powerful person in the US leader.

Rolling in the Blue Wave tsunami leader.

But you go on with that badass suggestion that she become a follower....

Follow who exactly? Bernie the guy who has been a Democrat for five minutes? The losing and divisive Justice Democrats? The new kids on the block?

[maximusveritas]

42. "Bernie the guy who has been a Democrat for five minutes"

Hah, even that's being generous. He's only a Democrat for the sake of having a better chance of winning rather than running as an Independent.
And Warren didn't register as a Democrat until the mid-90s having been a Republican most of her life.
These are the people supposedly leading the Democratic Party according to their supporters instead of the true leaders who have been fighting the fight since before these kids were born.

[brooklynite]

38. I'm sure the blogosphere knows better than she does...

[Beringia]

40. Not surprising

[Gothmog]

43. From Harry Reid

Link to tweet

[Hekate]

46. Notable feature of Nancy: she can count votes. When she says something, take that into account.nt

[Gothmog]

47. In battleground states, MFA is a bad idea

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

49. Medicare for All's JOBS problem

Link to tweet

Initial research from University of Massachusetts economists who have consulted with multiple 2020 campaigns has estimated that 1.8 million health care jobs nationwide would no longer be needed if Medicare for All became law, upending health insurance companies and thousands of middle class workers whose jobs largely deal with them, including insurance brokers, medical billing workers and other administrative employees. One widely cited study published in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that administration accounted for nearly a third of the U.S.’ health care expenses.

Even if a bigger government expansion into health care left doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals’ jobs intact, it would still cause a restructuring of a sprawling system that employs millions of middle-class Americans.

University of Massachusetts researchers who analyzed the 2017 version of Sanders’ Medicare for All bill estimated that nationwide more than 800,000 people who work for private health insurance companies and a further 1 million who handle administrative work for health care providers would see their jobs evaporate.

The workers generally earn middle-class wages, according to the November 2018 study forecasting the economic ramifications of Sanders’ plan. The median annual income of a worker employed in the health insurance industry is nearly $55,000; for office and administrative jobs at health care service sites, it’s about $35,000, researchers said.

“The savings don’t come out of the sky,” said Pollin. “The main way we save money is through administrative simplicity. That means layoffs. There’s just no way around it.”

[Gothmog]

50. When it comes to Medicare-for-all, listen to Nancy Pelosi

Link to tweet

When it comes to Democrats’ obsession with Medicare-for-all, listen to Nancy Pelosi. The House speaker put it more politely, but on the very day that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) unveiled her plan to remake the U.S. health-care system for the lowball price of $20.5 trillion, Pelosi made it clear that she thought this was political insanity.

“I’m not a big fan of Medicare-for-all,” Pelosi told Bloomberg TV on Friday. She cited the cost. She noted the “comfort level that some people have with their current private insurance.” And she cautioned, “Remember November.” Pushing Medicare-for-all “would increase the vote in my own district,” the California Democrat said, “but that’s not what we need to do in order to win the electoral college.”

Indeed. For years after passage of the Affordable Care Act, Democrats paid a steep, and unfair, political price for enacting the law. Then the electoral calculus flipped. Health care became a political winner for Democrats, and the Trump administration offered the party a gift with its continuing crusade against the ACA.....

A smart party would seize this opening and go on the offensive against the Republican effort to take popular coverage away from millions. Instead, the Democratic presidential field is immersed in a destructive internecine battle over the wisdom of a massive entitlement expansion. Imagine President Trump hammering Democratic nominee Warren in a general-election campaign. He would accuse her of plotting to take away your private insurance, dangerously hiking federal spending and, citing Warren’s primary rivals, ultimately socking the middle class with a tax increase when she can’t raise enough otherwise.

[guillaumeb]

51. When it comes to Medicare for All, or single payer,

should we ignore the fact that single payer works better, and is cheaper that the US system of profit centered care?

Or, should we instead believe the insurance company propaganda that single payer magically cannot work in the US?

[Turbineguy]

53. In any case, the program would have to evolve and develop.

The current Medicare system could not possibly run the entire population of the country. In fact it might be better to have regional systems. Something like regions on the scale of Germany or France.

[Bleacher Creature]

57. I'm a Warren supporter, but there's no better political strategist than Nancy Pelosi.

The only thing that matters is beating Trump in 2020. And as much as I support MFA, we're sure as hell not getting it with his re-election.

[PhoenixDem]

58. This shows MFA is DOA

and

a

political

suicide

[Cha]

61. Kick!

[Gothmog]

62. Nancy Pelosi is "not for doing away with Obamacare" and prefers to give people choices.

Link to tweet