Mark Shields on Warren's Medicare for All - PBS NewsHour

[question everything]

And as far as Elizabeth Warren is concerned, I think what happened, there's a real cold shower of reality into it, Judy. It was 1949, 70 years ago, Harry Truman proposed national health care. It was defeated by calling it socialized medicine.

Every Democratic President Trump that point forward fought for it, from — and they were talented people, jack Kennedy and Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton. And they did their best effort. And the only time it broke was Medicare and Medicaid in '65. That's 54 years ago, all right? And that was Lyndon Johnson because of the Goldwater landslide. Other than that, there's been resistance. Finally, in 2010, the Democrats get it. Give Barack Obama credit. Give Nancy Pelosi, people who voted for it credit. It costs a lot of people their careers and their seats. It cost the Democrats their Majority.

And it took seven more years before people said they were favorable. Now, the idea that you're going to pass Medicare for all with the whisk of your hand is just absolutely blowing smoke. It is self-delusion. It's self-deception. It's going to require careers. It's going to require the same kind of effort Bill Bradley put into four years of working on tax reform, which was, if anything, a lot less tough…

Judy Woodruff:

But you're saying that's what's hurt Warren?

Mark Shields:

Yes.

Mark Shields:

We found out the cost, I mean, the reality. It's a cold shower. I mean, nice to talk about it. It ain't going to happen.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/shields-and-brooks-on-impeachment-public-opinion-shifting-2020-democratic-race

[Cha]

1. "Give Barack Obama credit. Give Nancy Pelosi, people who voted for it credit."

It costs a lot of people their careers and their seats. It cost the Democrats their Majority."

Because of all the hatefilled gaslighting from both ends of the spectrum.

[KPN]

16. Yikes.

[highplainsdem]

2. K&R!

[Hekate]

3. People just do not want to hear this, but Mark Shields is correct. I mean 70 years, people.

Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi spent enormous political capital on the ACA, and people on the left are still, um, bellyaching about the results, while politicians on the right are still trying to kill it dead by any means.

[Tumbulu]

18. So true! nt

[Cha]

20. Exactly, Hekate. It's not "revisionist history" as

I saw someone assert.

[Blue_true]

44. What you pointed out is the infuriating part.

Bernie Sanders proposes complete revamp of our healthcare system and NO ONE presses him on exactly how he will do that when some very smart people had failed for decades. People on the left bash the ACA, but it is the only rational starting block that we have if we plan to reach universal healthcare coverage.

[myohmy2]

4. hogwash...

...a conservative Dem pundit blowing establishment smoke,

"I mean, nice to talk about it. It ain't going to happen."

...remember in 2016 when trump was nice to talk about and wasn't going to happen?

...we are living in volatile political times when anything is possible...even MFA

...yet Shields seemed optimistic about impeachment?

...go figure...

[Uncle Joe]

13. I agree myohmy.

"It always seems impossible until it's done."

Nelson Mandela

[ritapria]

30. Mrk Shields can go fly a kite

500 Thousand people go bankrupt each year because of our glorious private health insurance companies ...He doesn't give a shit

[betsuni]

33. Saying that something hasn't been able get votes for the last 70 votes is

stating reality. How do you possibly get "He doesn't give a shit" from that?

[TreasonousBastard]

35. Oh yeah. That he made such a point of it suggests he does give a shit.

[TexasTowelie]

37. That claim received three Pinocchios.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/28/sanderss-flawed-statistic-medical-bankruptcies-year/

[Blue_true]

46. You are giving a symptom. Explain how we get the prescription for eliminating that symptom. nt

[Hassin Bin Sober]

39. Thinking the same thing.

What does this guy sitting on his ass in a studio in Washington talking to repigs know about what is going on out there?

Washington bubble.

[redqueen]

40. I wish I could agree. Our government is still ruled by cash.

Cash helped Trump. It will not help anyone pushing M4A.

[Blue_true]

45. Truman proposed national healthcare because he saw a need.

He was defeated on that effort. Every democratic President since him tried to get universal coverage, as Shields pointed out, only LBJ came close before President Obama and Speaker Pelosi broke through with the ACA, the political costs of that victory were enormous, mostly because the left whined that not enough was done.

You think that Bernie Sanders can deliver something that no other democratic President has done. Explain to me how a person that has a pretty thin record in Congress will accomplish such a massive lift? No bullshit, explain how he does something that Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton and Obama failed to do. Johnson was one of the most accomplished congressional people to ever step into the White House and the best he could do was get 65 and over and very poor people medical care that was somewhat reliable. Explain how Bernie will accomplish something that the most accomplished legislative mind in the last century could not accomplish. NO BULLSHIT or name calling, just facts.

[myohmy2]

53. "Explain how Bernie will accomplish something..."

...the situation and circumstances at the time will dictate the exact course of action Bernie will take with the necessary people involved...

...I believe if anyone can make MFA happen, Bernie can...right now he's building a movement that will see it through...

...what if trump's impeached but acquitted and President's are deemed above the law?...I'm confident Bernie will take full advantage of new-found trumpian presidential powers...I can't predict the future but I have faith in Bernie, his ideas and his supporters...

...back 70 years ago the country had just won a global war and the economy was booming as we helped rebuild ourselves and the world...Unions with good Contracts with excellent benefits were plentiful...that's not what we have today...

...times have changed along with new people, fresh outlooks and ideas...pragmatic problem solving outlooks and ideas...if you championed universal healthcare in the past you were branded a 'Communist', lost elections and nearly ran out of town...today, the average American under the age of 50 doesn't even know what a Communist is or was yet alone willing to run or vote out of fear...being called a 'Commie' only works on people over 60...

...the fact is, we have an over-priced capitalist healthcare system the makes wall-street rich as people die from lack of healthcare...MFA will fix that...

...and Bernie will make MFA happen...

[Blue_true]

67. I am not convinced that a man who was a career backbencher can get a giant

lift like MFA done. Any influence that Bernie had in Congress came via the Democratic Party. Your first paragraph said it all, Bernie doesn't have a clue of what to do, he will play it by ear once elected. Try to convince millions of voters that we need to help us win the Presidency and a strong control of Congress that Bernie has it all covered, I don't think that discussion will go well.

I do agree with you that if the Courts don't corrall Trump that we should use every allowance the Courts granted him to do what we think is right. We just have to win first, and that takes finesse that I have not seen Bernie Sanders demonstrate.

[Gus2525]

5. That's B S. The media has decided to take aim at Warren and Harris this week

trying to weaken their campaigns much like they did with HRC in '16. Why can't we have health care like all other industrialized nations? Oh, yea, the trillion-dollar tax cut scam. Some things you have to fight for especially when the financial and healthcare giants are feeling the heat.

[BeyondGeography]

6. Be happy; with all the money we spend, we're number 37!

World Health Organization’s Ranking of the World’s Health Systems

1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 USA

http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-health-care-information/world-health-organizations-ranking-of-the-worlds-health-systems/

[brooklynite]

7. Share this table with non-liberal voters; I'm SURE it will do the trick, right?

[BeyondGeography]

9. America's health care FAIL crosses party lines

[question everything]

22. No one is saying that our current healthcare is OK

The question is whether, when our main goal is to remove Trump, whether we can afford to scare many voters with a “revolution.” Remember, most of the seats flipped last year were by moderates.

[BeyondGeography]

29. It would be nice if we all accepted two things as Democrats

Our for-profit primary insurance model is fundamentally incompatible with universally affordable and accessible health care.

Secondly, any proposal that threatens that model, including the public option, will be fought to the death and smeared with a massive FUD campaign by health care interests. For instance:

AHIP CEO speaks out against Biden's healthcare plan

The CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans said a healthcare plan proposed by Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden is not much different than "Medicare for All," which the industry strongly opposes, according to The Hill.

In an interview with The Hill, AHIP CEO Matt Eyles spoke out against Mr. Biden's healthcare plan, which aims to strengthen the ACA while also introducing a public health insurance option. Mr. Eyles said the public option, which would be similar to Medicare, would lead to too much government involvement in the healthcare system.

“If you're creating a government-run option that essentially leverages price controls, and relies on a government-administered system, that doesn't create what would be a competitive playing field," Mr. Eyles told the publication. "We're viewing Medicare for All and all of these other…variations on it, as similarly bad."

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/payer-issues/ahip-comes-out-against-biden-s-healthcare-plan.html

I get the short-term politics, but we should also understand what we’re up against as a party and as a country. We can play for the safer thing, but when it comes to legislation look what happened with ACA; Democrats paid a huge political price for a bill that was gutted of cost-control provisions by the same interests who are lining up to sabotage us again. Would that we had more unity of purpose to oppose them instead of playing one hypothetical plan against the other to “reassure” voters rather than build a constituency for necessary change. Maybe some decade.

[customerserviceguy]

61. And that graph

as wonderful as it is, ignores the amounts that lawsuits and the threat of them add to our medical costs. I'm sure that you'd find that we have far more malpractice lawsuit activity in the US than any of the countries on the list ahead of us.

One possible solution is to eliminate private malpractice insurance, make the Federal Government the sole provider of this commodity, and publish lists of health care providers who have cost the insurance fund. Right now, non-disclosure agreements are part of the process, keeping the public from knowing who's incompetent and who's not.

We could even base premiums on how much of a doctor or hospital's services are provided to Medicare and Medicaid patients. Treat 100% of your patients with those programs, and you pay no (or just a very minimal) malpractice premium.

We are not going to bend the cost curve of healthcare downwards until we stop stuffing so much money into the pockets of lawyers.

[BeyondGeography]

62. M4A in and of itself would decrease malpractice insurance costs

From a radiation oncologist of more than 20 years, in Chicago and for the military:

I left full-time medicine a few years ago after getting fed up with continuously fighting insurance companies for pre-authorization and for the right to practice medicine the way I was trained within the standard published guidelines. I now work part-time seeing primarily uninsured and Medicaid patients.

A 2011 Health Affairs study found that the average US physician spends nearly $83,000 a year interacting with insurance plans. And a 2010 American Medical Association Study found the average doctor spent 20 hours a week on pre-authorization activities. This has only gotten more expensive and much worse. Under a single payer plan, this would be much easier and far less expensive.

In addition, we know that the major cost of malpractice coverage is for the continued medical care of the patient that was harmed. A single payer system would insure that any such patient would be covered for the rest of their lives and as a result, malpractice coverage would also be dramatically lower.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2018/8/10/17676632/voxcare-single-payer-medicare-for-all-doctors-lobbyists

[customerserviceguy]

63. A worker's comp type of system

would do the same thing. And, we could keep the public informed about what's really going on with healthcare providers.

Yes, pre-authorization expenses are a nice target to aim at, but my experience with Group Health Cooperative and Kaiser Permanente in the Pacific Northwest have shown me that the deniers are simply part of the system.

With M4A, the ambulance chasers that view each visit to a healthcare provider as a lottery ticket waiting to be scratched will see the number of lottery tickets multiply.

[woundedkarma]

12. wait what...

I am voting for Warren come hell or high water. (umm well trump is pres.. hell, check. global climate change, high water, check .. sigh)

Andddd... Uk and Canada are always held up as big countries that did universal health care... but canada really iisn't much higher on the list than we are.. and I thought UK would be in the top 10...

[luvtheGWN]

15. There are lots of factors that most people don't consider

when the powers-that-be put out these lists.

Canada's relatively small population, spread out in the second largest country in the world, adds considerable costs. Access is another factor. Think of people living in the Northwest Territories and Yukon -- small populations that, when hospitalization is required, must travel hundreds if not thousands of miles.

Given that the US population is 10 times that of Canada, in a smaller country, and with everyone contributing to a national healthcare program through their taxes, the US could easily climb to the top of the list. If only people would understand that the little extra they pay in taxes is more than offset by the elimination of insurance premiums and deductibles....Eliminating for-profit hospitals and negotiating on a massive scale with big pharma.....cutting back the military budget and taking care of folks stateside.....

Oh, why bother.......

[Duppers]

10. Exactly.

And the MSM billionaires are very worried about Warren hurting their precious tax rates.

[KPN]

17. Not just the media. Party leadership as well.

[PatrickforO]

24. Damned right! And we're going to fight as long as it takes and as

hard as it takes. The powers opposing Medicare for All must be FORCED to acquiesce, and politicians who are not afraid to be one-term for the sake of doing the right thing must lay their cards on the table. That's why I like AOC and some of the other new people. They are not beholden to anyone and aren't afraid of losing reelection. THAT is the kind of political courage we need here.

Because sometimes, like with the impeachment, it is about doing the right thing, not political continuity. Consider also the Republican Party's Southern Strategy - born when LBJ forced the Civil Rights Act through in 1964 knowing it would lose the Democratic Party the south for a generation.

Well, it's been more than a generation, but I'll tell you this - we don't need racists in this party. LBJ did the right thing, and we did lose the south. But we're slowing getting them back. Ever so slowly. And you know what? If Congress hadn't had the guts to back LBJ's play back in 1964 and risk big, we STILL WOULD NOT HAVE A CIVIL RIGHTS ACT.

That's how it is. Resistance is inconvenient for the powers that be. Reform is inconvenient. Justice is inconvenient.

Let it be.

[rainy]

60. So true!

[TreasonousBastard]

36. If everything else fails, just blame it on the media.

[crazytown]

8. 2010 had nothing to do an economy in deep recession?

Revisionist history.

[PatrickforO]

25. You know, the way I see it is this:

Obama had some wonderful ideas and was not able to put all of them in effect because once again, the Republicans created a GIANT MESS for us to clean up just before he was elected and then inaugurated.

And the ACA? It saved some lives of people who got laid off back then, during the Great Recession. I know.

But now it is time for Medicare for All, and for Congress to have the guts to make massive revisions in the tax code.

[BigmanPigman]

11. Even Nixon tried to get a type of health care reform going.....

"But in 1974, President Richard Nixon advanced one of the most interesting proposals —introducing a number of novel ideas that have since been incorporated into many reform efforts."

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2017/lessons-universal-coverage-unexpected-advocate-richard-nixon

[NYMinute]

14. K&R nt

[Cha]

19. No.. it's Not "revisionist history".. it happened.. I happen

to have been there and saw what was going on.

[Indykatie]

21. I'm Pissed That Warren Has to Take The Brunt Of the Attacks on Bernie's M4All

We allowed Bernie to build his reputation on M4All as the uptopian ideal without ever forcing him to talk about the associated costs in dollars and jobs. It took Warren to own up to the impact that M4All would have were it ever to pass. It won't ever pass but it's still costing her big time support in the primary. Unions exist to fight for better wages and better healthcare. I've always wondered how deep their support for M4All really is since it would eliminate much of their leverage with members.

[question everything]

23. Warren is in the lead Sanders is not

Warren is poised with her plans, Sanders still appears as an Old Tetament angry prophet.

On the other and, Sanders is honest that Medicare for all, like the current Medicare and Social Security will have to be supported by our taxes.

[PatrickforO]

26. I don't know what makes you think it will cost jobs.

As an economist specializing in labor force trends I can tell you that after passage of the ACA, the healthcare field exploded to the point where the healthcare industry is the biggest employer in some areas.

Medicare for all would NOT kill jobs. Not gonna happen.

And as to the cost - I'm already paying a huge 'tax' for healthcare - it's called premiums, and copays and coinsurance, and on a regular year, it costs me and my employer together about 19.8% of my gross pay for shitty, rationed healthcare with financially crippling copays.

Why on earth should we pay for profits when the profit motive has such a direct conflict with the provision of adequate healthcare to patients? Why pay 8% overhead, and why pay big pharma and health insurance companies to rip us off?

If our politicians had guts, they'd pass Medicare for All and devil take the consequences.

[Blue_true]

47. That burns my ass also.

Although I do blame Warren for snuggling up to Bernie's plan without running the math first.

Bernie can throw out a lot of symptoms of our healthcare system and say they are why we need MFA. But not a single person has challenged him to explain in detail the costs and his implementation plan, the same things that hurt Warren when she finally got around to it.

[betsuni]

27. Since 1949, "Every Democratic president from that point forward fought for it."

I wish the people who say universal health care as a right and not a privilege is a new idea would stop. Self-delusion. Ridiculous.

[Blue_true]

48. I believe that even Wilson thought of that idea in some form.

Truman was the first to try to take it by the horns.

[Sucha NastyWoman]

28. Why can't Medicare for all work for people who want to keep their private insurance?

My understanding of Medicare Part C -popularly known as Medicare Advantage- is that instead of paying providers for a patients actual medical expenses, Medicare is actually paying for the cost of an insurance policy for the patient that is purchased from certain Medicare approved insurance companies. The insurance company then pays health care providers that they have made agreements with.

Am I understanding this correctly? Because if this is the case, I don’t understand why people couldn’t keep their private insurance policies that they think are so desirable? But instead of employers/employees paying the premiums, Medicare would pay them. Medicare would fund the payments for either this type this type plan, or a “tradional” Medicare plan via an increase in Medicare tax to the employers/employees, which they could afford since they are no longer paying for insurance premiums.

“Traditional” Medicare differs from Part C “Advantage” plans in that, instead of Medicare paying for an insurance policy, they are paying for actual Medical expenses incurred.

[Blue_true]

49. Because so far the MFA plans put out by Sanders and Warren

force people off their private coverage in rapid order. That doesn't sit well with millions of Americans that like their private coverage.

[Sucha NastyWoman]

57. But that's my point

Why couldn’t these private coverage plans that they love so much just continue under MFA as part c,Advantage plans.

I figure part C/Medicare Advantage was probably created by Republicans, or legislators who wanted to make sure that private insurance companies could get a piece of the Medicare pie.

[Blue_true]

65. I agree with you last paragraph. And those companies are basically running

the Doctor, Hospital, Drug Store part of Medicare, if my older brother's example apply broadly. But the company he is with does a pretty decent job.

Now for the other question. If people have private insurance that they pay premiums on AND they pay extra taxes for MFA, many would be losing out by overpaying. When I worked in the corporate world, my medical coverage was outstanding, I never paid more that $20 for anything, that includes prescriptions. What I didn't know was that my coverage was high level and expensive, I found that out once I started paying for it myself after I left my job to start my first business. Essentially, I didn't need something like MFA when I worked in the corporate world, there are millions of Americans that are in that situation right now, so I believe that explains part of the concern about a scheme like MFA.

What MFA does is get people covered properly who can't afford health insurance or can't afford the gold level+ coverage that I had in the corporate world. But in a country of "I got mine, good luck to you" it is a hardsell to convince people with great coverage to take a chance on MFA. That is why I believe a plan that closes gaps (uninsured people, people and companies that can't afford top level plans) would work best, unfortunately in the shortterm those plans feed the insurance industry beast.

[Fiendish Thingy]

31. Without leaders courageous enough to do the right thing, no matter the political cost,

We’d still have slavery, Jim Crow, no unions, and no Medicare or social security.

I prefer courageous leaders, not cautious or calculating one’s.

[Blue_true]

50. Then always vote with us until we have all republicans out of office.

Because if they can gum things up, they will.

[dflprincess]

32. I miss the days when the Democratic party had some vision

and wanted to improve the country and the lives of its citizens. "No we can't." Just doesn't inspire much enthusiasm.

Just imagine if JFK had said "We'd like to go to the moon but that woukd be hard and cost a lot. Besides, people like it on earth. "

[question everything]

38. You have to be elected first. JFK, FDR, LBJ were already in office when they came with their vision

and, of course, there was no "Social Media" with its misinformation that goes "viral."

And right now most voters, yes, Democrats, are moderate. I don't know about the party "moving left" when most of the seats that were flipped were by moderates.

Right or wrong, voters will be scared by "socialism" or by "revolution" that would cost trillions, or by losing their private insurance and here comes Trump again with perhaps both houses strong R. We just cannot risk it.

[dflprincess]

41. We're not going to get anyone elected

if their biggest selling point is "not Trump". People will not be inspired to come out to vote for someone who tells them nothing can bre done to improve their lives. That's how Trump gets reelected.

[question everything]

42. Of course not. We should run on strengthening the ACA restoring whatever was removed

Back to the Paris accord, strengthening NATO, supporting Ukraine (with no conditions).

Mostly, building the infrastructure. We have had too many gas explosions because of ancient grids. Work on aging roads and bridges and, as Klobuchar suggested, fixing schools facing disrepair, improving public transit systems serving low-income neighborhoods, and strengthening wastewater treatment systems to provide clean drinking water. Also providing Midwest communities dealing with extensive flooding with greater flood protection.

Instead of spending - $30 trillion? - on M4A, spend this on infrastructure. Instead of offering free college to every one, concentrate on two year and occupational ones.

All these will improve people's lives in real terms. Down to earth no, not the moon, not at this time.

[dflprincess]

43. Strengthening the ACA just protects the insurance companies

and that does not guarantee that people will be able to actually access care. Big deductibles and other out of pockets will still leave us the only country where people go bankrupt over medical bills and die before their time because they can't afford a doctor.

The biggest fault in the ACA debate was the Democrats started from what should have been their compromise position so they would up giving up more than they should have and we wound up with the Insurance Company Profit Protection Act.

I would hope the Democrats would have learned from that mistake. You start by asking for the moon and the stars & settle for the moon. But Amy has always been a status quo type and she's not going to do anything that might rock the boat - in any area.

[Blue_true]

52. This is the problem. A poster gives you a path that we can take to success and you throw out some

fantastical claim. The ACA DOES NOT protect insurance companies. It has given access to healthcare to millions of Americans who were previously uncovered. If we run someone that is throwing out ideas that voters are afraid of, as the poster tried to explain to you, we likely get Trump again and a strong republican Congress and then everything that we have gained is gone and we are back to nothing. We should run on strengthening the ACA as the poster tried to explain to you, we did that in 2017, 2018 and 2019 with considerable success, flipping previous republican legislatures and taking some governor chairs. If we don't get into office we can't do anything.

[dflprincess]

55. Go out to one of the state exchanges

and look at what the premiums cost. Whether a person is paying the premium themself or getting a subsidy, that is money, sometimes tax money, going straight into the insurance companies pockets.

Pay atention to what the deductibles and max out of pockets are (and premiums do not count toward out of pockets). There are plenty of people with one of these plans who still can't afford health care because they can't cover the deductibles. This is why the US remains the only country where people go bankrupt because of medical bills.

You may be okay with that, many of us are not.

[Blue_true]

66. One of the reasons why premiums in the ACA are likely high now is it

covers a lot of sick people who could not get private insurance or were not insured at all. The feature of the ACA that a lot of people on the left don't get is the push toward preventative medicine. When people get covered, they visit a Doctor and get existing problems fixed, then at some point, they get on a preventative medicine regimen. The ACA counted on being in place long enough to get tens of millions of Americans who were not onto preventative medicine plans, at that point costs would start to plunge downward, including premiums. But that was not good enough for some people on the left, they wanted pie in the sky plans immediately and sat on their hands to punish democrats for only getting the ACA done, that allowed Republicans to regain some power and start to chip away at the ACA.

The people insisting on a sketchy plan like Bernie Sanders MFA are playing right into the hands of republicans by scaring many Americans, believe me, once republicans have firm power again the ACA is dead and people who want more Americans covered are back to nothing.

[Blue_true]

51. Basically, to get MFA and things like low cost college,

people that have lots of money are going to have to bite a bullet and provide money with no return other than the satisfaction of seeing other people living good lives. Absent that we are doomed to get as much as we can and try to hold on to that.

[democrank]

34. The argument is always the same.

OMG! The cost of improving our health care system! OMG! People like their current insurance! OMG! It’s socialism! OMG! That idea is way too big! OMG! It can’t t be done!

Let’s assess the cost of our current system. What does that cost? What is the cost of the uninsured? Why do we favor a for-profit health care system? Why are our prescription medicines so obscenely high? What about deductibles and what is that cost?

Having insurance in our current health care system doesn’t do anything to address the needed structural changes. Change will come when a majority demands it. I’ll tell you one thing that would change some minds here....an unexpected catastrophic medical emergency that causes you to lose your job, your home and your hopes.

Watch what happens when a pre-announced,free mobile clinic rolls into a blue collar town. Our system is broken. Period. The fact that we’re at the bottom of any health care system list is disgusting. That’s the price we pay when politicians have the courage to stand up against anything that threatens their flow of campaign contributions but are true cowards when it comes to shaking up a broken health care system.

[emmaverybo]

54. Actually Medicaid and Medicare and Obamacare work quite well. Some folks' private insurance

works for them. What we have to do is expand Medicaid, improve Obamacare (premiums too high), fix the gap in Medicare so it provides 100 percent coverage, allow private insurance but regulate it so people with catastrophic and emergency care needs are covered out of network, offer an affordable public option, and cover those left without, depending on need.

We will have to transition to universal healthcare in any case because M4All won’t pass in the Congress.

Meanwhile we need to work on bringing healthcare costs down and drug costs down.

We are not broken.

We will have to raise taxes to get universal.

Other countries with universal do not provide for undocumented immigrants. They do provide an immigration process, however, as we should, for asylum seekers and refugees. In addition, we need to document at least 11 million more undocumented workers and dreamers as fast as possible through sane and humane policy.

We will have a broken system if we don’t have a legal process for getting on a path to citizenship and thus receiving benefits. And we will open ourselves up to further division.

[dflprincess]

56. Not only are premiums too high

Copays and deductibles are also out of control and keep people with "coverage" from getting care. Pretty much anyone who is happy with their insurance is someone who has never had to use it for a serious outer chronic illness.

[emmaverybo]

58. Obamacare or all private insurance? I agree copays and deductibles are too high for many. It is

not true, however, that pretty much anyone who uses private insurance or combined medicare with private insurance for serious illness is unhappy with it. Therein is the rub, why some are being so stubborn.

Some have very affordable, quality care which covers chronic and serious conditions.
I am simply not the only former state worker, retired now, who, on a Medicare advantage plan pays no premium, no deductible, 10 dollar co-pays, has Medicare fee reimbursed to my pension, and can see most doctors without referral. Plan covers no cost gym and emergency and urgent care out of country. Very low cost drugs too, No, it is not a platinum plan. No I was not a senator.

If candidates refuse to understand why millions are happy with their insurance and keep insisting they are not when they are, how can they rebut their wanting to stay on their plan? Maybe for the greater good. Be honest. They will have to give up some excellent plans.

But it looks bad to me that those pushing M4All are unaware of what types of coverage these people have. Admittedly not all. But lots.

[Sucha NastyWoman]

59. People act like we have private insurance and we have Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare

Like these are the two main categories.

They don’t realize how much private insurance is in Medicare and Obamacare. Probably Medicaid too, but I don’t know enough about Medicaid to say.

Medicare recipients who choose Medicare Advantage don’t have any of their medical costs paid by the government, even $1. The only thing the government pays on their behalf is the private insurance premium for the insurance company that the Medicare recipient chose.

I think if all the people who are afraid of MFA knew this they wouldn’t be so opposed to it.

[emmaverybo]

64. The trick would be to get them to see private insurance as economically destructive, eating up

medical dollars and spewing out bad health outcomes. Resisting the fact that millions do like their
affordable and good quality plans is not an effective strategy.

Calling those millions selfish is not either. Telling them their plans will be taken and replaced with something better—but they will pay higher taxes—-or wait for a congress that will pass a wealth tax—is an iffy argument to make too.

But candidates have a year to educate the public.