Democratic Primaries
Related: About this forumGreat Ezra Klein column on why so many voters fear giving up private insurance completely
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/29/8910387/medicare-for-all-insurance-private-abolish-bruenigImagine President Bernie Sanders passes Medicare-for-all in 2022. In 2024, amid a backlash to rising tax rates, Sanders loses reelection to Ohio Sen. Rob Portman. Working with a Republican Congress, Portman restructures Medicare-for-all in a few ways. Where Sanders included coverage for abortion, Portman bars it totally. Where Sanders designed the program to avoid copays and deductibles, Portman, a believer in health savings accounts, reworks it to frontload the cost-sharing. Where Sanders guaranteed coverage to everyone, including unauthorized immigrants, Portman restricts it to legal residents, and adds a work requirement for able-bodied adults.
If any of that sounds far-fetched, consider that Republicans were a single vote away from repealing Obamacare in 2017, and the Trump administration approved Wisconsins request to add premiums and a work requirement to its Medicaid program in 2018.
The skepticism Bruenig brings to private insurance is the same skepticism many bring to single-payer insurance. You like your government-provided health plan? Better cross your fingers, because your side just lost the White House, and the incoming administration wants to slash health care spending by 15 percent, drug-test all beneficiaries, and turn the whole thing over to private contractors.
He cites the NPR/Marist poll earlier this month that found that
And he concludes:
Risk aversion here is real, and its dangerous. Health reformers dont tiptoe around it because they wouldnt prefer to imagine bigger, more ambitious plans. They tiptoe around it because they have seen its power to destroy even modest plans. There may be a better strategy than that. I hope there is. But it starts with taking the publics fear of dramatic change seriously, not trying to deny its power.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
cannabis_flower
(3,765 posts)Isn't it a little harder to strip away a government program than for your company to decide to change your insurance? I don't recall getting any vote at all when they changed ours at work. Sure the Democrats might not be reelected, but at least you had a vote.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Cha
(297,652 posts)Plan.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Hekate
(90,793 posts)...from every godless, soulless, bastard on the Right including Libertarians, the average person is well advised to be leery of losing what they have in terms of health insurance.
The whims of voters who elect a Dem POTUS and then "send him a message" in the midterms are not to be trusted all that far.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,337 posts)Or chain the CPI in a grand bargain
Or agree with Paul Ryan that social security should be part of balancing the budget.
Yeah, that would help...
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
sacto95834
(393 posts)but I think like social security and medicare, it will become so popular that it would be political suicide to mess with it. I'm sure many Republicans wanted to do away with social security and medicare when it first passed, but it's more important for them to keep their seats in congress than to risk it.
Today, it's the 3rd rail, touch it too much and you'll feel the wrath of the voters.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Progressive83
(8 posts)Last edited Wed Jul 31, 2019, 12:07 PM - Edit history (1)
I did until I was diagnosed as a diabetic. Most people get never sick enough really use it. I think most would agree MFA would be ideal, but we do need to think long and hard about our ability to lead horses to water.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
dsc
(52,166 posts)being less than benign with health care. There are people who were sterilized by government order who are still alive (many POC all poor and lacking education). LGBT people who are of a certain age vividly remember governmental attitudes towards AIDS. Women have a legitimate concert about using public health care to outlaw abortion if we get a GOP government in a country in which private medical care is banned.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden