Medicare for America

 

Tuesday, December 10th, is gonna be a pretty big day for federal healthcare policy, especially in the U.S. House of Representatives.

For one thing, it's my understanding that the big Prescription Drug Bill (H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act) is scheduled for a floor vote on Tuesday, although it's possible that it'll be bumped until later in the week given the grumbling by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

For another, the House Energy & Commerce Committee is holding what I'm assuming are all-day hearings on not one, not two, but nine different Universal Coverage bills, including the Big Ones: Medicare for All and Medicare for America:

HEARING ON "PROPOSALS TO ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE COVERAGE"

Date: Tuesday, December 10, 2019 - 10:30am

Back in late June, right after the first Democratic Primary Candidate Presidential Debate, I posted an analysis & table to break out exactly where each of the then-20 (!) candidates stood when it comes to the Next Big Thing in U.S. healthcare policy. I posted a couple of updates as the summer and early fall progressed.

At the time, my main point was that regardless of their official campaign rhetoric, the truth was that nearly all of the candidates were open to multiple paths towards expanding healthcare coverage...both in terms of the number of people covered, the scope of that coverage and the cost of coverage to the enrollees, with a greater portion of the total cost being borne by the federal government.

So, I wrote my first Op-Ed piece for the Washington Post yesterday...

Harris’s rollout Monday was met with swift criticism from both the Biden camp, which called it “A Bernie Sanders-lite Medicare for All,” and the Sanders camp, which insists Harris “can’t call [her] plan Medicare for All.”

In saying this, the Sanders campaign is effectively trying to lay a copyright claim to Medicare-for-all, as if it, and only it, can define what it means. The reality is far less clear — and depending on your perspective, it could be Harris’s proposal that is more justified in claiming the Medicare-for-all branding.

I'm not going to overquote my own piece, but this has led to some backlash against me, so for the record:

(IMPORTANT: As my friend Shawn Pierce keeps pointing out, the phrase "Medicare for All" has two very different meanings...one is the brand "Medicare for All", which simply refers to any healthcare plan which ensures 100% universal, comprehensive healthcare coverage for everyone; the other is the specific bills introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders and/or Rep. Pramila Jayapal, which would indeed completely eliminate private major medical insurance for 100% of the population as well as completely eliminating all out-of-pocket costs in favor of 100% federal public funding).

For months now, California Senator and Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has repeatedly struggled with how to address her support of Bernie Sanders' 100% mandatory, $0 out-of-pocket-cost, 100% comprehensive "pure" single payer "Medicare for All" healthcare bill.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Since June 2019, I've been contracted with the Center for American Progress to provide healthcare data analysis & advocacy on their behalf on a part-time basis.

UPDATE: My contract with CAP ended on Nov. 30th, 2020 (on a positive note--I knew going in it was a temporary arrangement and enjoyed working with them).

NOTE: This is not an in-depth analysis, for three reasons:

  • Third, I have a bit of a personal/household crisis to deal with this week (don't worry...no one's sick, dead or getting divorced, but our house is in need of some serious attention)

If you've been reading my site for more than a couple of years, you know that back in February 2018 I fell in love (well, mostly) with a new Universal Healthcare Coverage proposal from the Center for American Progress called "Medicare Extra for All" or simply "Medicare Extra".

If I could only ask one question of the 20-odd candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for President at the next debate coming up right here in Detroit, Michigan, here's how I would word it. I've customized it for each of the five major candidates (apologies to the rest of them):

Preface to each of the candidates:

"Earlier this month, oral arguments were heard by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals over a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act filed by 20 Republican Attorneys General and fully supported by the Trump Administration.

"If the plaintiffs are successful and the ACA is struck down entirely, up to 20 million Americans would find themselves without healthcare coverage and tens of millions more with pre-existing conditions would lose critical protections, while states would lose hundreds of millions, or even billions of federal funding.

"Every Democratic candidate has come out in favor of significantly expanding publicly-funded healthcare coverage to some degree or another. Some want to build upon the Affordable Care Act. Some want to add a public option. Some want guaranteed universal coverage, and some are demanding universal single payer healthcare for everyone in the United States.

A few months back I posted a request for folks to vote for a healthcare panel I was hoping to be included at this summer's Netroots Nation conference in Philadelphia.

I'm happy to report that our panel did indeed make the final cut, and will be happening this Friday, July 12th:

FIX THE DAMN HEALTHCARE: SORTING OUT ACA 2.0, MFA, MED4AM AND MORE!

  • Friday, Jul. 12 4:30 PM, Room: 118C

The healthcare landscape is confusing and exciting in 2019. Reining in Big Pharma, strengthening the ACA, adding public options, “Medicare for America” or “Medicare for All”… the alphabet soup of plans can be confusing. Can improvements be implemented before 2021 at the federal level or is it all up to the states? And what about the latest lawsuit looming over everything? We’ll go beyond the slogans and into the details: How are the proposals similar and different, and what do patients, caregivers and other invested parties think.

UPDATE 8/20/19: I originally posted this in late June. Since then, there have been several important developments: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have formally rolled out their own official healthcare overhaul plans, with Harris splitting off from Bernie Sanders' fully-mandatory "Medicare for All" bill to her own variant, which keeps the name but has similarities to "Medicare for America". Also, Eric Swalwell and John Hickenlooper have dropped out (ok, not every development was major).

I've updated the post to reflect these changes, while also updating the table graphic, which I've also simplified by removing Swalwell, Hickenlooper and most of the other bottom-rung candidates. I'm keeping everyone who's qualified for the September/October debates as of this writing, plus Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Inslee and Tom Steyer, each of whom is partly qualified.

Over at Axios, Drew Altman of the Kaiser Family Foundation has posted about a new focus group study which has some depressing, if not surprising findings:

...voters were only dimly aware of candidates’ and elected officials’ health proposals.

  • ...These voters are not tuned into the details — or even the broad outlines — of the health policy debates going on in Washington and the campaign, even though they say health care will be at least somewhat important to their vote.
  • Many had never heard the term “Medicare for all”...

(update: the video of the town hall has been removed from YouTube for whatever reason, but I have the transcript below anyway)

Last night on the Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Democratic U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate Kamala Harris took her fourth (or fifth) shot at explaining exactly where she stands on Medicare for All and the elimination of private primary heatlh insurance.

As I've noted (mostly on Twitter...I just checked and it looks like I haven't written much about it on the site aside from a quick mention here), Harris has struggled to explain her position in several town hall appearances; she'll boldly stated that she supports "Medicare for All", but then stumbles when it comes to the "elimination of private insurance" issue.

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