You would think that with the loss to Donald Trump along with being wiped out at every level of government from dog catcher to the White House, the Democrats would be united together and stand up for progressive values and champion progressive ideas. In the words of President Trump, “wrong.” In fact, the rift (more aptly described as a civil war) within the Democratic party is alive and well. One issue that highlights the rift between progressives and corporatists is health care. On the left you have progressives getting behind a medicare for all, single payer health care system. Meanwhile on the right you have corporate Democrats refusing to sign onto single payer, opting instead to just defend the Affordable Care Act.
Recently while at town hall meetings with their constituents, a string of corporate Democrats have come out against bills in the house and senate introduced by rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) respectively. Their excuses have been less than satisfactory. Washington representative Denny Heck was asked by a constituent why he has opted not to be a co-sponsor to Conyer’s H.R. 676. Conyers presented 3 main objections to the bill. He argued that it would ‘eliminate medicare advantage.’ The problem with that argument is that if we had medicare for all, we wouldn’t need medicare advantage because everyone would have health care. The purpose of medicare advantage would cease to exist. His second objection is that it would hurt 20% of hospitals and 70% of nursing homes which are ‘for profit.’ Basically, he’s putting the profit margins of hospitals over the health of his constituents. His third objection was that it would hard to fund. Now he neglected (of course) to mention that we have money to launch missiles into Syria, to do drone strikes and bomb countries like Yemen, Somalia, and Libya etc. but we don’t have money to provide health care for our citizens. He also failed to mention that we spend more than twice on health care than other developed nations including those that have single payer systems. Another important point he left out is that part of the reason health care is so expensive is because people don’t have insurance. So his arguments basically boiled down to; 1) it would get rid of a programme that there would be no need for anyway 2) it would hurt profits of hospitals and 3) that it would cost more, even though we already spend twice as much as other countries and still don’t cover everyone while simultaneously spending billions on useless wars. Those are the reasons he claims he opposes rep. Conyers’ single payer bill. But I think the real reason he won’t get behind single payer is because his number one donor is the insurance industry from which he took $90,000. He also took $48,000 from “health professionals.”
In the senate, corporate tools; Dianne Feinstein and Claire McCaskill both recently came out in opposition to Bernie Sanders’ bill, S.B. 1872, a medicare for all bill. When asked by a constituent as to whether or not she would co-sponsor Bernie’s medicare for all bill, Feinstein said “not at this stage” to which she faced several jeers, one person yelling out “sellout!” She even went as far as saying that, “what Bernie is proposing is a take over of all medicine in the United States and I don’t favour that.” So Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, is literally using Republican talking points to justify her opposition to medicare for all. She dismisses it as basically being a government take over of medicine, which is literally what then speaker John Boehner called Obamacare. So now the Democrats who are suppose to be the “resistance” are espousing rightwing talking points on healthcare, all so they can defend Obamacare which is just a federal scale version of Romneycare, which is just a spin off of what people like Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich championed in the 90s, which is what the Heritage Foundation wrote up in the late 80s. So rather than support a medicare for all bill which by the way, according to a recent Economist poll, 60% of Americans support, they’re going to simply defend a plan that Newt Gingrich supported and that Mitt Romney implemented. Just let that sink that. Interestingly enough, that very same poll found that 40% of Trump voters support a medicare for all system, along with 43% of self identified ‘conservatives’ and 46% of Republicans. It’s also worth noting that Feinstein has also taken over $1,000,000 from Health professionals and pharmaceutical companies combined during her career. But I’m sure that has nothing to do with her decision to not support single payer.
Claire McCaskill, another corporate hack also came out recently in firm opposition when asked if she would vote for a single payer bill if it came to the senate floor. She straight up said “I would not vote for it.” She the proceeded to rattle off bullshit talking points about cost and funding, yada yada yada. Again, we already pay more than twice what other developed countries do on health care including those that have single payer systems. Now, as Mike Figueredo of Humanist Report pointed out, if she’s so concerned about debt, then why is it she was fully onboard with President Trump’s recent militarism in Syria which cost $29.5M? She went on to say she hoped that the strikes were part of a “broader plan or strategy.” So in other words, she basically just said she wants war with Syria. For someone who’s allegedly worried about the debt, she certainly has no problem spending billions of dollars on another pointless regime change war. She also opened her answer by saying “I’m going to disappoint a lot of you, that’s kind of how I roll, a lot of you want me to say yes [and I would say if a single payer came up for a vote right now I would not vote for it.]” This is a really interesting statement because she basically just said that even though a lot of her constituents support a medicare for all bill and would want her to vote for it, she wouldn’t do it. She says that’s ‘how she rolls.’ And of course, to no one’s surprise, throughout her career, sen. McCaskill has taken over half a million dollars from health professionals, $318k from health services and $297k from hospitals. So in other words, she “rolls” by ignoring what her constituents, who put her in office in the first place, want and instead serves and protects her donors and corporations. And Democrats wonder why they’re wiped out at every level and why working class voters don’t like them.
–M
The Max Blog 