Tag Archives: Medicare for All

The U.S Is Facing Enormous Problems Most Politicians Are Afraid To Address.

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When WWII ended, it was thought that are problems were mostly over. We were paying down the wartime debt through income taxes on the wealthy of as much as 94 percent. Manufacturing was thriving. The middle class was growing with more Americans able to afford a home, a car and a good education for their children. And we had begun turning our attention toward eliminating persistent racism and sexism.

Then, beginning in the 1950s, our government and large corporations began meddling in the politics of other countries based on the fear of communism and the so-called Domino Theory. That led to the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the overthrow of democratically elected leaders in Iran, Chile, and elsewhere. And, as our nation’s power and influence spread, so did the power and greed of our corporations.

As a consequence of their globalization, industry consolidation and tax inequity, we have seen our nation change dramatically. The Citizens United decision permitted corporations and billionaires to quite literally purchase our government through campaign donations and influence. That led to growing wealth disparity, a weakened democracy, growing executive power, weakening international influence, increasing threats both domestically and abroad, the threat of environmental and climate disasters, a failure to transition to renewable energy, the threat of corporate and government controlled AI, the threat of corporations and billionaires controlling our food chain, massively increasing deficits and debt, competing ideologies with little hope of compromise, and a growing segment of the population that wants to tear everything down.

There are no easy and quick fixes to these problems. No answers that can be articulated in a sound bite. Few politicians are willing to risk losing their office by speaking out. Very few billionaires are willing to finance those who would address the issues at the risk of losing part of their fortunes. And even worse, few middle-class voters are willing to sacrifice their resource-depleting, energy-consuming, material-based lifestyle.

As I’ve written before, there will come a reckoning – perhaps the kind of collapse my grandparents faced when the banks and stock markets collapsed turning the Roaring 20s into the Great Depression. When many lost everything and an entire hard day’s work paid 50 cents to a dollar. Maybe less.

That may seem like ancient history not worth considering. Yes, it happened nearly 100 years ago. But there’s a lesson to be learned. Those generations thought it couldn’t happen to them, either. Yet it did, because then, like now, voters kept electing shortsighted politicians who refused to make hard decisions.

We can prevent such a calamity from repeating itself. We can overturn Citizens United and place severe limits on campaign contributions. We can create more jobs and reduce consumer costs by transitioning to renewable fuels. That will also benefit the environment and help head off the coming climate crisis and mass extinction. We can break up the 3 or 4 corporations that control almost every industry. We can address the federal debt by charging corporations for the infrastructure they use; by charging extraction industries for the natural resources they take; by making corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes; and by reducing our bloated military budget. We can make healthcare accessible and affordable for all Americans by implementing Medicare for all.

Unfortunately, those ideas are unpopular right now, especially among elected MAGA Republicans and their rightwing propaganda machine. And why not? They all profit handsomely from their obedience to the Felon and his billionaire friends who naturally oppose change. But there are a few politicians who understand that the future of our nation, and perhaps our planet, is at stake. People like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and most of the Democratic progressive caucus. People who understand the real issues and are willing to fight for ordinary Americans.

It’s long past time that we listen to them.

The Surest Way To Make America Great Again.

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For 2025-2026, the U.S. military budget is $921 billion, 35.5 percent of all global military spending and 63 percent more than China’s and Russia’s military budgets combined (our largest global adversaries). And 11 of the remaining top 15 are U.S. allies!

Given the fearsomeness of our military power, U.S. citizens have a greater likelihood of starving to death or dying for lack of access to healthcare than being killed by a military attack on our homeland. And a far greater chance of being gunned down in a church, theater, school, nightclub or shopping mall by a Second Amendment nutjob!

Yet the Trump regime is planning to ask Congress to increase our already bloated military budget to $1.5 trillion for next year.

That started me thinking: What if we cut our military spending to a more reasonable amount? Let’s say that we cut it to $502.6 billion – double that of China, the next largest spender and our greatest perceived global rival. That would save U.S. taxpayers a whopping $669.7 billion. Or, when compared to the regime’s planned 2027 military budget, nearly $1 trillion!

Assuming the Trump regime hasn’t completely alienated all of our longtime allies, we would still have a combined military budget of $1.14 trillion.

So, what if our government really did come to its senses? What could we do with that $669.7 billion or $1 trillion in annual savings? And what if we made U.S. billionaires pay a tax rate of 13 percent, the same as the average U.S. taxpayer? We would gain an estimated $224 billion annually in additional tax revenues. In addition, we would gain billions more if we closed tax shelters and forced multinational corporations to pay a tax burden equal to that of other advanced economies.

With the many billions in savings and the additional tax revenue, we could all but eliminate our annual $1.78 trillion federal deficit. That would save even more money that would otherwise be spent on additional interest for our national debt. Or we could take part of the savings and do some real good for our citizens.

For example, we could feed every hungry American for $33.1 billion a year – just 3 percent of our current military budget. And for an estimated $19.9 billion – roughly 2 percent of our military budget – we could house all of our homeless, many of them military veterans.

We could further cut costs and save lives by committing to some form of universal healthcare. Some estimates show that by replacing private insurance with Medicare for All we could cut our total annual healthcare expenditure by up to $313.5 billion per year.

Reimagining our federal budget would certainly be better than following our military-industrial complex further down the rabbit hole, especially when you consider that the Department of Defense has never passed an audit. Indeed, between 1998 and 2015, the DoD can’t account for $21 trillion in spending! $21 trillion – nearly 54 percent of our national debt!!!

Moreover, by cutting our military budget to a more sensible level, the politicians in Washington might feel more constrained in committing to a war of choice.

Taking The Profits Out Of Health Care.

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In the US, health care organizations were once required to be nonprofit. But, following WWII, companies were short of workers. To entice them, they began offering health insurance. At first, it was non-profit. But as the market for company-provided health insurance grew, it attracted for-profit competitors offering a variety of plans.

The inevitable consequence was to dramatically increase the cost of health care, making it unaffordable for an ever-growing number of Americans. And though the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) has helped, the cost of health care rose from an average of $355 per person in 1970 to $11,172 in 2019. Accounting for inflation, that’s an increase of roughly 6-fold!

Indeed, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), US spending on health care reached $3.6 trillion in 2018 (the most recent year for which data is available) 17.7 percent of our GDP. And the earnings of health insurance companies exceeded $236 billion in 2018.

Perhaps the biggest winner in the health care industry is big Pharma. According to Statista, Americans spent $360.3 billion on pharmaceuticals in 2019 – up $15.8 billion from the previous year. And up a whopping $239.3 billion from 2000. That increase is reflected in the cost of most medications. A case in point: For asthma patients like me (of which there are nearly 20 million in the US), the annual cost of preventative medication is roughly $2,500 per year – almost double what it cost less than 10 years ago. Has the drug changed or improved over that period? No, only the price has changed. And, of course, the profits for the manufacturer and their distributors.

The increase in the cost of many other pharmaceuticals is even more dramatic.

Pharmaceutical companies justify the increases by claiming that the money is needed for research and development. Yet, you, the taxpayer, contribute roughly 30 percent of the cost of development of pharmaceuticals. Despite the increased costs and your contributions, there has been little increase in FDA approvals for drugs in recent years. That’s mostly due to the companies’ focus on acquisition and mergers. In other words, the companies are investing their profits in stock buyouts rather than research and development.

Since 1996, there have been 46 mergers and acquisitions of the world’s pharmaceutical giants. Over that same period, big Pharma has spent billions to lobby the US government. According to Statista, the industry spent $281.4 billion to lobby our government in 2019. And big Pharma is not alone. Organizations representing doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics, medical equipment manufacturers and health insurers all spent billions on lobbying.

In total, the health care industry spent $711.3 billion on lobbying for 2019.

Is it any wonder then that our health care costs keep rising at rates far greater than inflation? Is it any wonder that we pay 4 times more per person for health care in the US than any other country in the world while experiencing steadily declining results?

Far too much of your health care expenditures are going to support the multi-million dollar salaries of executives, lobbyists and the profits of shareholders.

So, when political candidates are asked how they expect to pay for the cost of single-payer health care such as Medicare For All, the answer is simple. You’re already paying for it. But, instead of the money being used for medical care and the development of new technologies and treatments. It’s being used to line the pockets of executives and investors.

By moving to a single-payer health care system like most of the world’s advanced nations, you will pay more in taxes. Nevertheless, your savings should be significant. You and your employer will no longer have to pay for health insurance, deductibles, and co-pays. You will not be billed for seeing your doctor, for laboratory tests, for visiting the Emergency Room, for treatments or for needed stays in a hospital. As the single-payer, the government will also be able to negotiate the cost of pharmaceuticals saving you even more money. So your savings will continue to add up over your lifetime.

And no American will ever be denied health care again.

There’s yet another benefit that’s seldom mentioned: By removing the responsibility for providing health insurance from employers, there will be less incentive for employers to move jobs offshore. (Currently, the cost of an employee’s benefits is roughly equal to the cost of an employee’s salary.) Indeed, employers could use the savings to increase salaries and pay a more livable wage. That would not only provide a substantial boost to our economy. It would result in greater tax revenue that could be used to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and create even more high-paying jobs.

A Powerful Voice For Social Democracy.

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Rutger Bregman, Dutch historian and author of Utopia For Realists recently spoke to some of the world’s wealthiest people at Davos, Switzerland in which he said, “I hear people talking the language of participation and justice and equality and transparency, but almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance and of the rich just not paying their fair share. I mean it feels like I’m at a firefighters conference and no one’s allowed to speak about water. We’ve got to be talking about taxes! That’s it. Taxes, taxes, taxes. All the rest is bullshit in my opinion.”

His speech went viral.

Following that event, he appeared on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, where he was asked to address the current debate over socialism in the US. “To me, it seems a bewildering discussion,” he replied. “Because what we’re actually talking about are policies that are hugely popular among the vast majority of Americans. 67 percent want guaranteed paid maternity leave. 70 percent want Medicare for all. 81 percent is enthusiastic about the New Green Deal. 75 percent want higher taxes on the rich. These are hugely popular policies that work really well in the countries that tried them. So it has nothing to do with socialism or communism or whatever.”

“Actually, capitalism and the welfare state need each other. So something like a guaranteed basic income that I’ve been arguing for would actually be venture capital for the people. So that everyone can start a new company or move to a different job or a different city, which will make the economy much more dynamic. Now if we look at the history of innovation – take the Iphone, for example – every sliver of the fundamental technology of the Iphone was invented by researchers on the government payroll….all these breakthrough technologies are financed by the government. Capitalism and the government – they need each other.”

Asked how Democratic candidates should handle this in the campaign, he responded, “You’re just being a realist, right? Basically advocating the ideas that the majority of Americans want. We need a massive transformation of the economy when we talk about issues like climate change or inequality. It’s really the so-called moderates…the centrists…I think that’s the real radical fringe. It’s really a crazy radical idea of sticking to the status quo right now. The challenges are huge right now. We have to halt emissions on a global scale by 2050. So we need that huge transformation of the economy. So then if you say, ‘I’m a moderate, we should tinker around the edges’ that’s a pretty crazy proposition if you ask me.”