Image above: Health Care for All – San Fernando Valley celebrating Medicare’s 50th birthday
On Medicare’s 53rd birthday, it’s evident that many people see the federal program as the solution to our healthcare problems, while others despise and want to destroy it. American politicians seem to have a love/hate relationship with Medicare, but there’s no question that the American people love it.
This dichotomy was in stark evidence on Medicare’s 53rd birthday as shown by a quick review of current news, articles and op-eds:
LOVE
The many reasons why Americans love Medicare are clear, as articulated in a 7/28/18 Gainesville Sun Op-Ed by F. Douglas Stephenson. Stephenson writes that when compared to corporate health insurance, Medicare is dramatically more efficient, its costs have risen more slowly, it provides broader access to care, better financial protection and greater customer satisfaction. He calls for expanding Medicare to all.
HATE
Yet the head of HHS, Seema Verma, has gone on attack against Medicare for All with claims that seem (at best) to imply a disturbing lack of knowledge about how risk pools work. She claims “Medicare for All would become Medicare for None.”
Either Verma is shockingly misinformed (considering her position with HHS) or she is deliberately spreading confusion. As Nancy Altman explains in a 7/30/18 Alternet article, if the Medicare risk pool included people under age 65 – healthier people – it would be strengthened, not weakened.
LOVE
Meanwhile, over 70 members of the US House of Representatives have joined a new Medicare for All caucus. As reported in USA Today:
The caucus will brief other lawmakers and staff on the basics of a government-run, single-payer health care system while also looking at financing and universal health care systems around the world, said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., one of the co-founding members.
HATE
Yet in California, we saw the final nail in the coffin of SB 562, The Healthy California Act, as Assembly Speaker Rendon refused to advance it through the legislative process. This, in spite of its potential to save billions of dollars by eliminating costly administrative expenses and negotiating as a state for pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, while insuring every state resident.
LOVE
Paul Song, MD, and head of PNHP California, claims a partial victory for the California Medicare for All Movement based on its success at organizing Californians and building political capital in Sacramento. Dr. Song writes in Medium:
To my fellow activists, now is not the time to let up. If anything, we must utilize the organizing success created by SB562 to serve as an unbreakable foundation from which to continue to educate, advocate, mobilize, and eventually translate into undeniable political capital both in Sacramento and D.C… So keep up the fight and continue to make your voices heard while spreading the single payer gospel. . .We are on the right side, the moral side, and ultimately the winning side.
HATE
Meanwhile the stakes for healthcare, both in California and the nation, grow ever higher as Trump and the GOP take aim at our public programs and health care protections in two ways:
First, they seek to privatize Medicare and gut Medicaid. Martha Burk, Director of the Corporate Accountability Project for the National Council of Women’s Organizations (NCWO), writes on 7/25/18 in Otherwords:
[The GOP] budget from hell takes a giant step toward privatizing the program by allowing insurance companies into the Medicare marketplace, which means benefits could be caught in a race to the bottom and become too paltry to cover all but the barest of medical needs.
. . .The proposed Republican budget repeals the Medicaid expansion that came with Obamacare, which will cause 14 to 17 million people to lose coverage.
Second, Trump and the GOP are obliterating the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) consumer protections. In fact, 11 states and Washington DC have sued the Trump Administration over the expansion of non-ACA compliant (“skinny”) health plans.
The State Attorneys General from New York, Massachusetts, California, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, Virginia and Washington allege the new rule expanding “association health plans:”
“…upends a decades-old understanding of a foundational employee benefits law for the purpose of exempting a significant portion of the health insurance market from the Affordable Care Act’s consumer protections”
“…would undo critical federal consumer protections …
and
“…increases the risk of fraud and harm to consumers. . .”
LOVE and HATE?
If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then the Clinton think-tank Center for American Progress must truly admire the Medicare for All movement! Or do they hate it?
Because they have co-opted the language of the movement in a way that seems designed to confuse people. They are not alone, as Congressional Democrats have proposed a variety of “Medicare-lite” solutions designed to help struggling Americans with ever-spiraling healthcare costs.
George Bohmfalk, PNHP member and retired neurosurgeon, explains the situation so well in his July 26, 2018 op-ed in the Charlotte Observer:
…as widespread support for Medicare for All has grown, deceptive lookalike proposals have appeared. With names like Medicare Extra for All, Medicare Part E, and Medicare-X, these plans retain private, for-profit insurance companies with their paper-shuffling, treatment denials and cost-sharing. They all threaten real progress in healthcare by preserving the wasteful but profitable status quo.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Clearly Medicare is caught in a sort of political tug-of-war and so are the American people it was designed to protect.
If Trump and the GOP have their way – privatizing Medicare, underfunding Medicaid and dismantling the protections of the ACA – our core public healthcare programs will fail.
But if the Corporate, neo-liberal Democrats have their way – leaving the for-profit, private health insurance industry in the driver’s seat – we will soon be spending 20% or more of our GDP on health care. So much for education, transportation, environmental protection or anything else.
As Medicare reaches age 53, America’s healthcare future seems very shaky – a bittersweet birthday, indeed.
— Georgia Brewer
HEAL California is an independent news and information hub focused on the California Medicare for All movement. We feature non-partisan news, views, podcasts and videos that highlight the continuing failures of our broken healthcare system and elevate the voices of advocates and organizations fighting for change.
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