On Tuesday, May 15, 2018, the Center for American Progress (CAP) will host their 5th “Ideas Conference.”
Many found the 2017 conference to be lacking in Big Ideas, such as Medicare for All, which seemed to reflect CAP’s solid position within the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. This might explain why Sanders’ “big ideas” were passed over.
This year, however, Sanders is invited to join along with Democratic Party royalty. According to David Weigel, reporting for the Washington Post:
. . . Democrats expected to attend are Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, all of whom have been discussed, with varying levels of seriousness, as 2020 presidential candidates.
Recently CAP released their own reform plan, Medicare Extra for All, which might sound like Sanders’ “Medicare for All” but isn’t.
Dr. Gerald Friedman, Economics Professor at UMass-Amherst examined the CAP plan and found that though it has merit, it will lead to failure because it merely overlays our existing perverse and corrupt system.
Per Dr. Friedman:
CAP wants to keep the dead weight of America’s for-profit health-care system to make the plan more politically viable to members of Congress than a true single-payer system.
But at the end of the day, we can’t build the health care system we need on the foundation of a broken, profit-driven system.
One has only to look at the Affordable Care Act for an example of a robust regulatory overlay that nevertheless failed to fundamentally transform our for-profit, minimally regulated corporate health care, leaving millions of Americans un- and under-insured.
In fact, per PNHP National Board Member Dr. Paul Song in a 2017 interview with Robert Scheer (Huffington Post):
. . . large parts of the Affordable Care Act look like it was written by the private insurance industry or the pharmaceutical industry. Most notably, there’s no insurance rate regulation, so that’s where, as you mention, premiums have continued to climb. .
. . . There’s no prescription drug pricing controls. . . . You know, one out of 10 seniors can’t afford to buy the medications they’re prescribed, because they are so expensive.
Bottom line, many experts in health care reform are skeptical that CAP’s Medicare Extra for All goes far enough. With so much healthcare reform controversy, the 2018 “Ideas Conference” should prove much more interesting than the 2017 conference!
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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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