A Koch-funded think tank tries hard to pretend that it didn't find savings from Bernie Sanders'

[Uncle Joe]

Medicare plan

(snip)

What’s overlooked in all these cavils about Sanders’ crowing about Blahous’ finding is that the champion cherry-picker in the discussion is Charles Blahous. The cherry he picks is the cost of Medicare for All to the federal government, and he fills a bushel basket with his harvest. “Paying for every American’s healthcare expenses would increase federal spending by $32.6 trillion over the first decade,” he writes. “Even if Congress were to double what it collects in individual and corporate income taxes, there still wouldn’t be enough money added to the federal coffers to finance the costs of this plan.”

Notice what he did there? He pretended that the only economic effect of the plan would be to drive up government spending, without netting out the savings reaped by businesses and individuals by eliminating premiums, deductibles and co-pays. Nor does he factor in the value to individuals and society of the expanded services advocated by Sanders. Sure, giving everyone dental and vision coverage will cost money. But in return, everyone gets dental and vision care. Isn’t that a positive?

In other words, Blahous counted all the increases in costs and attributed them all to the government, without placing his government spending figures in the context of the reduced spending by individuals and businesses or the gains in health services. That’s some world-class cherry-picking right there.

(snip)

So, sure, let’s acknowledge that Sanders built his Medicare for All plan on a foundation of assumptions about costs and savings. But Blahous built his attack on a foundation of assumptions about costs and savings, just a different foundation. To declare his assumptions credible and Sanders’ not is to give up the fight for universal healthcare before the bugle is even blown. That’s what Blahous was hoping for, and no one should let him get away with it.


http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-blahous-sanders-20180822-story.html#

This is a good read and analysis.

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Nazis and fascists in the WH. Country is BURNING down

[Uncle Joe]

2. And tens of thousands of Americans are dying every year for lack of health care, but hey

let us not chew gum and walk at the same time.

PNHP co-founders Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H., and David Himmelstein, M.D., have published a landmark review of studies in the Annals of Internal Medicine that points to a link between lack of health insurance and preventable deaths. Their review, “The Relationship of Health Insurance and Mortality: Is Lack of Insurance Deadly?” was published June 26, 2017, as the U.S. Senate considered a major health overhaul.

Although estimates range, there is a strong scientific consensus that uninsurance leads to tens of thousands of deaths annually. If any of the various GOP health bills become law, millions of Americans would lose coverage and the number of preventable deaths would increase dramatically. The "Better Care Reconciliation Act," for example, would result in 22 million people losing coverage and an additional 29,000 deaths per year.

PNHP press release:
http://www.pnhp.org/news...

(snip)

http://www.pnhp.org/mortality

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. Cant be done for at least 3 yrs and you know it. Therefore, why do you do this NOW?

[Uncle Joe]

4. Now is the time to do it, as for Medicare for All or for universal healthcare coverage to being

passed, Democrats must take back the Congress in November and win the Presidency in 2020.

So why let this highly critical issue or policy favoring Democrats be framed in a highly misleading manner now?

Any Democrat or progressive running on his issue in November would be hampered by letting this piece of bullshit propaganda stand without being countered.

[Eliot Rosewater]

5. So you have called my comment "bullshit propaganda"?

Just want to get that out in the open!

[Uncle Joe]

18. Nice try, I was referring to Koch funded Blahous actions but I believe you knew that.

[Eliot Rosewater]

20. So you agree it is not possible in the next 3 years , probably more like 5, and we need to put the

fire out first, good.

[Uncle Joe]

21. I agree it's not possible to do until at least after 2020 but if you want keep your powder dry

and wait til then to address this issue while tens of thousands of Americans are dying for lack of health care every year, it will be too late.

The damage from right wing propaganda like this will have settled in as established "conventional orthodoxy."

It's needs to be addressed now particularly with the mid terms coming up.

[George II]

7. How can it be done now? But I agree with you when you say:

"why let this highly critical issue or policy favoring Democrats be framed in a highly misleading manner now?", but who is doing the misleading?

[Eliot Rosewater]

8. Ladeda, i think Woody said

[George II]

10. It was Annie Hall talking to Alvy Singer (Woody Allen):

[Eliot Rosewater]

11. Yes, thus it was "Woody" who said it cuz he wrote it TECHNICALLY SPEAKING

[George II]

12. Well....la di da!

[Eliot Rosewater]

13. I think you spelled it right.

I will never forget being a young man, high as a kite on some local and seeing "Sleeper" for the first time in a theater.

almost died from laughing

[George II]

15. His best were the first dozen or so in the 1970s and early 1980s. I saw all of them, but started...

....losing interest when he go a little weird in his movies.

Annie Hall was my favorite, then Sleeper and Everything You Wanted to Know, Manhattan, etc.

[Eliot Rosewater]

16. I balked at the weird at first too, "Stardust Memories" or "Zelig"

took getting used to.

Some love those, some dont.

Overall he has a brilliant legacy of movies and is a genius.

[Uncle Joe]

19. If you read the article, you would know that Blahous did with the help

of a few gullible fact checkers.

[Gothmog]

14. So when is sanders going to get Vermont to adopt his plan?

Why has sanders delayed in getting vermont to adopt this plan?

[George II]

6. They didn't find any savings. See below, and I suggest that those who do think they found savings..

...read the entire report.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211032432

[Eliot Rosewater]

9. Savings or not, we need it and the sooner the better.

HAVING SAID THAT, not now, house is on fire.

Even if it costs more, we need it. Let the rich pay their fair share..

HAVING SAID THAT, not now, house is on fire.


Now there is an agenda from Russia to make democrats look bad if they dont do this or that, we know that for a fact.

You see the difference between how I frame this, present this, and others? There is a good way to do this and a very bad way that is CERTAIN to harm democrats in November.

[stuffmatters]

17. TY for staying on this, Uncle Joe

[Uncle Joe]

22. Thank you stuffmatters.