The electoral sweet spot is Medicare 4 All ... Who Want It

[DemocratSinceBirth]

From the A rated FOX NEWS poll

Medicare buy in: 68/24
Improve ACA: 57/34
Single payer: 46/48


https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-poll-september-15-17-2019

[elocs]

1. I don't think a Medicare buy in is the same as MFA because it implies having a choice.

With Medicare for All there is no choice. You must be part of the greatest and most perfect healthcare plan ever known in history with absolutely no downside to it. It will be healthcare heaven on earth.

[DrToast]

4. Re-read the thread title.

[thesquanderer]

14. The wording in the OP is confusing. Here's how the question was asked, which clarifies the options

Changing the health care system so that every American can buy into Medicare if they want to? = 68/24

Making minor changes to Obamacare while largely leaving the law in place? = 57/34

Getting rid of private health insurance and moving to a government-run health care system for everyone? = 46/48

[highplainsdem]

2. K&R! Thanks, DSB!

[PoliticAverse]

3. It's not surprising that a "Medicare buy in" polls higher than ACA improvement.

Medicare is more popular than the ACA.

A "Medicare buy in" is kind like the "public option" that someone once ran on and got elected President on.

[DrToast]

5. It's a tricky question because a Medicare buy in is essentially improving ACA

There’s definitely an overlap.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. What is the upside of making people give up the insurance they have of they're happy with it?

If Medicare 4 All Who Want It is all that "everybody" will buy in.

[at140]

9. My deductibles & monthly premiums for Medicare are more affordable

than ACA coverage.

[DrToast]

10. Medicare is losing money

If the premiums were designed to cover all costs, they would be substantially higher.

[at140]

11. Same thing can be said for ACA

From what I understand, a large percentage of people on ACA receive subsidies from gov't.
If similar subsidies were available to those on Medicare, premiums could be much higher and Medicare would stop losing money.

[DrToast]

15. They are both subsidized

The difference is that the Medicare subsidy occurs by not charging customers the full costs. ACA customers are charged the full cost, but they are given money to pay for it.

[George II]

12. That's true. In fact if we improved the ACA we rename it Medicare Buy In.

[at140]

6. M4A is the best possible choice without question

> It will cover every one EQUALLY
> Cadillac plans for select few and uninsured by the millions...So unfair in the category of healthcare which ALL Americans must enjoy as the most powerful & highest GDP country.
> The huge profits, rich Executive compensation packages, wages & benefits of millions employed in the private insurance business, gargantuan advertising $$ spent by the private health insurance industry will all be directed towards M4A.

> M4A without including prescription drugs for all (Rx4A) is a cake without frosting. However this category of business is not so clear cut suitable for total gov't control. Without profit incentives, America will no longer be the trail blazer country in creating life saving drugs. But the status quo is also unacceptable where Americans pay much more than other countries for Rx drugs.

[emmaverybo]

7. M4All would be the single payer here, not the Medicare buy-in which some candidates propose

would be the optional plan people could choose from if they are not insured, do not qualify for Medicaid, are not age eligible for Medicare, or want to keep their employer or retirement benefits provided plan (in addition to basic Medicare).

I believe Biden wants to offer a Medicare or public option buy-in, improve Obamacare, keep Medicaid and Medicare, and allow people to keep private insurance if they choose.

My point is that according to the poll, Medicare4All, a single payer plan, is coming in last.

[Control-Z]

13. ...

[Celerity]

16. Shame that there are too many centrist Democrats in RW-gerrymandered and voter suppressed

swing and Red districts for the 'Public Option' to ever pass, especially after Big Healthcare, Big Pharma, and Big Insurance pour in hundreds of millions (a billion maybe?) to brainwash tens of millions that the Public Option (yes, including Biden's version) is the love-child of Stalin and Marx.

I did not even begin to talk about the Senate, even if we take it back with a say, 52-48, 53-47 majority. Plenty of blockage there when the rubber meets the road.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. The voters want it.

[Celerity]

18. the voters want a lot, but my money is on the reality of our completely corrupt and artificially

RW-skewed system. With trillions at stake (by 2030 or so the US will be spending close to or more than 6 trillion USD per year on healthcare) the systemic controllers will never allow a true public option, as they know it will be the death knell for their rentier profit scam of death and wealth extraction.

108 (and maybe more after 2020) centrists add moderates (and even some centre-right ones on most issues) in our Caucus who are in either the New Democrat Coalition, the Blue Dog Caucus, or the entirely problematic (and RW funded to a significant degree) 'bi-partisan' Problems Solvers group (the No Labels catspaw.)

Let's say we end up with a 250 to 185 House Majority. The VAST part of the new ones will be centrists from purple, pink or Red districts. Lets say there are now 120 in those groups above. All it takes to block passage of the Public option is for 33 or more of them to say NOPE. If we have a 240 to 195 majority, all it takes is 23 to bolt. Good luck with that, especially after they are BOMBED with hyper-slick, scientifically designed adverts to paint it as the worst thing since Mao's Little Red Book.

Again that is not even taking into account the Senate, a Senate more than likely with a Senator Hickenlooper, who called universal healthcare ( he did not say MFA, he said universal healthcare which is the goal of the Public Option) a danger to the American people. Good luck getting Sinema, Manchin, and also Big Healthcare, Big Insurance and Big Pharma-heavy states' Senators to go for it.

I may be young, but I did not just fall off the mango lorry. One of Biden's own co-Chairs at his massive Philly launch fundraiser, Daniel Hilferty (CEO of Independence Blue Cross Blue Shield) is on the executive board for AHIP, who is helping fund attacks on the public option now ( and killed it in the past, along with almost killing the ACA itself.)

An OP that deals with this very thing:

Biden in Cross Hairs of the Partnership for America's Healthcare Future

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287207761

my reply therein:

Partnership for America's Healthcare Future is partially backed by Blue Cross/Blue Shield and AHIP, (America's Health Insurance Plans), who spent over 100 million USD in the last 14 months (prior to it's passage) trying to defeat the ACA and ever since then have vowed they will do the same to quash the public option.


Here is a direct quote from the OP's link

“Unfortunately, Vice President Biden’s proposal for a new government insurance system through a ‘public option’ would undermine the progress our nation has made and ultimately lead our nation down the path of a one-size-fits-all health care system run by Washington. From driving up premiums in the private market, to threatening our nation’s already at-risk hospitals, to diminishing Americans’ access to the quality care they need, research warns that such an approach could be disastrous for patients and consumers.”

The institutional power players are staunchly against even the slightest diminution of their extractive abilities within the for-profit health care matrix. The public option is a massive threat to them.

The co-chair of Biden's kick-off giant fundraiser in Philadelphia (at David Cohen's, the Comcast executive, home) was Daniel Hilferty, the Independence Blue Cross CEO and an executive director of AHIP. He was a key driver against the ACA, and now is helping lead the charge against the public option (not to mention he is obviously against MFA as well, which is not my preferred thing anyway).

Hilferty is bad news, and is just hedging his bets with Biden, as he almost always gives mostly to Rethugs like McTurtle. I am absolutely sure Hilferty will pop a 5000 USD bottle of some rare vintage of Dom Pérignon or other champagne if/when the SCOTUS invalidates all of the ACA, especially the pre-existing conditions clause. Biden should really disown him publicly, and anyone affiliated with Partnership for America's Healthcare Future and AHIP. It is a really bad look IMHO to have them involved to a point where he (I do not know about others) was a fundraising co-chair.

Link to tweet

As Dems debate Medicare for All, a less radical idea stalls in blue states

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/08/health-care-blue-states-1308730

This was supposed to be the year blue states created government-run health insurance plans, after health care-fueled midterm election victories.

But legislation around the country to craft a so-called public option — a longtime progressive goal — has stalled over political and financial roadblocks, underscoring the challenge of creating coverage expansions even less comprehensive than the "Medicare for All" plan championed by Democratic presidential contenders and progressives in Congress.

Legislative proposals in New Mexico, Nevada and other states to set up a public option to give people more choices — and insurers more competition — have been watered down or shelved as lawmakers struggle to design affordable plans building on Obamacare. And multiple Democratic governors who backed the idea during their campaigns haven’t pushed it since taking office.

“When you’re dealing with a new issue — and this is a new idea — the biggest problem around the idea is one of cost," said former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat. "Where is the money going to come from? And obviously every politician is concerned about that, rightfully so."

The public option has appeal among some moderate Democratic officials hoping to harness the base’s energetic support for Medicare for All in the 2020 elections — while skirting the political risk of embracing the full single-payer overhaul that Republicans decry as socialism. Democrats who have embraced less radical overhauls hoped to leverage the party’s newfound advantage on health care to make progress toward universal coverage this year while contrasting it with Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare.

snip

There already are troubling signs that the 2009 tactics (where the public option was taken off the table due to immense pressure from the lobbyists) are being baked in the cake yet again.

At Biden's first major campaign fundraiser, in Philadelphia a few weeks back, one of the co-hosts was Daniel Hilferty.

Daniel Hilferty is the CEO of Independence Blue Cross. He is on the board of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the trade association working to defeat the progressive push for Medicare for All. In national politics, Hilftery has exclusively donated to Republicans this year, records show. The health insurance executive gave $5,000 to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., along with smaller donations to other congressional Republicans (see below).

https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?two_year_transaction_period=2020&contributor_name=Hilferty%2C+Daniel+&min_date=01%2F01%2F2019&max_date=12%2F31%2F2020





Hilferty's group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), pumped in $102 million in 14 months to try and block Obamacare, now they are doing the same with MFA and even the much milder buy-in option.


Health Care Insurers Spent $100 Million To Defeat Obamacare


https://www.democraticunderground.com/1002805314

As the Supreme Court readies to announce their decision on the individual mandate portion of the health reform, it has emerged that the largest health care lobbying group in the country spent a total of $102.4 million in just 15 months to prevent Obamacare from becoming law in the first place.

In 2009 alone, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) pumped $86.2 million into a conservative lobbying group, the US Chamber of Commerce, to combat President Obama’s health care reform plan. But with the added months of 2010 prior to the ACA’s March passage, AHIP piled on an additional $16 million to be used against the bill.

That staggering total, which the National Journal’s Influence Alley uncovered today, was not out in the open — rather, the funds were transferred through a secretive process and listed only by the organization as ‘advocacy’ spending:

The backchannel spending allowed insurers to publicly stake out a pro-reform position while privately funding the leading anti-reform lobbying group in Washington. The chamber spent tens of millions of dollars bankrolling efforts to kill health care reform.


more at link
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/06/13/499093/health-care-insurers-spent-100-million-to-combat-the-affordable-care-act/




https://www.opensecrets.org/search?order=desc&q=daniel+hilferty&sort=D&type=donors







They are still at it (trying to destroy the public option)


AHIP mobilizes industry opposition to public option (2016 efforts)

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/ahip-mobilizes-industry-opposition-to-public-option/426659/


Dive Brief:

The leading health insurance industry trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), launched an effort last week to mobilize members against the growing push for a public option, which would create a government-run health insurance plan to compete with private plans on the ACA exchanges.

AHIP's action alert last week asked its members to contact Senate offices and provided a list of talking points to assist in arguments against the public option, The Huffington Post reported.

The move came within hours of the introduction of a resolution by 27 Senate Democrats, led by Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, calling for the public option--an idea that President Barack Obama and presidential nominee Hillary Clinton have also recently joined forces to support.

Dive Insight:

AHIP's swift action suggests the group sees the groundswell of support for a public option from legislators and advocates as a real threat. The concept has essentially come back from the dead after raising major debate during the crafting of the ACA, but subsequently being left out of the health law due to concerns among lawmakers, including some liberals, as well as opposition from industry groups.

snip


2019


Partnership Statement On Introduction Of Senate Medicare-X Legislation A Public Option Would Restrict Patient Choice of Plans and Access to Care

https://americashealthcarefuture.org/partnership-statement-on-introduction-of-senate-medicare-x-legislation/


ICYMI: “Medicare Buy-In, Public Option Proposals Would Harm Our Health Care System”

https://americashealthcarefuture.org/icymi-medicare-buy-in-public-option-proposals-would-harm-our-health-care-system/


they also will fight to stop the US government from having the ability to negotiate lower drug prices


A BITTER PILL: HOW BIG PHARMA LOBBIES TO KEEP PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES HIGH

https://www.citizensforethics.org/a-bitter-pill-how-big-pharma-lobbies-to-keep-prescription-drug-prices-high/



PARTNERSHIP FOR AMERICA’S HEALTH CARE FUTURE.

https://americashealthcarefuture.org/about-us/

[NYMinute]

20. Meh .. all that stuff is just propaganda

It won't sway me.

Those people will make money no matter what happens. Medicare doesn't own hospitals, doctors and pharma companies. Medicare will have to bow before them and give them what they want if they refuse to provide services to people unless they pay cash.

There are many doctors who do not accept medicare or medicaid and if the fees go down, many more will stop. Then what? Hundreds of millions of more patients seeing a dwindling pool of doctors? Furthermore, the best doctors will drop out first - leaving the MFA patients with mediocre care.

The whole premise of MFA is built on wishful thinking.

[NYMinute]

19. Medicare for those who want it is the consensus. Period. nt