And the longer we drag our feet on vaccinations, the bigger sample the virus will have to mutate in. It’s like governments have become useless things that need to be brushed aside.
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Thank you.
Sadly, many countries have not been able to purchase vaccines for their people.
We have end dates coming due for unused vaccine. We should donate to other
Nations to both help them and not waste expensive medicine.
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“The ACA and stimulus bill were two of the largest pieces of social legislation since the 1960s.”
The biggest Bait and Switch project of the century. The “UnAffordable UnCaring Act” leaves around 40 million with zero coverage and thus no access to health care. In addition to those with zero access, it leaves hundreds of 1000s with no access because of high premiums, deductibles, and co-pays. The bill was written by and for the insurance and pharma cartels. They have been and are the benefactors. Go back to stock charts and check out what happened to their stocks the day Obama signed it into law. Under this bait and switch plan, the cartels have done very well and continue to hijack our health care. This massive failure to fix the problem is what the Democrats now refer to as a victory.
The proposal to lower the Medicare age is nothing more than another bait and switch.
The real solution is National Improved Medicare for All. Jayapal has had the proposed National Improved Medicare for All legislation on the floor since 2016. A similar bill was first proposed as early as 2000. For the last 21 years, Nancy has flatly REFUSED every single session to bring it to the floor. Sanders proposed similar legislation in the Senate in 2016 where it is also refused a vote.
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This proposal is just another bait and switch to prevent us from having National Improved Medicare for All.
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You should read about Social Security! Huge bait and switch. When it was passed, there was no old-age healthcare provision and it didn’t include half the workforce. By CD rules, horrible sellout program by anti-progressive FDR.
What you are conveniently ignoring is that the United States, which both liberals and conservatives love to proclaim as being the “greatest country in the world”, is, amazingly, the only industrialized country on the planet which does not have universal health care. And no, Obama’s health care plan, which was given the seal of approval by The Heritage Foundation, is a far cry from UHC while Biden is against Medicare for All while wanting to keep in the good graces of the for-profit insurance companies.
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Lots of countries have universal healthcare schemes, but not single payer. My feeling is like Social Security before it, the ACA is slowly moving in the direction of expanded benefits, especially if the new reconciliation bill goes through. In that, the US will be like lots of other countries that developed more universalized systems as time moved forward. We’ll see though.
Also, none of this conversation is recognizing the reality that the Supreme Court 1) required states to approve Medicaid expansion–it was basically universal under the original law–and 2) has, so far, kept the ACA alive. There’s little doubt, moving towards universality will build off the existing program just like we’ve done with other programs given the legal constraints.
Despite your implication I never said that other industrialized countries have a single payer system but did say that they, unlike the United States, most certainly do have UHC. And your faith and hope in Obama’s health care plan overlooks the fact that tens of thousands of people are not covered while the ACA’s main beneficiaries are the for-profit insurance companies as well as the pharmaceutical industries. And all the while the Democrats, the alleged party of the people, led by Biden and “the Squad”, are doing next to nothing in making sure that the United States joins the ranks of other advanced countries who do have UHC by making Medicare for All a reality. Unless this finally happens then the United States is a great country in name only.
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If they are doing next to nothing, why did they just 1) increase premium subsidies; 2) expand Medicaid coverage; 3) cover postpartum maternal care in the Covid Relief bill; and 4) auto enroll unemployment filers (dependent on the state, of course) in Medicaid? What’s more, why are they looking to expand dental coverage under Medicare and enhance premium subsidies in the upcoming budget bill?
And, let’s not play dumb about the numbers. The ACA saw slow but steady uptake in enrollment until the Trump administration began finding ways to cut back on benefits. Even then, an estimated 11 million people were covered on the exchanges in 2020, while roughly 75 million were enrolled in Medicaid, with expansion states taking a 1/3rd of those numbers. Again, playing by rules of CD commenters, Social Security was an abject failure when it passed. It didn’t cover half the workforce, didn’t include a universal health provision, and did not even include old-age health insurance.
Once again you have no hesitation in singing the praises of the Democrats and the ACA while not acknowledging that Obama’s health care plan is not nearly as efficient as Medicare for All. To paraphrase from one of your comments, let’s not play dumb about the fact that the leader of the Democrats, a certain individual named Joe Biden, said on the campaign trail of 2020 that he is against Medicare for All. Undoubtedly the reason for that is because the lobbyists for the for-profit insurance companies and pharmaceutical giants lined the pockets of Mr. MBNA. The last thing which the corporate and militant Biden wants is to radically support a program which would benefit the working class and the poor who struggle to reside in the less than egalitarian United States.
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Medicare for All would be decidedly better than the ACA, I never claimed otherwise. However, I’m not going to project my desires, and frame a narrative around, what I want when political reality is, and has been, starkly different. If you want Medicare for All, you need to win 1) state legislatures, 2) state governorships, 3) about 20 more House seats, 4) and at least 12-15 more Senate seats. Both LBJ and FDR had 64-68 seat Senate majorities to work with, plus some progressive and moderate Republicans. Neither came close to getting a single payer system in place. Johnson specifically tailored Medicare to avoid the single payer fight, while FDR excised a universal healthcare program from his Social Security proposal.
Needless to say, Obama had nothing like their majorities to work with and Biden doesn’t either. What’s more, we’ve got 13 states where people keep electing governors who oppose public funding for healthcare, and act on it, while we’ve got 12 more with Medicaid work requirements (though Courts have trimmed some back). At some point, you either change this reality, or adapt. Aside from yelling online, I’ve seen no reality where progressives have done the former, save winning a few congressional races in urban districts. Given a very conservative Court just affirmed the ACA once again, I think building upon the existing program is reality, just as was done with Social Security.
It will be interesting to see how many republicans who will be able to get on Medicare at age 60 will refuse to join because it is a Socialist program.
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Since you use the word reality in your post it would then be most helpful if you were to read The Democrats: A Critical History as Lance Selfa informs the reader in page after page of his excellent book how the Democrats, who are the second largest corporate political party in the world, have continually failed to help the working class and the poor in this country while also having little hesitation in waging war overseas for the most specious of reasons. Selfa also points out, with very good reason, why the Democratic party should be thought of as being the graveyard of social movements.
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Very familiar with that work. Selfa is a socialist, so of course he does not like the Democratic Party. My issue with works like his, and some of Thomas Frank’s, is that they always forget the voters in their stories of subterfuge. And, voters in this country aren’t socialist, the vast majority don’t even identify as progressive. I mean, historians call the Reagan Revolution a “revolution” for a reason: it’s because an openly conservative president, hostile to unions and government, won twice, the second time in a sweeping victory. That’s a choice people made, and conservatives campaigned for success. They have volition too, not just Democratic saboteurs who keep the true people’s movement–and socialist writers always know what “the people” want–down.
Then, in another post you said:
“And yet, even if I grant you any of that obfuscating narrative, the ACA massively expanded health coverage for millions of people. Without it, 12 million Californians wouldn’t have publicly funded health coverage.”
Sorry KC …
Both of these statements are not true. There’s a little over 12 million Californians covered by Medical total. less than a third of them (about 3.7 million) are included because of the Medicaid expansion.
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You are right. Sloppy mistake on my part. Too late to correct but I appreciate the correction.
Unfortunately you are engaging in character assassination against Selfa as your main complaint against him seems to be that he is a socialist [horror of horrors!] without actually engaging in any of the cogent arguments he makes in his critical book about the corporate Democrats. To borrow a word from your post, people make a choice when they vote for either a corporate Democrat or a corporate Republican because this is what they are offered by the mainstream media. They are also not going to hear from other voices such as when the Commission for Presidential Debates, which just so happens to be composed of former Democrats and Republicans, makes sure that the only people who take part in those debates are either Democrats or Republicans. It also needs to be pointed out how the Democrats did all they could to make sure that Ralph Nader’s name was not going to appear on the states’ ballots during the 2000 presidential election. That is the reason why investigative journalist James Ridgeway stated in the documentary An Unreasonable Man that the Democrats are the meanest bunch of motherf***ers whom he has ever seen. The last thing that commission desires is for someone like Nader [and who is not even a socialist] to share the stage with a member of the GOP and the Savage Mules.
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And how large would the expansion have been if a public option had been pushed for (as he claimed he wanted to do in his campaign for the presidency instead? Barry propped up the health insurance scamdustry instead of truly expanding and improving national health care in order to make money for his political masters and promote his preferred stop-gap non-solution instead of fulfilling his campaign promises to the people who voted him into office.
No capitalist should ever be allowed to get away with lying their way into public office again. Outlaw Private money in Public elections!
A public option would have made the ACA better. Arguably, expanding Medicaid eligibility requirements overtime will accomplish the same (Democrats did this with Covid relief and are trying to make the changes permanent). That said, the problem was that Democrats didn’t have the votes for a public option in the Senate, and the House version with one was close, 220-215. Joe Lieberman would not even agree to a Medicare buy-in option. With about 4 months to work with where they had a 60 vote majority, the ACA was a close call with even the dumbed down version we got.
So, even with a 2/3 majority in the Senate, and a large majority in the House, the Democrats hands were tied and they just couldn’t pass good legislation for the people instead of focusing on GOP wars and the monied minority and corporate interests?! Doesn’t sound like a party that deserves a majority (nor even minority representation) in our nations government.