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'Seems Like a Good Policy!' CBO Shows Medicare for All Could Cover Everyone for $650 Billion Less Per Year

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#21

When Unions were strong, they were the Commons’ expression of power, by both collective wealth and ability to withhold the labor needed by Capital to create profit.
Capital utilyzed graft to weoponize the laws that slayed effective unionization.
Financialization replaced Labor as the preferred means to generate exponential Wealth.
Politics are a sideshow that Wealth owns, one requires Lucre to operate a viable Political Party, or two.
Rich people pay for a Rich people’s party.
Who. Will. Pay. For. Yours?

However, Power transcends Politics and Wealth.
Power is like Gravity, and like Leverage.
…
I’m reminded of a joke:
All the different body parts were arguing who was the most important. Stomach said “I digest all the food that powers all of us, I’m the most important.”
Eyes said “I see the World, I’m the winner.”
Brain claimed to do all the thinking, therefore the master.
Asshole didn’t say shit, just shut down tight.
Stomach threw up.
Eyes crossed.
Brain went into delerium.

Even Asshole deserves respect.
Lessons can come from anywhere.
Everything has purpose, and power comes with that purpose.
There is always a cost, but power can be flexed with little or no money, and that’s exactly what I can afford.

7 Likes
#22

Its a treaty that actually blocks it. Bill Clinton signed it on December 8, 1994 and the financial services part was added in 1997 and 1998 setting a permanent “stand-still” on regulation on the date February 26, 1998, its been established. Sorry to burst your bubble.

#23

So they can make a big show for the rest of the world mowing the “rioters” down with gun fire, then watch the foreign investments come rolling in?

That’s what happened with China after June 3, (US time) 1989. The GATS treaty was already in the drawing board and even the Chinese students in the US knew about it. A few years later, on April 14, 1994, the Marrakesh Agreement establishing the WTO was signed. So, officially, Game over.

Don’t you think Trump and Schumer want some of that FDI action (foreign direct investment) to fur the nest eggs of US billionaires too?

#24

I really appreciate the detail in this draft 200+ page report by the CBO - especially their comparison with our recent studies that clearly lays out the details of exactly what assumptions are leading to the differences between them. I hope this draft sees the light of day as an official CBO report and isn’t squashed by a political appointee of either the Trump or Biden administrations. Releasing the draft was a smart move to inoculate against that possibility.

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#25

Unfortunately, saving money or lives are literally the last thing our oligarchy wants as shown by how they constantly pretend that it would cost more money than today when the fact is the US taxpayer is already paying so much that it would fund a single payer (Tierless with no more insurance companies and no more bills for any of us, one system for all, and top quality care for all, not crap care for the destitute like the WTO would require)
The effect of this is that the medicolegal standard of care for even the richest Americans is being steadily pusheddown so far that Europeans coming to he US when confronted with US “cadillac care” call bullshit and turn around and move back home.

Showing how even the richest in the US are being short changed sjust so we can give the poor worse care than anybody without the legal liability that should apply to punish them.

Single payer is - one thing and one thing aone, one system for everybody rich and poor, period. One good system for everybody. No gap plans,m no gaps, no bills, and no bullshit.

But instead they want a means they can shuttle the poor to healthcare providers in the developing world, in order to gently push the poor off the economic map. They want that more than anything, cutting off their own noses to spite their faces.

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#27

you’re funny

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#28

If only money wasn’t the obstacle to everything.
I wonder. How could we fix that?

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#30

Interesting - I hadn’t heard that, and would be interested in your source for that (certainly very believable as a long term trend though). I had thought that medical tourism into the U.S. by the wealthy was still on the rise for serious illness (growth of 8% per year in the most recent data I saw) while growth of medical tourism by middle class Americans to non-U.S. destinations was growing even faster (24% per year growth). Of course, those figure are pre-pandemic as the whole medical tourism industry has shut down this year.

#31

Ive seen the exact same thing happen twice. I dont want to go into more detail.

They shared this info with other members of the group I was part of which hired people literally from all around the world on a routine basis. The real best and the brightest. This was not a corporation.

#32

So, apparently we have a vaccine ready to go.
Experts say that to experience efficacy a large number of people need to be vaccinated.
If the crazies on the right don’t believe in the virus why would they get vaccinated. Add that 70 million to the people who won’t trust a trump vaccine to prevent the “Trump Virus” and we may come up short. Again.

1 Like
#33

My thinking on the rich coming to the U.S. for care is also colored by personal anecdotes. In the 1990s and early 2000’s I was heavily involved in brain tumor research including collaborations with folks at Mayo Clinic. When I stayed at the main hotel near the clinic, I remember it always being filled with the families of rich foreign patients. Things got really crazy there at the end of the 90’s when Jordan’s King Hussein was being treated at the Mayo. He had a huge entourage – but many of his people did not have appropriate documents and had to stay on the large Royal Jordanian jet parked at the small Rochester, Minnesota airport. The same kind of thing was happening at the Cleveland Clinic when I used to visit there for conferences 10 to 15 years ago – with rich foreigners going there to be treated by their famous cardiologists. Those cash paying patients brought a ton of money into those elite clinics and it was my impression that the clinics did everything they could to attract them – even at the expense of the domestic patients.

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#34

The left never tires of tellling everyone what a grand world they can build if they are just given enough money and power.

This is called TALK:

Obamacare will provide healthcare to the 30 million people who have no health insurance.
It completely failed.

But - you can keep your existing insurance.

So now: see, government healthcare will become so efficient - look at all the money we will save.

The left: completely wrong and damn proud of it.

#35

Obamacare has literally zero to do with what the left wants to do. So your argument is worth the same amount.

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#36

Well, duh, writes this British beneficiary of the National Health Service. But “even the most rabid Medicare for All supporters” is rather unfortunate phrasing, implying that people who want a public health service free at the point of delivery have a mental problem. The fact that the USA still doesn’t have this makes it an outlier amongst wealthy societies and puts its health care outcomes well behind the country it keeps trying to destroy: Cuba.

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#37

Really, your comment almost defies belief that anyone could write it. Don’t you know anything about the world outside the USA? In my country, we’ve had socialised health care since 1948 and we as a nation regard it as our finest achievement. It’s about giving power to the people, not keeping it in the hands of the wealthy.

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#38

It is capitalism that brings with it corruption, cronyism and collusion. I live in the ultra-capitalist UK where such things are reported every day. The Tories are awash with corruption.

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#39

The system works - it has done so in the UK since 1948, despite efforts by the tory party to undermine it. The current US system is there to provide fat cats with wealth rather than helth for everyone else. How many people in the US die from cance because they can’t afford the treatment ? Probably millions every year. You know it makes sense.

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#40

Medicare For All: Reasons for it:

  • It would cover the millions of Americans who have no health insurance and therefore, no healthcare.
  • It would save the people millions of dollars.
  • You could go to any provider you wanted to, including keeping your current medical providers.
  • People could switch jobs without losing healthcare coverage.
  • It would prevent the most common cause of personal bankruptcy and financial stress.
  • The freed up disposable income would be good for the economy.
  • Most of the industrialized world already has it, so it is proven to be workable and better than the US system.
  • Other benefits not listed here.
    REASONS AGAINST MEDICARE FOR ALL:
  • THE POLITICIANS ARE OWNED BY THE CORPORATIONS AND PEOPLE WHO ARE GETTING FILTHY RICH OFF THE CURRENT SYSTEM.

That’s it! That’s the only reason we don’t and can’t have it. The US is a failed state that cannot provide basic needs to its citizens.

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#41

Jimmy Dore has begun a nationwide effort to have people contact progressive members of the House and urge them to tell Pelosi that unless she brings M4A to a recorded vote, just a god-damned vote on the House floor, they will not vote for her to be Speaker. She would cave to this as you know the only thing that matters to her is remaining Speaker. They have the leverage as she barely has a majority in the House due to her corruption and incompetence and having lost seats last month… She would hold a grudge and seek revenge later, so this would take courage and principles for the progressives to do this, therefore, it is not likely that they will. And then we will all know that the squad and other progressives are frauds and are no hope for us.

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#42

Their vision is blocked by their colons.