After the debate, Chris Matthews of MSNBC kept badgering Elizabeth Warren about how much Medicare for All will raise taxes. That is the Republican talking point and the one pushed by the corporate mainstream media and the political establishment who are defenders of the private health insurance companies. Warren refused to accept his framing of the question and instead focused laser-like on the fact that she and Bernie Sanders have been emphasizing, that overall health care costs will go down and people will not go bankrupt or suffer serious financial hardship because of medical bills.
Watch Elizabeth Warren stand up to Chris Matthews as he looms over her and interrupts her constantly.
She’s got a spine of steel. Mathews should be ashamed. pic.twitter.com/P8P8ER8mkO— Sean Kent (@seankent) July 31, 2019
Mathews is a blowhard and a shill for corporate America.
It wouldn’t raise taxes if they cut the military, stupid republican.
I’m not a Presidential candidate or consummate politician, but I sure would have been more, um, forceful.
(Perhaps that ‘but’ should be ‘because’, but perhaps not. I just don’t care enough)
What a fuckwit. He was doing his best to get a clip for republican use that “yes, taxes would go up”. SO FUCKING WHAT?! Your total costs will go down. How fucking hard is that to understand?!
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There was a news story last night about how high the cost of prescription drugs are in the US compared to Canada. Specifically, insulin was $380/prescription in the US and $40/prescription in Canada. People are travelling to Canada to buy their prescriptions. The story went on to describe a law that may go into effect that would allow US citizens to order their prescriptions from Canada. But only certain drugs, and insulin was not one of them. Single-payer insurance would 1) cover everyone, 2) have lower out-of-pocket costs for everyone, and 3) no one would go bankrupt because of medical costs. How is that a bad thing?
johnson catman,
I know.
Best as I can tell, it goes something like this:
a) Health care is a service.
b) Services should be run for profit
c) Therefore health care should be run for profit
So, the idea that services could be provided without some profit (to shareholders, obs health care providers would be paid the same as now, that’s an actual expense) accrued to shareholders is not in the conceptual space.
That the USA spends more per capita and gets worse outcomes than other developed economies is apparently an irrelevance.
It makes perfect sense as long as you accept that the overriding aim of the entire political establishment is to protect and advance the interests of shareholders and investors, rather than the public welfare in general.
@Dunc Milton Friedman declared outright that enriching investors was the only legitimate purpose of government, and that any government policy with any other aim is innately unlawful.
I think Elizabeth Warren and others should put it much more simply -- that there will be more money in the average person’s pocket after the bill is passed, in addition to have unlimited,health care with no constraints on anything
Well, that’s not entirely true -- public healthcare systems inevitably end up having to make some tough cost-effectiveness calls. So, for example, if there’s some new, very expensive treatment that is experimental, of only limited effectiveness, or only applicable for a small number of cases, they will often decide that it’s not cost-effective to offer it. But those are generally fairly unusual edge cases.
But without them, the vast majority of people it might help, wouldn’t be able to afford it anyway.
And with them, there’s usually an option for the suitably rich to go private anyway.
…so, any argument that they’re stopping you from getting something you otherwise would is pretty much bunk.
Horrible interviewing technique. He never lets her get out more than two syllables before he is interrupting or asking a different question.
@9: Oh, absolutely. I just think it’s important not to oversell the advantages. They’re substantial enough as it is, without giving opponents the opportunity to undercut your position by over-stretching it.
My point (@#7)was that talking about costs and taxes may be confusing and not present the full picture; but a simple statement like “there will be more money in people’s pockets” is easy for people to understand, and difficult for others to refute. One can then say that you may pay a little bit more in taxes, but will save a lot more by not having to make co-pays.
And not have monthly insurance premiums to pay puts more money in your pocket.