Top 10 Truths Cable News (and Most Presidential Candidates) Won’t Tell you about Medicare for All

Full disclosure: A long time ago I campaigned for Medicare for All single payer health care representing Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, Physicians for a National Health Program, Neighbor to Neighbor and the California Nurses Association first as a legislative advocate before Congress and then before the California legislature.  I worked for a time as counsel to the California Assembly Health Committee.  I later worked for SEIU California helping to pass the laws to implement Obamacare in California.

With the merits of Medicare for All being debated by the presidential candidates and selectively reported on by cable news, we’ve got to keep ourselves informed.  Here are the Top 10 Truths about Medicare for All that I think that the presidential candidates and cable news outlets (all flavors) are unlikely to report:

1. Medicare is government provided insurance not government run health care.  The UK has the British Health System where all the hospitals are owned by the government and all the health professionals are employed by the government.  It works well.  When it was taken up in Canada decades ago, the conservative party there pushed for a compromise: government provided insurance rather than government provided health care.  No one is suggesting otherwise in the US (although it would be interesting to see if Bernie pushed for the UK system whether the other Democrats would move to government insurance as a compromise lol).
2. Almost nobody is attached to their insurance except insurance providers.  Democratic candidates for president please stop.  Your credibility is badly strained.  We want to go to the doctors and hospitals we want.  We do NOT really care who pays for it. 
3. Healthcare has been one of the single fastest growing sectors of the US economy for decades–there is a lot at stake for corporate contributors and cable news owners.  Candidate and Senator Bernie Sanders says this aloud but most other candidates skirt the issue.  Everywhere at the top of the US economy people are getting rich off overcharging ordinary people for prescription drugs and procedures through their insurance.  Therefore to go after the private health insurance industry it to alienate HUGE campaign contributors and corporate sponsors of cable news in the US economy.  It takes more political courage than most news anchors or candidates for president are willing to display (if they want to stay on air or in office).
4. Except for expanding Medicaid for the poorest, Obamacare did nothing to put the brakes on costs.  In a private system that is designed to enrich Big Pharma and Big Insurance, NOTHING puts limits on costs.  And if it does, those savings are NEVER passed back to us.  Obama couldn’t muster the political will to change that in Obamacare.
5. Many Democratic presidential candidates and cable news anchors are likely getting talking points and contributions from the health insurance industry.  If a candidate is talking about how much people want to keep their private insurance or how the only sane choice is to create a “public option,” they are likely getting their talking points directly or indirectly from the health insurance industry which wants to preserve its runaway profits at our expense.
6. Kaiser Permanente probably wrote the talking points that the Dems are using.  Kaiser Permanente historically is the absolute linchpin nationwide for stopping Medicare for All. This merits another post but here’s why: first THEY are an integrated system so among insurers they can credibly claim that if you eliminate their private insurance, you interfere with people’s right to choose their doctor or hospital.  Some people DO love Kaiser although under Obamacare most people who choose Kaiser choose it purely on cost and then can’t afford the high copays and deductibles to see a doctor when they’re really sick.  Kaiser uses its control of its doctors groups to dictate to the American Medical Association and it use its “partnership” with their some of their health care unions (with the exception of the California Nurses Association) to get political cover with Democrats.  Healthcare workers and doctors are very effective messengers to talk to Democrats.  They then march forth en masse with KP’s talking points in hand to destroy time and again what would most benefit doctors and healthcare workers: Medicare for All.
7. Access to healthcare today is rationed by how much money you have and the savings go to private shareholders in the form of profit not to your care.  
8. Access to healthcare under a government insurance like Medicare would be rationed by how much the system can afford and the savings could go back into that system to pay for necessary care.
9. Almost everyone in the US already pays a huge “tax” for health care in the form of premiums, deductibles, co-pays.  By collecting that money through taxes, the working class and middle class could pay much less for health care and, depending on the details, have fewer or no obstacles to presenting themselves for care.  The rich could pay their fair share.  And the cost to businesses could also be progressive with small businesses paying a much smaller cost and everyone on a level playing field.  
10. All of US economy EXCEPT health insurance would largely benefit from Medicare for All.  Historically the Chamber of Commerce opposes all government medical insurance even though its members often muse to the contrary.   A former CEO of General Motors once famously quipped, comparing the cost of producing cars in the US to that of producing its cars in Canada (which has universal health insurance), “There’s more healthcare in GM’s US cars than there is steel.”  The reason they oppose government insurance is ideological.  Ironically they are all open to government bailouts or subsidies directly to big business.  The other reason is that health insurance is part of the financial industry so it invests its assets in other parts of the economy and there are interlocking boards of directors.