Paul Waldman, an opinion writer for the Washington Post, writes here that the coronavirus pandemic has made reform of healthcare an urgent matter.
Millions of people have been laid off, losing the health insurance provided by their employers. He predicts that access to health insurance will be a major issue in the November election because Trump’s war on Obamacare has stripped millions of their health insurance.
Many will be destroyed by the cost of their healthcare during this current crisis.
The pandemic will revive support for Medicare for All, and its fate will depend on the composition of Congress.
He writes:
Let’s begin by considering a few things the coronavirus crisis and the accompanying economic downturn have illustrated about our system.
Perhaps the most vivid is that untold numbers of people are going to get huge bills from being treated for covid-19. Insurance companies made a big deal about waiving cost-sharing for coronavirus tests, but if you get it and have to get treated, you could still face thousands of dollars in costs, especially if you have a high-deductible plan of the kind that has proliferated in recent years.
The number of people facing those costs will be enormous. As bad as the virus has gotten in some other countries, that’s one thing their citizens don’t have to worry about.
That’s not to mention the huge numbers of Americans who have no insurance at all — especially in Republican-run states that refused the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid — and so either won’t seek care when they get sick or will have to have the state pick up their tab, further straining state budgets.
Not only that, because of this wave of patients needing expensive treatment, insurance premiums could rise by 40 percent next year. How many people are going to be saying that everyone loves their private insurance when that happens?
Then we get to the effects of the budding recession. As I’ve argued before, the fact that we force most people to get insurance through their employers not only has no rational basis (it’s an accident of history), but it also makes things incredibly complicated during an economic downturn.
Right now we’re scrambling to figure out what to do about the millions or perhaps tens of millions of people who are losing their jobs and so may lose health care. Should we subsidize them to keep their old coverage through COBRA? Increase ACA subsidies? Widen Medicaid? Some combination of those and more?
In any other system, we wouldn’t even have to ask those questions, because your coverage is not tied to your job. If you get laid off or quit or your company goes out of business, your coverage is unaffected. Wouldn’t that be easier and less stressful?
It was always a myth that if you like your employer-sponsored coverage, you can keep it — your boss can change it at any time and often does, even if you keep your job. But if some of the predictions going around are right and as many as a quarter to a third of Americans lose their jobs in this recession, the idea of keeping insurance tied to employment may seem even more absurd than it already was.
Advocates of Medicare-for-all will say these twin crises make the case for their preferred system stronger than ever. But even if we’re not ready to go that far, what we’re living through still reinforces every argument in favor of reform.
It will certainly make health care a more potent issue for Democrats in November, since the central pillar of President Trump’s health-care policy is to get the ACA declared unconstitutional, immediately tossing 20 million or so people off their coverage and taking away protections for those with preexisting conditions (such as, say, having had covid-19).
And if Joe Biden should become president, it will increase the pressure on him to forge ahead with the reform he advocated during the campaign, a surprisingly progressive plan centered on the creation of a public option that could quickly enroll millions of Americans in coverage that would be stable and secure even through another pandemic.
Nothing, nothing, not even 10 simultaneous pandemics, would change the minds of the GOP, the far right libertarian/Ayn Rand mafia. They would bleat that Italy has universal health care and it didn’t stop the corona virus. Oh wait, Biden used that argument against Bernie, too. Biden missed the point that at least the Italians will not go bankrupt from medical or drug costs. The possibility of enacting universal health care in this country will only happen when the Democrats control the House, Senate and White House. Of course the GOP will challenge any such proposals and bring it to the right wing controlled SCOTUS and lower courts.
“Of course the GOP will challenge any such proposals and bring it to the right wing controlled SCOTUS and lower courts.”
I wonder if that was a smart strategy by the Right, though.
If they block and then sue on every health care program that is less expansive than Medicare, the logical thing to do is just to expand Medicare.
They aren’t going to sue to abolish Medicare.
They may have shot themselves in the foot with their extreme position. They perhaps should have accepted Obamacare. They’re leaving no option other than expanding Medicare.
The far Right’s refusal to expand health insurance led directly to Medicare for All.
They created such a lousy, stingy and COMPLEX private system Medicare for All starts to look like the best deal.
Nothing is smart about the GOP right wing. Their biggest priority is gun care not health care. Gun sales are through the roof. I guess they think they can shoot the corona virus out of existence. I’ll bet that these people rushing to the gun stores already own a small arsenal of weaponry.
Yes indeed: “Biden missed the point that at least the Italians will not go bankrupt from medical or drug costs.”
A “public option” is nowhere near the same as universal single payer. If you’ve lost your job, how are you going to pay for a public option? Healthcare should be simple, like it is in nearly every other country short of Somalia: you need medical treatment, you show up and get treated. Period. No one should ever have to worry about the cost of healthcare.
BTW, I know it’s dangerous to criticize Biden around here, but he continues to double down on his claim that single payer healthcare didn’t “save” the Italians. No one ever said it would prevent a pandemic – duh. But it did save the Italians because no one had to worry about the cost of seeking testing and treatment, so those who were ill were able to be isolated and treated, thereby saving many others from being exposed, as well as saving those individuals from being financially ruined. Just a friendly reminder that the primaries aren’t over and Bernie is still running.
Thanks, dienne77.
Italians won’t go bankrupt when they get a bill of $100,000 to treat them for COVID-19 as Americans will.
Precisely, Dienne!!!! Thank you!!!!
“The public option”
The public needs the option
To linger uninsured
We really need adoption
Though “option” sounds absurd
Having relatives in Sicily and France with whom I keep in touch, I can attest right here and now that the healthcare system there is a great one, but like so many other single payer systems, it was not prepared for such a sudden rapid onslaught brought by COVID-19. Joe Biden is a ____________ and ought to have his artery-clogged-soon-to-have-multiple-strokes brain examined.
We would be lucky to have universal health care as it’s done in every Western European nation. Unfortunately, given the American mindset and the ruling class propaganda machine, it will take considerable number of publicized deaths for people to change their tune and pummel the federal government to enact single payer as the only healthcare system that is viable for our country.
More and more people here do favor single payer. They have to.There is no choice and no option for failure. Single payer is not communism. It’s not socialism. It’s humanism.
With tragedy comes many hard but effective lessons learned, and new realities created. There is beauty in that . . .
Off-topic, but relevant: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/04/wisconsin-election-coronavirus-joe-biden
Thank you, dienne77.
Says a lot.
BTW, Rachel Maddow actually blamed Bernie for the need to continue to have primaries. If he would only drop out, Maddow thinks we could cancel all the rest of the primaries. Apparently she is completely unaware that we are also voting for governors, state and federal senators, state and federal representatives, city/town/village mayors/alderman/council members, judges, school board members, library trustees, water reclamation district representatives, dog catchers and who knows what other local positions. Are these positions not important to Maddow? I think she has revealed something very telling about her view of democracy.
I carefully read your last comment, AGREE.
Thanks, Dienne77.
Rachel Maddow is a neoliberal until it comes to LGBTQ issues, and then she becomes a true progressive. Too bad she does not feel the same way about economic justice and redistribution of wealth .
What people fail to understand is that universal healthcare would offer people the true freedom that the right wing keeps touting. Detaching health care from employers would allow people to make job changes without losing health coverage. It would maximize the choice of doctors since virtually all doctors would be in the plan, and it would save money. Bernie has it right again.
Amen, retired teacher.
Teachers are smart.
A losing proposition”
An argument with Nature
Impossible to win
And even those who hate her
Eventually give in
All that may be true
But Bernie is a Commie
And this is what he’ll do:
He’ll communize your mommy
“Reality Endorses Bernie Sanders”
Reality endorses
The Bernies and their courses
The Medicare for All
The viruses to stall
The guarantee of wages
Enabling macrophages
The Social Safety net
To help the ones beset
Reality’s endorsement
Might come a little late
But Nature’s strict enforcement
Will surely be our fate
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/reality-has-endorsed-bernie-sanders
Thanks for the link, SDP. It says something when even the neoliberal New Yorker is calling for Bernie and MfA.
“A losing proposition”
An argument with Nature
Impossible to win
And even those who hate her
Eventually give in
… one way or another (death)
Thanks for the link.
Yes!
Biden is hosting a $2800/person virtual fundraiser, if anyone is looking for something to spend their $1200 check (plus an additional $1600) on: https://twitter.com/KyleLovesBernie/status/1245887491434921989
Meanwhile, if you donate to the Bernie campaign (any amount welcome!) it gets split among many different charities that are helping the hardest hit by coronavirus.
You really are the left-wing equivalent of a tea party drone. As one who has supported Bernie from the first day he announced more than four years ago, given money to his campaign, canvassed neighborhoods on his behalf, still has a Bernie 2016 sticker on my car and one in reserve for the next one, it is obvious that even Bernie knows he’s not going to win the nomination. From his campaign’s emails tenor, they even figured it out. They are now working to influence the Biden campaign, get concessions on the platform, and positions in the administration (although I will support the Democratic nominee, I would still be on a loss as of now, especially when comments like this keep coming). This is, repeat after me, part of the political process. People like you will take your toys home and complain, ready to pounce on every opportunity to say I told you so. For you and the other tea party knockoffs, that’s enough. You can’t get enough of the taste of your own bile.
Meant for the —– above. A kingdom for the ability to edit!
Nice name calling. Next time, don’t bother to edit. Just say what you have to say.
I’m sorry you have succumbed to the There Is No Alternative propaganda. Biden will be a disaster who will almost certainly lose to Trump because, like Hillary, he will thumb his nose at the “deplorables”. There is no “influencing” the Democratic Party, as we saw in 2016. They’ll say some pretty things to try to appease people like you, but none of it will make it into actual policy, even if the Democrats somehow manage to pull off a win in November. Biden has already assured his donor class that “nothing will fundamentally change”.
Bernie hasn’t really given up so much as, in his own words, he’s dealing with “a f—ing national crisis” and that’s where his efforts (rightly) are right now (hence, his campaign fundraising is now fundraising for coronavirus relief). Biden, on the other hand, is still all about promoting himself, even at the cost of the safety of the voters, and even to the exclusion of the voters (at least those of us who can’t afford $2800 a person). If you think Biden in any way speaks for you, either you haven’t been paying attention the last 40 years or else I congratulate you on your wealth.
But Bernie is not finished. There are still plenty of states left to vote and plenty of delegates up for grabs. And, for anyone remotely honest, three states that have already voted have to be do-overs if we can even pretend to real democracy. Illinois, Florida and Arizona all voted just after the CDC told us all to stay home and as election judges were calling off in droves, polling stations were closing left and right, voting supplies failed to show up, and people were packed together for hours waiting in dangerous conditions – can you honestly say that those were fair elections?
I’m sorry, but I don’t vote for rapists, even ones with D after their names. Biden has been credibly accused by almost as many women as Trump. I also don’t vote for blatant liars. Biden had to drop out of a presidential race once for lying and his most recent debate performance shows he hasn’t changed a bit. I don’t vote for racists nor for the cognitively incapacitated either. Finally, and most importantly, I don’t vote for people who completely fail to represent me. I’m sorry that you think a barf sandwich is an acceptable alternative to a poop sandwich, but I don’t so long as we still have a perfectly acceptable turkey sandwich choice left on the menu.
Bernie can’t – or simply won’t – continue to promote himself in the face of this crisis – he must shift his fight to advocating for those hardest hit. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t continue to promote him. He’s the only one who continues to represent us. He’s the only chance we have for healthcare coverage, worker protections, cash assistance to citizens rather than corporations, debt relief, protection of the public commons and all the other things this pandemic has made so obvious that we so badly need. With either Biden or Trump, it’s game over economically and health-wise, at least for those of us who work for a living.
BTW, Greg, your emotional reaction intrigues me. Why does it make you so flaming mad that I continue to fight for the best possible candidate to defeat Trump and lead the country and refuse to capitulate to the worst possible candidate who is clearly unfit to defeat Trump or lead the country? Why, if you claim that you have always supported Bernie, are you so invested in Biden now? Do you really believe in him? Either in his chances of defeating Trump or his ability to lead the country? Are you just so paralyzed with fear that you can’t envision a better world that could come out of this pandemic, so you cling to the world that was, no matter how bad it was? Or is there something else going on? Enquiring minds want to know.
DIenne,
I’m with you all the way on this topic, and you are pointed, truthful, and succinct. You say what you mean, and you mean what you say. I support the Democrats, but I refuse to believe the I can’t criticize my own party and smack them in the head when they deserve it. They are pathetic and don’t represent the working class any more. Shame on them. Still, I will have to do anything legal to get Trump out of office.
Bernie is true blue; it’s not HIS fault that has balls and a brain.
To the moron, I am not invested in Biden, so you can quit trying to label my views, especially since you consistently misrepresent them like a good tea party drone. I am invested in doing what I can to get him to understand and accept Bernie’s policies ideas and putting people in place, at HHS, VA, Labor, DoD, and most importantly, OMB. Do I think he has any idea of education policy? No. But it is more important to defeat the most threatening enemy. I realize this analogy will be lost on you, but that’s why we allied with Stalin in WWII. Had you been alive then, you’d still be bitching about purity instead of fighting the foe in front of you. I pledge to fight Biden and his administration on issues if he goes the wrong way should he be elected, which I don’t believe will happen as of now, but it can change. If we based elections on early polls, we would have had President Dukakis. But that last reference is surely lost on you since you are completely ignorant of history before your time and your judgment of everything seems to begin in the 90s.
And to Robert, make a decision. How can you believe the moron is “pointed, truthful and succinct” at the same time you “refuse to believe” that you “can’t criticize [your] own party” (with which I completely agree), AND “do anything legal to get Trump out of office”? That sounds pretty pragmatic to me. The moron you admire choose OR. Seems to me by that logic, when Biden gets the nomination, you need to decide. I have decided to criticize my party’s nominee, will support the party’s nomination, AND will vote to get the Idiot out of office. One can politically walk and chew gum at the same time. But I’ll probably be dead or in an internment camp by 2021. Hopefully dead, I’m tired of this shit, especially when ideologues on the Left are the best friends ideologues on the Right have ever had.
GregB.,
I love you dearly and have a request.
Please refrain from calling other commenters “morons.” Disagree without name calling.
Greg,
Wearing my assistant principal hat:
As beautifully as you articulate, your credibility is reduced when you start name calling an ally.
Criticize the views, not the person . . . Please refrain from such childish verbiage.
I don’t think Professor Ravitch would approve of such behavior.
And I can assure you, GregB, that having read Dienne’s posts over a few years, she is anything but a moron.
Most of us would be fortunate to have her writing and thinking skills; she puts together both with clarity, truth, and an ability to connect the dots that is worthy of university discourse and columnist status.
Robert, you have proven to me that you must be one hell of an easy A as long as your students figure out what you want to hear.
Diane, you allow name calling when the commentators are wacko, see Charles as a prime example. There are others. As informative as your posts are, the comments by too many on this blog are becoming Twitter-esque (which I also quit, if it’s a goddamned cesspool of ignorance and hate, it’s a hollow echo chamber). The bitching with no alternative ideas that point to potential consensus solutions are, at a very minimum, no better than the right wing twaddle we have to endure from the highest echelons of elected office. There are too many self-absorbed comments that have absolutely no grounding in reality, history, or common sense. I’m sure I’ve been guilty of the same.
I’ve been without power for the past three days. It’s given me time to read, reflect, and write. And my conclusion: I was ideological in my belief that public schools mattered, mostly because of my own experience growing up. I was very lucky to have attended some great public schools. That’s why I moved my family to a place that I thought had great public education. Now after 12 years experience, in my small universe, I have to come to the conclusion that I was deluded and ideological myself. I should have figured out how to make more money to send my children to a good independent school. The public school teachers, and especially the administrators (the notion of engaged elected school boards are a useless mirage based on what I’ve experience here) who would have made wonderful apparatchiks in a totalitarian system. Educating students is not the priority. Efficient administration that is intellectually lazy and disinterested apparatchik teachers and administrators happy is the goal, teaching future generations is not.
And as smart as all the commentators here are or think they are about the American political process, how many can clearly and succinctly explain how the congressional appropriations process is designed to work? How many understand the functions of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees? How House or Senate leadership can influence the process? How may understand how laws are actually made (hint: the School House Rock version is not based in reality)? How many here actually understand the how the executive branch functions or, as Diane rightly described, the roles positions like inspectors general are supposed to work? How many understand the functions of state and local governments are supposed to play in a federal system, both theoretically and in actual practice (the fact is that most state legislators are more ignorant about the founding principles of this nation than any freshman political science student)? If one doesn’t, then one really doesn’t understand governing or the process under which we live. We are all now experiencing the chasm between political dogmatism and reality. It’s just a horserace about political .
So thanks for the memories, I wish you and your readers’ circular coziness (I’ll keep it clean) goes well. If a parent ever comes to me asking for advice about schools, my advice is run fast and run far from public and religiously-based schools if they are able to. There are good ones, no question, but it’s a lottery, and the well-rounded, effective schools, as we all know, are in mostly in wealthy communities. But in the aggregate, independent schools are more likely to are real alternatives left in this nation to obtain a well-rounded education. The fact that they don’t have teacher indoctrination, standardized testing, or devalue teachers’ autonomy to teach is much more probable as compared to public schools. And if you can’t afford that, try to get to out of this country to a civilized one with quality, publicly supported public education like Canada, France, or any of the Scandinavian nations. At least that’s the primary conclusion that I’ve seen in the past four years of following this blog. Whether it’s right or wrong, frankly, I don’t give a damn anymore. We get what we deserve.
Meet the Baptist preacher that introduced universal healthcare to Canada.
He took on to American Medical Institute by saying stuff like, we don’t have to live in misery waiting for the afterlife, we can have a better life in the here and now.
Canadian health designed not to bankrupt people, meanwhile in the US yet another American files for bankruptcy over a medical bill every 30 seconds
Here’s an entire miniseries about Tommy Douglas who is widely considered the country’s greatest Canadian.
Shows in greater detail how he took on the American Medical Institute using humor and by creating government insurance agencies that under private insurance rates by 20%.
His daughter, Shirley Douglas, just died a few days ago.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2020/04/05/actress-activist-shirley-douglas-daughter-of-medicares-tommy-douglas-dies/
Thanks for sharing that lesson, it’s an important one that very, very few Americans can understand.
The American Medical Institute used the same arguments against Tommy Douglas’s then as they use in America today. I think that his religious approach (using the parts about Jesus helping others as intended) worked well against those twisting the Christian message into something else.
Creating government run healthcare to undercut the rates of profitized healthcare (like Obama originally wanted to do) was the other key approach. Obama had to compromise with a huge government subsidy to support universal coverage through our privatized care system.
Couldn’t let Obama create a government run healthcare system because the people would figure out that it’s about 20% cheaper when profits are removed. And once the people figure out that they’ve been lied to about healthcare, then they’ll figure where else they’ve be deceived and start down that slippery slope they’re constantly talking about avoiding.
You should watch the second link I posted about Tommy Douglas, it’s a miniseries that goes into a lot more details. American has a lot to learn from him.