Beware: Attacks on Medicare for All from foes and 'friends' are well-orchestrated. They're also lies

Attacks on Medicare for All are coming from all sides. But activists and supporters must not disengage, lest they cede ground to those whose sole interest is easy profits from a patently corrupt healthcare system.

Republicans taught Democrats and progressives an important lesson: Repetition and message discipline is not only important, it is also effective. Most importantly, in a vacuum, in a space where a repeated message remains unchallenged, it is not even necessary that the message is truthful. In fact, the dissemination of disingenuous messaging flourishes in the repetitious environment.

To be clear, math is absolute. It is impossible for (Cost of Healthcare) to be more expensive than (Cost of Healthcare + Cost of Multiple Executives + Cost of Shareholder Profits + Cost of Duplicate Services + Doctor Cost to Interface with Multiple Insurance Companies + more). That is an absolute statement. Those who are opposed to Medicare for All would like you to forget that basic mathematical fact.

No fiscally responsible politician who has the interest of their poor- and middle-class constituents at the forefront could continue to support a model designed solely as a method to enrich a few while providing absolutely no service. In fact, private insurance adds inefficiency to delivering health care.

Private insurance’s fiduciary responsibility is to its shareholders, and to its overpaid executives. That dictates that the insurance industry performs two immoral tasks. The first is to market to the healthy, even as obstacles are erected that leave those with pre-existing conditions without insurance. Secondly, private insurance companies make every attempt to deny service. These two acts maximize profits to shareholders and ensure exorbitant salaries for their executives.

Profits are not a bad thing if one is providing a necessary service in an efficient manner, or one needs to be innovative. Private insurance provides neither. The industry’s ‘innovation’ consists of finding ways to maximize wealth extraction.

Americans are starting to get it, even if some Democrats and Republicans make believe they don't (wink-wink). Those ‘skeptics’ are wards of the plutocracy.

The Hill reported the following:

Seventy percent said they supported providing "Medicare for all," also known as single-payer health care, for Americans, according to a new American Barometer survey.

The poll, conducted by Hill.TV and the HarrisX polling company, found that 42 percent of respondents said they "strongly" supported the proposal, while 28 percent said they "somewhat" supported it.

Fifteen percent said they "somewhat" opposed the measure, while another 15 percent said they "strongly" opposed it.

The results mirrored a Reuters-Ipsos poll released in August, which also found that 70 percent of Americans supported "Medicare for all."

These numbers are well-known. It is no surprise then that a Joe Biden-linked firm has pulled a Trumpian move, with the goal of confusing Americans about Medicare for All.

A new poll by a firm linked to Joe Biden is testing messages designed to undercut support among Democrats for Medicare for All, one of the most contentious issues splitting the party’s top presidential contenders.

The survey, commissioned by the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, found that primary voters start off favoring the government-run health care system by a margin of 70% to 21%, but can be persuaded to oppose it. The study showed that Democrats are most swayed by the arguments that the program would impose a heavy cost on taxpayers and threaten Medicare for senior citizens.

The poll was conducted by Lisa Grove of Anzalone Liszt Grove Research. Her partner, John Anzalone, is the chief pollster and an adviser to Biden, who opposes Medicare for All and wants to make government-run insurance optional.

In effect, the above organization is suggesting the same modus operandi used by the Republicans. They used it to make Obamacare less than what it could have been, and now centrist Democrats are doing the same thing to Medicare for All.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg's ‘Medicare for All Who Want It’ plan is not acceptable because it opens the door to dump sick people onto Medicare for All using many legal techniques, even if the law dictates that insurance companies take everyone. In other words, they continue to immorally manage risk for profit maximization that benefits shareholders and executives.

It is clear that the purported liberal and mainstream media is complicit, as well. At one of the Democratic presidential debates, ABC's George Stephanopoulos tried to frame Medicare for All as a huge tax increase. He then tried to force Sen. Elizabeth Warren to acquiesce to the corporate narrative, but she held her ground. And then there was MSNBC's Chris Matthews trying to bully Warren into giving him that coveted soundbite of her saying she would increase taxes to pay for Medicare for All. She did not budge.

Warren, the candidate that has a detailed plan for everything, has said she will soon release details of exactly how she will pay for Medicare for All. I hope she’s as clever as usual and unlike her opponents—at least from a moral perspective. I made the following suggestion in a recent blog post.

Elizabeth Warren must continue answering the question that should be asked and not provide the soundbite that is effectively a virtual lie. Health insurance premiums are taxes not to the government but to insurance companies.

Progressives are on the right side of history. Moreover, it is clear the health insurance and health care pilfering is unsustainable. The Partnership for America's Health Care Future has been investing millions to confuse Americans into opposing Medicare for All. It is clearly not working. The moderate Democrats on the stage like Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg (along with some who did not make the debate stage) seemed to be well-versed on the above-mentioned organization’s talking points. It must be made clear that non-support for Medicare for All is anathema to rank-and-file Democratic support, and candidates who know better but are simply toeing the line will pay at the ballot box.

The directional change Bernie Sanders has brought to the Democratic Party and the body politic gives me hope. But Medicare for All activists cannot be lulled into complacency. They must be out there enlightening and informing their neighbors and fellow citizens, both near and far.

from Daily Kos https://ift.tt/2Nd4qlO