Why Does The Right Lie About Medicare For All? Ans.: To Make Medically Bankrupt 'Muricans Feel Better!

Image accompanying latest WSJ propaganda piece ('The False Promise of Medicare for All')

First, let's grasp that the character who got us into the Great Depression was none other than President Herbert Hoover.  It stands to reason then that his latter day acolytes embedded in the Hoover Institution would be front and center in carrying out his regressive economics and continuing to make the lives of millions miserable today as well.  They, e.g.  Dr. Scott W. Atlas -  in his hit on Medicare for All in yesterday's WSJ ('The False Promise of Medicare for All', p. A17)-  keep at it because it serves their  "profit over people" purpose. It also keeps their rich donors (like the Koch brothers) at the center of continuing political power plays, dramas - and the infusion of their money pays for the PR attacks..

The lies reeled off  in Scott Atlas' piece are so prodigious that if I recited them all they'd consume most of this post - apart from giving them further currency-   so that I will not do. I will just present one of his damned lies, because it invokes our Canadian neighbors, i.e.

"In Canada last year the median wait time between seeing a general practitioner and following up with a specialist was 10.2 weeks, while the wait between seeing a doctor and beginning treatment was about five months. According to a Fraser Institute study, the average Canadian waits three months to see an ophthalmologist, four months for an orthopedist, and five months for a neurosurgeon."

All of which are bald faced lies.    Besides, do we trust the offerings of the "Fraser Institute" or any of its "studies"?  I think not, given they are a creature of the Koch brothers, e.g.

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fraser_Institute

Excerpt:

The Fraser Institute is a libertarian think tank based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Fraser Institute is an associate member of the right-wing State Policy Network (SPN), and was featured in SPN's Associate Member Updates in July/August 2017. ^[1] Additional reports, ranking and index information about the Fraser Institute are featured in SPN's Associate Member Updates.  The Koch brothers -- David and Charles -- are the right-wing billionaire co-owners of Koch Industries. As two of the richest people in the world, they are key funders of the right-wing infrastructure, including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN)

So are you really going to believe this bunch, OR anyone who cites them?  I think not, nor should you given THEY are the lot selling the real snake oil.    Indeed, the Canadians we spoke with in our last trip to Alberta (Sept. 25- Oct. 6) unanimously agreed they would not change their single payer  health care  for the world, and certainly not with Americans and their pathetic patchwork system with dozens of insurance companies, continually increasing premiums, and drug prices that are more like continuing extortion.

Our niece Inge, a naturalized Canadian (originally from Trinidad),  has lived in Toronto for over 3 decades. She has also had occasion to use the Canuck single payer system multiple times for back issues. Never has she experienced waiting times cited by this kook, Atlas.  (She did acknowledge in certain provinces, an ingrown toenail - which has lesser priority  - may have you waiting a bit longer to see a specialist than say, a broken big toe.)

While the Right and its Libertarian cohort (including the Kochs) likes to baffle with bullshit concerning Medicare for all, its basis is really quite simple and sensible.  It would basically take the existing successful Medicare system, strengthen it and extend it to all Americans. Thus, we would see:

- From birth everyone, every American citizen, will be insured and have access to any doctor or hospital in the country no matter the size of their bank account. (Unlike today when a private insurance corporations dictates which doctor you can see.)

- Unlike today when a high deductible or lack of coverage prevents it, people will be able to see a doctor when they first become ill. This will save on much larger costs down the road when conditions worsen.

- Prescription drug prices will be cut by as much as 40 percent simply by repealing a federal law that prevents Medicare from competitive bidding for lowest drug prices.

But make no mistake that 'Medicare for all'  would be the for profit  medical industry's biggest nightmare because they'd no longer be able to reap profits by invoking  pre-existing conditions or medical loss ratios - preventing sick people from getting care instead of delivering it. Hence, they and their  political lackeys and extremists will be prepared to fight like junkyard dogs to prevent it, including the perverse use of propaganda.

Some of the myths peddled by the Right and the likes of the denizens of the Hoover Institution as well as CATO Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Manhattan Institute etc. are the following - with their knockdowns:

Myth: Single payer is government run health care.

Fact: No, that would be the Veterans Administration system. Under single payer you get a health ID card and can see any doctor or go to any hospital in the U.S.  Doctors are NOT employees of the government and hospitals remain in private hands.

Myth: Single payer will lead to rationing like in Canada:

Fact: No, because right now in the U.S. it is PRIVATE health insurance which rations care by using medical loss ratio calculations to determine how much care must be disallowed to earn x % profit


Myth: Costs will skyrocket under single payer.

Fact: By eliminating the for profit system we can save $350 b a year or more in administrative costs.

Myth: Drugs will be more costly and difficult to get under single payer.

Fact:  Drugs will be cheaper because single payer will be able to bargain for lowest prices - like the VA does.

 All of these points show that too many Americans have been fed a bill of goods about single payer, and we call such tactics propaganda.  It is time to start rationally responding every time the term "single payer"  or "Medicare for all" surfaces in media attacks or PR hits.

We all need to begin to think rationally about how we can make our system much better by adopting it, and also rigorously arguing against the assorted spurious attacks by media know - nothings, their lackeys and the pro-capitalist exploiters.   As a relatively recent example, both Charles Blahous and  CNN's Jake Tapper were exposed as not completely truthful in a   pair of essays published in the journal Jacobin.

Also not surprising is that Tapper echoed the Neoliberal twaddle of The Washington Post which (Jacobin writer) Matt Bruenig points out has regurgitated the untruths in  a separate fact-check  of Ocasio -Cortex, as well as a video segment accompanying an editorial entitled  “The cosmically huge ‘if’ of Medicare for all."   Interestingly, the editors removed the video soon after the exposure.

This led Bruenig to write:

"In some ways, the undead nature of this falsehood is a perfect microcosm of the problems our society faces in dealing with fake news.  Once a false report is out there, it is devilishly difficult to undo the damage it has caused because, even if it is corrected, few people ever recognize the correction and so many people wind up repeating the false report.”

Sometime later, a medical specialist (John Perryman) wrote in a response letter to the WSJ (Aug.  17th):  

"The U.S. pays more for health care, whether measured on a per capita basis or as a proportion of GDP than every other nation on Earth".



So no wonder so many Americans have to file for medical bankruptcy (i.e. file for bankruptcy because of crushing medical debt.)   Why then all these persistent attacks on single payer systems? Obviously to make overburdened Americans believe they don't have it so bad after all! They have access to the "greatest medical system" in the whole world"... for a price!

See also:

Healthcare Policy

Time For Medicare For All

by Robert Reich | November 14, 2018 - 7:15am |

Excerpt:


"Over 70% of Americans–and even 52% of Republicans–now support Medicare for All, a single-payer plan that builds on Medicare and would cover everyone at far lower cost than the current system."

  
  

Medicare For All IS Financially Feasible - Contrary to the Neoliberal Pundits' Codswallop

The CNN star pundit Jake Tapper is normally a steady and sane voice amidst the current insanity and turmoil affecting the country thanks to Brand Trump.  But he stumbled badly recently in attempting to hold the claims of Sen. Bernie Sanders and  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez   to scrutiny, warning that the Democratic Socialist Duo  were "not entitled to their own facts" i.e. in respect of their claims concerning the cost efficiency of Medicare for All.  But could it be that Jake is the one being dishonest here, and those he seeks to castigate in his Neoliberal myopia are correct? 


The point to be made here is that it matters what source or sources one selects in challenging the claims of others.  Sometimes this is like shooting fish in a barrel because the source is a fraud through and through. Hence those citing it are also frauds or woefully ignorant of the contaminated,  fake nature of  what they're citing. A case in point is the Warren 'Whitewash' Commission's 'Warren Report' -  so replete with lies, omissions, outright fraudulent exhibits, etc. that anyone who cites it for support has already lost his or her case.  

The financial issues to do with Medicare for all are much less obvious because they depend not only on the integrity of sources but assumptions made, as well as financial projections.  I already posted (June 12, last year) on Bloomberg columnist Megan McCardle's financial objections as well as giving my responses to them. For example, in terms of her arguments for "asymmetric insurance" for a given risk pool managed by health insurance, I wrote:   

I argue, as does David Jessop, that this kind of economic concept has no place in health care delivery because people are not cars, homes, or fancy jewels. Look, if populations are continually growing that logically  means sick conditions and diseases must grow with them-  whether cancers, Alzheimer's, kidney disease or whatever. Even the healthiest person following a rigorous diet  can get cancer or be injured in an auto accident. Hence, the notion of "asymmetric insurance" for a risk pool managed by a health insurer is ludicrous. There can be no such thing because one will know from the get go that every manner of sickness and disability can only expand, especially for older age groups.


What Jake Tapper pulled on his CNN segment was arguably a lot worse.  In the Tapper case, he honed in on Sen. Sanders' and Alexandra Ocasio- Cortez' claim that one study from the Mercatus Center (at George Mason University - a libertarian strong hold)  showed that a universal health care plan would actually save money over a ten year period. 

“Is that true?” Tapper asked incredulously. “Did a study funded by the Koch brothers indicate that Medicare for All would actually save the U.S. government trillions of dollars? No, it’s not true, at least not according to the author of the study.”

After carefully noting an Associated Press investigation that exposed the Koch brothers’ control over the hiring and firing of educators at George Mason University, Tapper then proceeded to quote at length from the Mercatus Center’s Charles Blahous, who refuted Sanders’ assertion that the proposed legislation would lower the projected cost of all health care expenditures by $2 trillion. From the segment:

It is likely that the actual cost of [Medicare for all] would be substantially greater than these estimates, which assume significant administrative and drug cost savings under the plan, and also assume that health care providers operating under [Medicare for all] will be reimbursed at rates more than 40 percent lower than those currently paid by private health insurance.

This is where it gets interesting because Blahous' contentions and arguments also appeared in the WSJ ('Even Doubling Taxes Wouldn't Pay For Medicare For All'. Aug, 2nd), wherein he claimed that over ten years the bill would rise to $32.6 TRILLION if the U.S. adopted Medicare for All. Which is pure poppycock, as well as myopic. As one medical specialist (John Perryman) wrote in a response letter to the WSJ (last Friday, the 17th):

.  "The U.S. pays more for health care, whether measured on a per capita basis or as a proportion of GDP than every other nation on Earth.   What Blahous fails to mention is that vast costs are already happening and our worsened by the structure of our health care system. Single payer is an economically viable alternative."

In effect, if you run the numbers for the money shelled out for private insurance by all Americans over the next ten years, including premium increases, drug increases, costs increasing due to inflation and others (co-pays, out of pocket outlays for high deductible plans), it easily surpasses $32.6 trillion and is probably closer to $40 trillion if ER visits by the uninsured are factored in - which costs have to be paid by taxpayers.

Blahous' wild claims  -  based in part on the false assumption of a 40 % cut to provider reimbursements-  were also trounced in a separate letter (same date, issue)  by a Univ. Of Michigan medical professor  who wrote:  "A 25 % federal VAT plus a 3 %  increase in the top federal tax rate (from 37 % to 30%) would be adequate to fund Medicare for All even under Mr. Blahous' assumptions."

Blahous and Tapper were also exposed as not completely truthful in a   pair of essays published in the journal Jacobin.   In effect, what the Mercatus study actually indicated is that Medicare provider rates would come in at 40 percent below private insurance rates. Not totally surprising given  Medicare provider reimbursements  are not affected to the 40 percent level - contrary to Blahous' blather, i.e. as exposed in the Jacobin essays . 

 As  Matt Bruenig writes: 

“This is because only 56 percent of Americans have private insurance.  So, while private insurance patients would see their payments reduced by 40 percent, Medicare patients would not see their payments reduced at all, and Medicaid and uninsured patients would actually see their payments increase.”

Tapper's obsession - typically Neoliberal  - is also on the savings for government ($2 trillion) but in fact that's irrelevant as it is the savings for We the people - as Sanders and Ocasio -Cortex had belabored.  Also not surprising is that Tapper echoes the Neoliberal position of The Washington Post which Bruenig points out has regurgitated the untruths in  a separate fact-check  of Ocasio -Cortex, as well as a video segment accompanying an editorial entitled  “The cosmically huge ‘if’ of Medicare for all."   Interestingly, the editors have appeared to have removed the video - maybe conscious of exposure of their Neoliberal lies, after the appearance of the Jacobin piece.

This led Bruenig to write:

"In some ways, the undead nature of this falsehood is a perfect microcosm of the problems our society faces in dealing with fake news.  Once a false report is out there, it is devilishly difficult to undo the damage it has caused because, even if it is corrected, few people ever recognize the correction and so many people wind up repeating the false report.”

The takeaway here is that any claims you see or hear regarding how Medicare for All is "too costly" or "financially impractical" must be taken with a grain of salt.  Look especially at the sources cited and don't be fooled by any superficial institute's name cachet. 

Watch Jake Tapper’s CNN segment here.

Read Matt Bruenig’s articles here and here.