Democrats Roll Out the Astroturf to Stifle Medicare For All
A new group started by Obama alumni and conservatives blatantly shows their hand
Possibly the greatest impact of the Sanders campaign was the role it had in pushing Medicare for All into the mainstream of American politics. Almost every Democrat with hopes of running for President has signed onto Sanders’ Medicare for All bill. But there are those within the Democratic Party and center to center left apparatus of Washington DC that are incredibly resistant to the policy so they can protect insurance companies that they have deep ties to. Enter, United States of Care, a new group that thinks “it’s time to put health care over politics” a statement that can only make sense to those that have no idea about how politics works. Arguably the central political conflict of 2017 was the fight to stop the ACA from being repealed by Republicans.
It shouldn’t be surprising that a group trying to take an apolitical approach to health care makes zero mention of Medicare for All or any substantial policy that would rearrange our awful health care system where tens of thousands of people die every year from not having insurance. Their principles, although it’s a stretch to refer to them as that are thus:
It’s laughable at how much this stretches to try and act like it wants to move away from our current untenable status quo while at the same time restricting what’s possible. ‘Fiscally responsible’ and ‘political viability’ are dead giveaways that any single payer type plan is off the table because it doesn’t have support from some of the very politicians and industry figures that are backing this project. That’s why the limits of their vision involve progressing towards a vague goal:
While former speechwriter and co-signee of this group Jon Favreau attempted a defense of the politics of this group, a deeper look into who this group assembles into a coalition makes clear they haven’t earned any good faith. One of the most egregious board members is Bill Frist, former Republican Senate Majority Leader, a proponent of a partial-birth abortion ban and co-sponsored legislation to privatize Medicare. Frist is joined by a slew of other Republicans and health insurance execs as listed in this Bloomberg article. If you don’t think that these are going to be major factors in deciding the policies that come out of this group, just read the words from Andy Slavitt, the board chair: “We believe every single American should have access to basic, affordable care,” he said in an interview. “But we avoid using language like universal coverage that is polarizing. We want to bring people together, and certain words are used by one party or another to create divides.”
Universal coverage is already an incredibly bland and vapid term as is, as having more people covered doesn’t mean their coverage is affordable as we’ve seen with the ACA. The fact even this term is deemed “divisive” goes to show you this group has no interest in anything beyond bringing back the individual mandate and some more ACA subsidies for insurance companies. They’re talking about building consensus when Americans already support Medicare for All and there are tons of actual grassroots groups organizing even more support. Instead of trying to work with these groups, Obama alumni and Democrats join arms with reactionary conservatives and insurance execs. They choose to entrench themselves among the DC elite to keep their paychecks and influence rolling.
They can profess how much they want Medicare for All or how much they support it, but when it comes to their actions they do little to advocate for it. Their positions of power and privilege means it’s easy for them to compromise to the point only minor changes are made. They are not among the countless people that need to take to GoFundMe to pay for their health care. They are not among those that are forced to decide whether they want to pay for their rent or their medicine that month. Medicare for All is the bare minimum of basic social democracies, not even the most radical or left wing form of health care policy. Arguing for anything less than that is a disgrace. And that means not using your platform or resources to do so.
This isn’t just about Medicare for All or appeasing insurance companies, it’s about making sure that the grassroots left has no place in power once Trump is defeated. Limiting the scope of possibility and making sure that they aren’t swept out in the same wave as Trump and Republicans. However much they try to claim to be on our side, their actions make apparent that they are a faction opposed to the left that we must defeat.
