Ya and the Democratic machine can’t wait to cut him off at the knees. Stay tuned.
2
I think most Americans and candidates got it wrong. Medicare does not eliminate private insurance. Indeed, they may get more customers.
Medicare pays only about 80% of medical costs. Medicare is not free. I believe the monthly cost is about $125 per month and this often comes automatically out of social security payments.
Many insurance companies offer Medicare advantage plans; these plans improve the Medicare policies but require an additional cost normally ranging from about $30 per month to about $100 per month in addition to the normal Medicare cost.
Insurance companies also offer Medicare supplement plans that offer even a better coverage but the costs of these are usually tied to the age of the insured person. For me, the cost was in the area of $200 to $250 per month on top of the Medicare costs.
Bottom line is that insurance companies will still have a large part of health insurance and actually may sell more policies because of the larger customer base.
2
About those millions of Americans who are happy with their health insurance....There are two reasons for this.
1) They HAVE health insurance. Any health insurance. Unlike their neighbor, friend, cousin.
2) They've yet to suffer a significant illness or accident. If/when the do, they might love their insurance a little less.
And if the illness causes the loss of a job, then they won't have their not-so-wonderful health insurance any more.
7
This column has missed the mark. The reason people support Bernie is that he is seen to be a truly caring and genuinely compassionate human being. The republicans could care less about the health of other Americans unless they are rich. You can put lipstick on an alligator, but it is still an alligator.
Here is a video of Bernie defending gay people serving in the military when republicans attacked gay people and many other politicians thought it too politically risky to stand up for LGBT individuals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAFlQ6fU4GM
11
IT was foolish for any of the other candidates to buy into his medicare for all, private insurance for none. There are a lot of people who like their insurance, although they might like it cheaper. There are also millions of insurance workers who do not want to have their jobs threatened. This will be critical in many House and Senate elections. Bernie is all about himself and is unable to compromise or negotiate with others.
He is also disingenuous with his positions, the man who sponsored legislation to dump nuclear waste in a small Texas town, and who insists on private jets is not an environmentalist. The man who collected a small fortune from donors, his paycheck, his social security and book royalties without substantially giving back is not the socialist he pretends to be, at least, not with his own money.
He claims to want a clean campaign but on every candidate's website you see his supporters attacking actual Democrats. His fondness for nepotism, his lack of conviction on gun control, immigration, and women's issues , are all signals that we should stay away from him.
4
Perhaps Mr. Suderman would consider time well spent in Canada - may we invite you - living in one of our fair cities, perhaps experiencing a minor mishap on the ice - especially if he is the editor of something called Reason.
We are a rather staid country in many ways, but we do have a sense of humour and it is well exercised when we see frequent references to various fairly reasonable choices being oft labelled "radical" in American media, even - or maybe especially - in the NYT.
Do you have any idea how good it is to know that health care awaits any time without credit card in hand, without the private insurance debacle or the whole unwieldy mishmash of various US routes to some kind of care?
Sure, we sometimes have to wait for a while for specialist appointments or some kinds of surgery, yes it does cost money (though probably less than private insurance which has a hefty profit motive built in), yes we also have private services which are covered by our universal health care and we are often wise to top it all up with Blue Cross for extra services or a private room. But there is simply nothing terribly radical about reasonable health care for all of us. Thank goodness - and the venerable Tommy Douglas who never wanted anyone to lose their home or die because they did not have universal health care.
As your venerable Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "Taxes are the price we pay for civilized society."
11
How ironic that Senator Sanders helped defeat Hillary Clinton who much earlier and much more seriously tried to implement revolutionary health care. She was probably also opposed in her final effort by forces who rightly or wrongly thought her a threat to the C.I.A., the investment community, and to Israel. Senator Sanders please, demagogic appeals to simplistic socialism controlled by some central power is a concept unsuited for the future . Science is on the way to curing, managing, or preventing all ills but death itself. People who bear healthy wanted babies, who don't smoke or shoot drugs, who eat well and exercise sensibly must not be discouraged, punished, or taxed to pay for and enable those who would not allow women's choice, medical advancement, and economics compatible with human nature and natural forces. And they will not be.
1
Socialism is clearly the best economic policy for everyone except Mr. Sanders.
The history of 401(k)s should be a cautionary tale for those advocating health savings accounts.
The first issue is that 401(k)s were never intended to replace defined benefit pensions. However, due to the cost savings, pensions have largely been replaced by 401(k) defined benefit plans.
It is not inconceivable that something similar could happen if the CATO's proposal for HSA's was adopted: i.e. employers calculate that it is cheaper to stop providing health insurance and provide defined contributions to an HSA instead.
Another issue is how many people have access to such plans. Although as a percentage of the overall workforce, it may be a minority, there are still millions of people whose employers do not offer health insurance or a 401(k).
Absent a major decline medical costs, HSA's will be about as as effective at funding healthcare costs as 401(k)'s have at funding retirement. In other words, there will be a small number of people it works well for and large number of people who are either not offered the plans at all or are offered the plans but don't make enough money to adequately cover their healthcare costs.
3
Get rid of Trump’s misguided corporate tax cut to the top, that would pay for it. The benefactors of that tax cut did not invest in their employees, raise wages or benefits; they bought back shares that profited themselves and their shareholders. Ask any middle income worker about their 2018 tax returns: the few dollars they may have gained in their paychecks were taxed, they aren’t getting refunds they used to, and caps on deductibles like state, property and federal taxes, as well as in charitable donations, have canceled any small gains seen in their pay checks. Trickle down economics fails again, despite the application of Trump’s alleged “magic dust”, it’s the same old shell game.
Our current health care system does not work and is getting worse every year. The US mortality rate is no longer declining, but rising, we are something like 50th in the world. So, go Bernie. Let’s see a little bit of that “socialism” — subsidies, tax incentives, depreciation write-offs, tax breaks, you name it, that industry and corporations have been getting for decades —- passed on to the people in the name of human health and welfare for all, in the good old USA.
7
I'm not sure exactly what Medicare for all means. If it is the same Medicare I have now it definitely includes premiums and co-pays. Presently Medicare has a 20% co-pay and no dental or vision coverage. That will not work. People will avoid going to doctor if they have to pay 20% of bill, and dental care, not covered, is a big part of one's overall health.
No, if they want health care coverage for all (which is really the way to go, eventually at least) they will have to come up with something far better than Medicare.
@Caded I have a Medicare advantage plan and I am covered with 2 visits a year to my dentist and once a year eye exam.I love Medicare!
2
Republicans have lots of big ideas on health care. The problem is that none of them work for ordinary people.
9
Why the hysteria on cost and "single payer system" and what they really mean is a medicare type system? We already cover the most expensive people, those 65 and up with medicare. Therefore covering the younger population is cheaper. No one is expecting that there will be no taxes with a medicare like system. They do expect people to pay in. And surprise! I expect corporations to pay in. We already have corporations paying zero in federal taxes. Corporations use and depend on roads, schools, etc. They also need to contribute to society.
Additionally current medicare has a part A and B, you get one when you reach 65 with no additional charge and can buy into (i.e. pay a premium) for the other. Drug coverage is more complicated. And most in the upper middle class buy additional add on insurance that covers what medicare does not.
We have a system that is tiered. That would not "destroy the insurance industry". We can expand it and cover the people who are cheaper to cover anyway.
Yes, the insurance industry would be smaller. That is a good thing. Yes, I would support heavy regulation for insurance companies and their CEO's compensation. There also needs to be regulation on the cost of procedures and drugs. Doctors needs to be fairly compensated. Drug companies need a reasonable profit, the emphasis on reasonable, but I"m not going to support executive management making 300 times the average worker.
11
Medicare for all is radical? Let's see, 49 out of the 50 wealthy countries have something closer to Sander's Medicare for all. The US Kafkaesque, extremely profit driven medical system is now the radical outlier in the world. We all know it's unsustainable, and deadly. Well at least we the people know, being that we are left fearful of medical bills, bankruptcy and endless debt peonage.
I don't see much space between the Dem's (ACA as it exists now), and the GOP (plan to just revoke that and let crony capitalism run amuck even more). There's no room for any solution, because they are essentially trying to be the same thing.
Not sure this call for a "policy entrepreneur" can do what decades of staff at paid for political think tanks can't.
Bernie Sanders is about as radical as any centrist Republican or Democrat in the 1970s. Medicare for all is not new, and not radical. Remove all the surplus needless fear, financial burden, and debt the current system inflicts, and people will confidently spend the money on actual consumer products, like home repair, What a boom to Main St. this would be!
I see this Op Ed as reporting on politics like a sporting event. It's a horse race, so who's managers and trainers have the winning strategy to win power, the Dems or the GOP? Useless for voters and their interests.
13
All I can say is that it should be obvious at this point that Republicans do not WANT a health care plan, never had one (unless you count RomneyCare, which is now Obamacare), never will have one. They do not want any "government" anything at all, now even wanting to privatize Medicare and Social Security.
Their plan is NOTHING to do with government at all, ever.
That goes for pretty much everything else too. Education, the environment, the climate - they want business and industry to run absolutely everything, regardless of the consequences. They call it "capitalism" (overlooking pretty much everything Adam Smith said about the actual need for keeping capitalism in check).
I call it a lethal combination of ignorance and avarice. Their "plan" is the epitome of "I got mine - to heck with you."
12
Did you read the part where the conservative author said he is joining Bernie's revolution and will vote for him instead of Trump?
No you didn't, because he isn't and won't.
But if the author succeeded at least you were baited into jumping on Bernie train to nowhere.
What you didn't read.....is the only thing that mattered.
5
@strangerq Absolutely. 2016 proved that Bernie is a great salesman. He has virtually nothing to show in areas of leadership and management.
4
Is there any wonder why Americans have been haggling about healthcare, with little or no resolution, since Harry Truman was President? This is just another in the long list of columns about the subject eminating from an "out of touch" corporate establishment type that is incapable of looking at the outside world "beyond his bubble".
I would be shocked to see someday the NYT or any of the mainstream media interview and/or have a column actually written by a medical professional(or professionals AND his countries government representative) from a country that actually works in a single payer system who actually know what they are talking about and "without an agenda". I have yet to see such an individual appear in any mainstream media outlet including this one. Any wonder why?
Oh, by the way, that is about any medical professional living in working in ANY country in the "western industrialized world", contrary to Peter Suderman's fantasy that single/payer healthcare is a "radical idea".
3
Bernie is the very definition of hypocrite.
A millionaire socialist......he wants money spreads out to all of the citizenry, just not his....ha
2
@There Bernie Sander's books were best-sellers. You would hold that against him? Compare his newfound wealth to what HRC received for one speech to the banking industry.
4
@There FDR's net worth was $60 million, which did not prevent him from establishing Social Security to everyone's benefit. Would you call him a hypocrite for being rich and helping us all in our older years? Of course not, and neither would I. How is it different with Bernie?
4
Sanders can’t warn us about income inequality because he isn’t a pauper.
Same logic as Gore can’t warn us about climate change because he travels on jets.
Do you or your party have constructive solutions to reverse wealth concentration and it’s toxic effects on democracy? No? Then you don’t get to accuse Sanders of hypocrisy.
2
The New York Times's fair coverage of Bernie Sanders is a welcome change from the smear campaign launched against him by the other prestigious newspaper: Bezos-owned Washington Post. Keep up your tradition of rigorous, free and impartial analysis!!
6
Health savings accounts - really? What planet do you live on? For folks who can't even afford their "high deductibles"? How is anyone supposed to save $100,000 for heart surgery or to save a pair of premature babies? In 2010 a simple appendectomy without an overnight hospital stay cost $25,000. A college student should have that saved up?
8
The republicans have Bernie's playbook to a T.
Stand firm for something and then do the opposite for your own personal profit. And be sure to sic your dogs on your opponents.
3
If Bernie is such a genius, why would the DNC cheat him out of a chance to lead for a hack like Crooked Hillary when they could have had the brilliance of Bernie?
2
Being neither a Sandersite nor Trumpian, I always wondered how did Sanders, a Brooklyn-born son of East European Judaic immigrants, manage to be adopted by Vermont, while being radical socialist disguised in the fur of an Independent sheep.
1
Peter Suderman: WHY don't you support Medicare for All?
6
What a weird article. Really, do we need republicans to be any more effective then they already are? As far as I can see, we have a bloodless coup right now.
4
Republicans lack coherence in their policy because they are a party now dominated by reactionaries, who by definitions are reacting to contemporary issues. Unless they revert to a truly conservative party that coherently vouches for smaller government and deficit shrinking, austerity, protectionism (?)(Frankly, it's hard to come up with RATIONAL conservative arguments these days), etc... they will never have a concretely unified vision. AND, if they lack that vision/coherence how are they going to convince the populace? The answer is they can't, so.... what do they do? They use xenophobic, racist, irrational, or false issues to create fear and panic. A clear and rational perspective will always prevail over bad-faith irrational arguments when confronted head-on; just look at tonights Bernie Sanders- Fox News Town Hall... Bernie absolutely destroyed them! And, more importantly, he did it without being divisive to the people. I frankly could care less how offended McConnel or Trump or much of the republican or democratic establishment are; the average fox-news conservative should have been convinced by the logical arguments... well, at least the town-hall crowd was.
2
The big difference and the dealbreaker for the Republicans is that Bernie’s ideas help millikns of people and are extremely popular, while Republican ideas serve only the rich and are very unpopular.
4
Ironically, this piece is one of the few (ever) in The NY Times that discusses with clarity the strengths of Bernie Sanders and his dogged campaign in behalf of the poor and middle class. From a Republican, no less!
Of course it’s also his obligation as a Republican to imply that the despite being visionary, Sanders would not be fit for the Presidency. Apparently the No Nothing we have in the White House now is a capable administrator, the epitome of competence.
As for using the Sanders’ model as a template for Republicans, that’s rich. They have no ideas, they don’t need no stinkin’ ideas because they don’t govern in behalf of the electorate.
They govern in behalf of the obscenely wealthy and only require legislation to lower the taxes of this class. Their other idea is to preserve the sanctity of fetuses.
Their intellectual giants are great minded men like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. Ayn Rand was their Messiah.
A shabby bunch indeed. Not a fresh idea among them. To be visionary one must have integrity and courage.
Need I say more?
4
Being a successful policy entrepreneur is not enough. There are plenty of think tanks that come up with new and interesting policies. You also have to sell your policies. Bernie Sanders is a humorless, misanthrope, who has no close friends and is a social isolate. Voters will not support him. And they shouldn't. Do you think he could ever persuade congress to pass any of his vaunted policies. In his forty years in Congress, he has never done so.
2
I'll give you the Republicans big vision for health care. Health care is a privilege, not a right.
As articulated by Rush Limbaugh in an exchange with host of "Raw Nerve", William Shatner
Shatner: “Here’s my premise, and you agree with it or not. If you have money, you are going to get health care. If you don’t have money, it’s more difficult.”
Limbaugh: “If you have money you’re going to get a house on the beach. If you don’t have money, you’re going to live in a bungalow somewhere.”
Shatner: “Right, but we’re talking about health care.”
Limbaugh: “What’s the difference?”
The Republicans made very clear in their complete rejection of the ACA that any solution for healthcare that increases the obligation of wealthier and healthier Americans to care for sicker ones was a no go for them.
Health savings accounts let healthy people pay less and make sick people pay more. Using market mechanisms to drive down costs means you get what you pay for. An advanced healthcare system for those who can afford it, and a less advanced one with longer waiting times, narrow networks, cheaper drugs for those who can't.
A good article that respectfully disagrees with Bernie. It's a shame that many democrats can't seem to do this.
The Republicans should think this through. If they want to keep funneling profit to the insurance industry, they should either get behind the ACA (probably too late for that) or "reinvent" the ACA under a new Republican name. Their hatred for Obama has blinded them to the fact that the ACA, being run entirely through private insurance, is a great business vehicle. Republicans are going to mess around and watch America get a system where all the funds are spent on health care with none skimmed off for the fat cats. They don't want that.
Unfortunately for the writer, Republicans have provided a clear policy vision for America.
The Koch Bros. and Evangelicals get what they want and the government can't afford anything that helps people.
5
To characterize single payer as “radical” makes me so angry. Nearly every other developed country has such a plan. I’m so sick of republicans scare-mongering and repeating the same ridiculous distortions as naseum. I’m even more sick of all the people why buy it.
3
A single-payer system could very well be the best plan for this country but it will not fly; too many people are content with the private insurance they currently have and will not want to give it up. Too many people also think Trump is fit to be president. And thus the United States is relegated to being a backwater country as the rest of the world moves forward.
I voted for Bernie Sanders in the last primary. This time around my first choice for president would be Elizabeth Warren if I had my druthers. But I recognize that she may not be the best candidate to go up against a felonious sexual assaulting demagogue due to people's perceptions of her as being "cranky." This is a reflection of the sophistication level of the American voter. But Bernie Sander's candidacy would be a loser out of the gate; this country is just not ready for anything that would make their neighbor's life better if it felt like they were giving up something.
3
This is silly. Republicans have policy ideas. The Republicans that have those ideas are Koch, Adelson, Kobach, ALEC and their ilk. Their ideas: crush the weak, rip up the social safety net, privatize anything that moves so rich people can such it dry, unleash pollution, burn fossil fuels, destroy the planet as fast as possible, transfer as much money as possible to rich people. That's it. Anything else is just window dressing.
3
Republicans have been executing on a long planned set of polices since Goldwater lost in the mid 1960s. Those that McConnell is executing with aplomb. The utter destruction of our Republic.
3
No, the GOP should not be taking lessons from Sanders. Nor should the Dems, or independents. Because, as the article makes plain, Sanders is, and always has been, a crackpot. His ideas don't pencil out. They don't even come close to penciling out. I have yet to meet a Sanders supporter who is economically literate. Just because someone succeeds at convincing some portion of today's electorate to support him does not mean it makes sense to emulate him. We have today one of the worst, most ungrateful, least responsible electorates in the nation's history. A responsible leader would not be looking for ways to capitalize on Sanders' "achievements." A responsible leader would take America's voters over the knee and spank them into growing up.
2
@Joe the problem with your own economic literacy is that elites take it as a given that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and large corporations and military spending remain at obscene levels-making the progressive agenda unaffordable.
2
"His single-payer plan may thus prove to be a gift to Republicans in more ways than one."
Don't be so sure about that, sir. Apparently he had the Fox News audience cheering for single payer healthcare in his town hall there.
5
but the big ideas for the right you propose aren't big because they don't lift people up. massive health care savings? are you kidding? have you ever been poor? uninsured? the right has no big ideas because they don't have enough imagination for compassion
2
If the capitalists could see beyond next quarter's profit report, they would support the reformist Socialist Sanders now, not insist on installing another Clinton-style corporate puppet for Trump to beat. If his young supporters feel he has been cheated another time out of the nomination, they will quit the system entirely and become, not reformist, but revolutionary Socialists.
2
Stop using the word "radical" to describe universal health care. It's only radical for insurance companies who've profited over 100+ years with the growth of corporate America to exploit an ignorant and misguided public. Health coverage should never have been dependent upon employment. It's time for that aspect of America's corporate legacy to be rejected.
6
I'm not the first one to point out that the Republicans already have a "health care plan" that is simple, easily understood, and very straightforward: You will get all the health care you can afford to pay for out of pocket in the free market. Mr. Suderman knows this very well because, as an editor of Reason Magazine, it's also his health care plan, however he chooses to dress it up. The problem is that their long-held and "bold" idea has never been very popular among ordinary working people - that is to say, the overwhelming majority of the public. So various hucksters like Trump have to pretend they have a "terrific" health care plan held in reserve, one that will provide "cheaper" and more "accessible" care for everyone, and that they plan to reveal it in detail if and when we elect them to office. All we need to do is trust them, and why not? Have they ever lied to us?
51
The 'radicalism' of single payer....seriously?? Most of the developed world has single payer healthcare! Stop pushing this false narrative that single payer is radical. It's not.
The reality is that America's 'for profit' healthcare system that bankrupts 40,000 families a year and leaves millions without coverage is both radical, immoral and unethical.
3
I guess I don’t get this. Why would the Republicans need "policy entrepreneurs" when they've already got a well-defined policy, one that they've been acting on---all too successfully---for years now?
I suppose one could call that policy "Freedom!"---freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want, to whom- or whatever you want to do it to, all without fear of consequence. For the wingnuts, Freedom! is guns and politically incorrect speech; for the oligarch-donors, Freedom! is getting rid of all those pesky laws and regulations, the better to exploit anything or anyone.
As part of this, Republicans do have health care policy: it's "you're on your own, dude!". Freedom! sets you free to get the best healthcare your money can buy (with heavy emphasis on "your money"). I'm sure that Republicans talk up this sort of thing up a lot with their oligarch-donors… but in public, not so much, since it doesn't exactly redound to the benefit of anyone who's not filthy-rich.
It's been a winning policy for them, so why ever would they want to emulate Bernie?
This healthcare problem in America has been brewing for thirty years:
Private insurance creaming 17% of healthcare costs off the top with no control. (Look at those multi-million towers they build all over the USA.)
Big pharma: "We need that money for research." But the outrageous costs of their drug ripoffs goes into their own pockets and the lobbyists who advance their agendas in the legislature. Or, as Purdue Pharma: "Let's create a problem - OxyContin - make billions, and then make more billions solving it (now they're providing opioid rehab).
"Republicans can learn something from Bernie Sanders?" Maybe the Democrats should help the Republicans reelect Trump!
Healthcare in America was a ticking time bomb. And now, the bomb has exploded. (What...me worry?)
Bernie's candidacy is very confusing because he has trashed the "millionaires and the billionaires" ad infinitum in his campaigns.
Now that he has finally been forced to release his own personal tax returns
he reveals he himself is in the dreaded evil top 1% that does not pay their fair of taxes!!!
Bernie made millions writing books that trash the millionaires.
WHAT?
1
Is it me? I’m already tired of seeing a 1 per-center explain why socialism works.
3
Anyone who has been sick and has had to deal with our for profit private insurance companies won’t mourn their demise.
2
What can be learned from Bernie Sanders? Not much.
2
Laughable dialog. Mainstream approaches to healthcare only seem radical to people who slavishly defend the US’s inefficient, expensive, outdated system. The current system is the one that is out of step with mainstream best practices worldwide.
Darkly ironic that the author’s home publication is titled “Reason.”
1
Bernie Sanders is dead in the water because is just isn't in his DNA to be a racist or bigot, which is what today's voters want. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a natural. While praising the intelligence of the American electorate, he secretly knows that they can be led around like a bulls with nose rings - only instead of bull rings, he uses their beliefs and prejudices to lead them wherever he wants.
If DJT doesn't destroy our fragile democracy, he has published the blueprint and playbook for some other demagogue to do it later. If a democracy like America's is going to exist, there will have to be a paradigm shift in human thought throughout the world.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of us all. When we understand all this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
"...would pose real risks if he was installed in the presidency, where he would be expected to manage and govern rather than simply campaign."
What the hay?!
As opposed to the real risks of both parties doing nothing?~!
One side is decimating our clean air, water, food, healthcare, job safety, to name but a few; the other side is looking at incremental, minor tweaks. Don't rock the boat. Keep corp. cash coming. Pander to the Pharma, Insur., Oil 'n Gas etc. etc.
45,000 Americans die ea. yr. from lack of HealthCare, while the HC industry is a multibillion dollar grift on the sick, dying and aged. 1 million 'merican's declare medical bankruptcy ea. yr. Minor tweaks doesn't come close to fixing the problems. And that seems to be the idea.
Climate Change is set to decimate the human pop. One side hurries to make it worse, while profiting from death and destruction. The war profiteers are now Chaos capitalists.
The other side once again won't rock the boat. Minor, maybe, gee we tried, tweaks. Leaves the human race playing pick up instead of prevention.
The question is "real risks" to whom Mr. Suderman from the Libertarian media outlet?!
Your profits? Or humanity?
NotMeUs
1
A great stepping stone towards universal health case would be adding a public option choice to the ACA! In truth, insurance company bureaucracies are the real “death panels!”
2
Sanders has been around the halls of congress a long time.
He hasn’t really done anything remarkable.
He is just another chaos candidate.
Give him an ambassadorship to Central America after you win Amy Klobuchar.
Remember .... every running democrat should have a cabinet position in a democratic presidency post orange bowl!!!
All are credible enough to bring our country back from the brink and change some major rules and laws to favor our lost middle class and poor too.
1
All I can say is, Republicans should look at Bernie's appearance, last night, at a Fox News town hall. Baier asked, "How many of you [a Betheleham PA collection of citizens] would support Medicare for all?", hoping, perhaps, for a lukewarm or negative response. Instead, he drew a virtually unanimous show of hands, showing that the time for Bernis's ideas has come. Further, I don't think the "Republicans can learn from Sanders," to use this article's title, till they change their identity. For the longest time now, their main real policy has been, "Comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted." Increasingly, voters are realizing this is their real agenda, and it is a nonstarter.
4
What an offensive essay.
The quality of US health care ranks below all the systems of Western Europe, Canada, and Australia, most of which are single payer systems.
The repeated use of the word "radicalism" to describe Sen. Sanders might as well be applied to FDR, one of America's great leaders, whose administrations, over nearly twelve years, brought us Social Security, government employment programs, and experiments in providing affordable housing--all of which helped improve the living conditions of Americans suffering during the Depression.
Rather than "radicalism," Sanders shows Compassion coupled with tenacity, and even an ability to work across the aisle. He recently sponsored bipartisan legislation to withdraw US support from the prosecution of a Saudi War that created a huge humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Sanders continues to fight for underserved Americans, such as those who cannot afford health care, rather than for the insurance industry. Bless him for it.
As I try to decide which Democratic candidate to support, articles like this make me want to sit down and send Sen. Sanders the largest check I can afford. Who is Peter Suderman to say that Sanders "would pose real risks if...installed in the White House.
7
Republicans have no grand thoughts on how to improve our lives because they don't believe in government. They believe the private sector will fill all our needs, and government should only function to provide a national defense.
2
George Orwell could have used this piece to demonstrate the art of obfuscation, which muddies debate - exactly what Bernie Sanders has been seeking to overcome - and may yet, if the deep pockets of the insurance industry are not able to buy enough of the obfuscating propaganda that's buried reason until now.
1
There's nothing radical about single payer healthcare coverage. Heck, we've had it here in Canada for the past 50 years. What the author fails to recognize is that Republicans can't come up with a health care plan for the simple reason that they refuse to acknowledge the actual problem—that healthcare coverage is too expensive for the average person—and therefore also refuse to acknowledge the only possible solution: having wealthier people pay more to subsidize the care of the less wealthy.
The two "big ideas" presented by the author as possible Republican solutions to the healthcare challenge both amount to nothing more than having more people buy insurance on the private market, in one case aided by a tax deduction. These aren't really big ideas. In fact, they are the same solutions Republicans propose to every problem: lower taxes and more private markets. But not every problem is a nail. And low taxes/deregulated markets are not the only hammers.
39
@617to416
Why does Jeff Bezos owe me healthcare? I didn't create the online marketplace. I didn't motivate investors to bear with me over 18 money-losing years.
2
@From Where I Sit
You don't get it. If America had a single-payer healthcare system(like the rest of the industrialized world), neither Jeff Bezos nor any other business owner would even have to worry about it.
20
@From Where I Sit
No one owes anyone anything. No one owes you health care, a military, firemen, schools, police, law courts—anything at all. But humans are social animals and we make collective decisions about how we govern our societies, what we collectively provide, and how we collectively pay for it.
29
There is no incentive for government to make health insurance any more expensive than it needs to be.
There is every incentive for private companies to make health insurance as expensive and profitable as humanly possible.
Republicans become hysterical that there might be some waste in a government system, yet show no concern that health insurance CEOs walk away with billions of dollars.
Makes no sense unless we are foolishly grunting to a primitive mantra of "government...bad"
40
Senator Sanders at least stands for, not simply against, something.
126
There is nothing radical about wanting all Americans, from infants to seniors, to have universal access to healthcare. A healthy citizenry is the backbone of a productive nation.
There is also nothing radical about wanting all Americans to have a quality preK-16 education, another of Sanders' ideas. An educated citizenry is how the nation will compete and grow in an international economy.
What is radical is to take healthcare and quality education away from our fellow Americans, turn them into only for-profit entities, and give the financial proceeds to those at the top who can already afford to see a doctor and send their children to the best schools.
I would say that Senator Sanders is a relatively moderate politician, promoting ideas that will help all of us and the nation in the long run, unlike Trump and his friends in the GOP who only look for short-term gains.
186
"A sweeping and radical idea"? How about an idea that is a working reality is most of the developed world? Maybe Republicans should stop demonizing Sanders and others as Socialists and start paying attention to what has already been achieved in so many countries, and in so many ways.
207
@Tracy K Yes and no. Yes, other countries make sure everyone is covered to some extent. But no other country has such generous no-cost healthcare plans. Canada does not cover prescription drugs or dental. The UK has serious problems funding their single-payer plan. Switzerland and Germany have a hybrid public-private system. What Bernie and Jayapal are proposing is way, way beyond what other countries do, and it’s not going to be “free.” I like the hope, but wish it were mixed with some pragmatism.
6
@FlipFlop
Actually, the quality of our health care ranks 30th in the world, and our longevity 50th. Canada, and the Nordic countries and the European countries ahead of us mostly have single-payer care. As you say, Britons are not entirely happy with theirs, and Germany and Switzerland have a hybrid plan, but that still leaves a lot of single-payer success stories. And I don't think the details of paying for the system have been ironed out but obviously higher taxes for the top 1% are likely.
6
Still waiting to read the Republican plan which has been 9 years in the making. Republicans seem to be protecting the plan as if has nuclear secrets in it.
5
There is a serious shortage of medical professionals in this country who serve in family practice. Many rural areas are without any type of medical help. If nothing is done to alleviate this critical lack of services, Medical for All will be a farce. It's foolish to make something "free" when there's already an insufficient supply of it. That only exacerbates an existing major problem.
"where he would be expected to manage and govern rather than simply campaign."
Unlike the current president, because such lofty expectations are only for Democrats, given the double standard that exists today. The Republicans had their chance, we all saw their bill, and they barely missed at ramming it down our throats with virtually no national discussion.
1
Okay: "Few if any legislators on the right are attempting anything comparable. And yet they could. The strategies Mr. Sanders employed would be available to any Republican or independent right-of-center politician inclined to use them."
That's complete nonsense, akin to me saying that I could fly if I'd only sprout wings. The article's immediately preceding paragraph makes the nonsense clear:
"Working as an outsider over the course of a long political career, he has moved a sweeping and radical idea into the mainstream of Democratic policymaking."
So yeah: "[A]ny Republican or independent right-of-center politician" willing to work "as an outsider over the course of a long political career" -- not to mention sticking doggedly to both his/her guns and his/her ethical principles -- not to mention rejecting the hypocritical lies of the "religious right" and the racist South -- could achieve what Senator Sanders has achieved.
Two words: AS IF.
Two more: CHARACTER MATTERS.
Mr. Suderman is funny. He's the features editor of a right wing magazine called, of all things, "Reason".
Well, the "reason" Republicans can't come up with ideas like Medicare For All is because although the American public can be fooled some of the time, they can't be fooled all of the time and the only thing right wing Republicans are selling is hate, anger and removing all taxes on the wealthy. Right wingers like Mr. Suderman want to make the USA more of an oligarchy and less of a democracy. I'm curious to see just how far they can go.
1
"A sweeping and radical idea" ? What a load of hogwash. I come from Australia and no-one thinks it's sweeping nor radical. Neither does anyone in the UK where the NHS has been around forever. Nor Scandanavia or Europe or pretty much most countries in the world except the US. It is so frustrating that if it wasn't invented here it can't be any good. As America moves into decline it's no wonder Republicans can't 'invent' a better health care system. But wait donald trump has promised us a better, cheaper and more efficient system and someone who was head of trump Univeristy, trump Steaks and trump Bottled Water is certainly the health care expert. Who would have though health care was so complicated.
3
Many Democratic candidates appear to be embracing some Sanders ideas not because they believe in a million years they are logical and will in any stretch of the imagination be successful. They saw what this man and his young impressionable naive followers, through some misplaced self righteous expression were able to accomplish by withholding their vote from the top of the ticket or voting for ridiculous third-party candidate, in MI, WI, and PA. He was able to throw this election to Trump and wouldn't hesitate to do so again and they are terrified.
3
Surely you jest. The likelihood that any Republican legislator would look to Bernie Sanders' playbook and actually emulate his actions is laughably sad. Republicans are not the least bit interested in improving policy, unless it's tax cuts for the donor class, or convincing the electorate that they have a magical, rainbows and unicorns, plan for healthcare that not one of them can explain - until after they are re-elected.
2
What makes universal medicare a radical idea is that it would not only disrupt and change how the majority of Americans get coverage, but also millions of investors and employees that receive money from our current, extremely inefficient system.
Radical indeed, for our government to overcome to extreme power of special interests in a 4 trillion dollar industry.
Roosevelt required the threat of fascism, communism, and soaring unemployment and fear in our country to overcome such interests and create Social Security. Medicare required the combined shock of the Kennedy assassination and the unique political genius of LBJ to be realized.
Since LBJ's amazing accomplishment, the power of corporate influence over our government has grown stronger and stronger.
Perhaps a electoral revolution that gave Bernie sympathizers absolute control of congress could make universal medicare doable, but my hunch is that campaign finance reform will have to be achieved first.
I want to hear more from Dem presidential candidates calling for campaign finance reform, which may be the essential foundation to building a more progressive government that responds to human needs over business profits.
5
Today, individuals, in almost any context, make superficial commitments and flick from one shiny object to the next.
The key insight here is that successful entrepreneurs are really good at galvanizing partnerships. Partners must mutually benefit - as in all boats rise on the rising tide to weather the inevitable storms.
To solve the healthcare dilemma, we need more than political partners. All stakeholders have to mutually benefit from change.
1
We have endless money for wars ,tax cuts for the rich but single payer healthcare is too expensive. never going to happen.
4
You cite Rand Paul’s opposition to federal surveillance as an example of Republicans “using the power of the Senate and a presidential campaign to build support for a major substantive idea.” But, this was not a policy idea, it was just opposition to an idea. That’s all the Republicans in the Senate have put forth in the past four decades, opposition to policy ideas. Opposition is their only strategy for governing.
9
Clearly Bernie has forced the Democrats to move towards his socialist policies. This created great problems for H. Clinton in 2016 and will do so again in the general election in 2020. Many suburban voters with health insurance coverage through their employers will reject it because of the risks to their coverage and the economics. Americans overwhelmingly support the goal of universal coverage and protection for pre-existing conditions. They support the ACA and made Republicans pay the price in 2016 for their continued attempts to dismantle it. The Democratic candidate who debates Sanders on Medicare for all can win in Iowa, S. Carolina and the big one on Mar 3 that includes California, Texas, Mass, Tenn, Virginia, N. Carolina, Minn and Oklahoma. My bet is that Sanders will struggle in this calendar and will not be the nominee. Harris, Gillibrand and Warren will have their hands full on this issue as they have expressed support although I expect they will become a bit nebulous as the debates commence. Look for Klobuchar and Hickenlooper to directly take on Sanders. Buttigiegi and O’Rourke could benefit from the fall out. Of course Biden, if he enters, will stay in the middle on this issue and try to play not to lose. So yes, Sanders has an impact but the real question is will Medicare for All ever become law? Doesn’t seem likely any time soon. I think Medicare for more under a revised ACA is realistic.
3
@Daniel Salazar I would point out that the reason our health system is so expensive is that there are too many 'levels of healthcare' making big profits off the current healthcare system - Big Pharma, Insurance companies, private for profit hospital systems and layers of specialists who are benefiting from the current system. I am a senior on Medicare who subscribes to Medicare Advantage - which is provided by a for profit health care company (Tufts). But competition for the MA dollars keeps the actual costs in line with Medicare costs - as you pay more, but have extra benefits. I can see Medicare for All simply expanding the age range using options currently available to Seniors!
I believe if a survey was done we would see the majority of people against universal health coverage are those that have a free/cheap plan with their employer. We would also see that those for it have no insurance. Maybe we should stop the beautiful plans members of congress have so they can see both sides of the equation.
1
The Trump Administration proposed 2020 budget is the Republican vision and it massively cuts Medicaid and Medicare.
6
The Republicans million dollar tax free healthcare savings plan.
Step one get a million dollars.
8
Clear Republican visions include libertarianism, Ayn Randism, and Christian theocracy. None of them is very popular except among believers. The Republican vision includes selling most people policies that are not good for them while being dishonest about their bad points. A clear vision of this includes the necessity of hiding it from most voters, but this necessity must be expressed so that the voters will not catch on.
7
Single payer would be disruptive to a degree, but is ABSOLUTELY doable. Those who say otherwise are lying and have not even attempted to look deeper into the possibility.
8
Really.
Because I assure you I understand this stuff better than you, and it’s not doable.
Single payer is such a radical idea that it works well in every industrialized country that has adopted it. We are prisoners of the insurance companies and the politicians and pundits that take their money to defend them.
14
I also support universal healthcare but have reservations about single payer as the most practical answer. Eliminating insurance companies would be the best way of lowering costs (no more of those 30 million dollar CEO salaries), but the companies are so entrenched in our medical system that I fear complete turmoil if the companies are eliminated. First of all, health insurance would immediately become more expensive because the insurance group would spend enormous sums of money fighting single payer if Medicare for all becomes the official Democratic position. Perhaps the more practical way is to offer Medicare as an option for people and allow those who wish to do so choose private plans. It is past time to do something. We've been behind every other industrialized country far too long in providing universal coverage..
5
Bernie Sanders "has moved a sweeping and radical idea into the mainstream."
Actually, it's NOT just Bernie Sanders. Ideas take hold in this country, when millions of people support them. That's what makes Bernie Sanders successful. His ideas resonate, because they are good ideas that address the needs. They are ideas who's time has (finally) come.
American Capitalism, as well as our corrupt political system, is very badly broken. This also plays into Bernie Sanders' success. Those who say the system isn't broken are either not paying attention or part of the problem. Bernie Sanders has proposed good ideas on the needed fixes.
13
I’ll be volunteering for Bernie’s campaign doing whatever small part I can to get him elected, and I’m registered locally for his kickoff event on April 27th.
It isn’t just that I believe in Bernie; I genuinely believe that our very civilization has reached a fragile juncture.
Jane Jacobs published a book in 2004 titled Dark Age Ahead.
She was a visionary who could see that the policies being implemented in the USA would, over time, lead to the very unraveling of society.
She warned her fellow Canadians not to assume they would be able to count on Americans for stability, for many reasons, one of which was the way the government was turning on its citizens leading to a loss of any sense of community as citizens were pitted against one another.
She rushed her book out two years before she died in 2006, because she urgently wanted people to know that civilization was more fragile than we realized, and that our technological advances created a false sense of permanence, a dangerous illusion.
And here we are today.
Bernie is our best hope for changing the destructive trajectory that we’re on.
The neoliberal Democrats are determined to destroy Bernie, but as our country continues unraveling by the day, perhaps it will become increasingly evident how much is really at stake.
It’s not melodramatic to say that this election will determine the very future of our nation.
Bernie is the candidate I trust to navigate the dark days ahead.
16
@Annie Gramson Hill
Yes, Jane Jacobs was a visionary. Everyone should read her book "Systems of Survival" where she discusses how cities are born and die. "Dark Age Ahead" is on my to read list.
I think a majority of us feel that we are heading for the Dark Ages again. We feel that we are in the midst of some great unraveling and have no power to stop it, that we have pulled a thread, somehow, that will not stop until the garment is rendered formless again.
I would like to think we can make a change. ...And while I admire Sen. Sanders and voted for him in the primary last time because I wanted his message of inequality to be heard by the Dems, I feel this is the time for Senator Warren and I hope that she will prevail. If, however, Sanders succeeds I would still be ok with that. Thank you for helping his campaign.
3
Three times in the space of this short op-ed, the writer calls the Sanders plan radical. Also, disruptive, fiscally burdensome, and too big. And sweeping.
On the other hand, the writer never makes a case that the Sanders plan is a bad idea. Why? Because he can’t.
Fact is, universal health coverage is such a good idea that every developed country on the planet has adopted it. Except for the USA.
19
@An Ordinary American But the point is that universal coverage can be come in several forms, not just Medicare for All which would abolish health insurance companies. For example the problems with Obamacare could be "fixed" and a public option for Medicare added.
3
@An Ordinary American
The definition of radical is DJT ad the republican party trying to pull down the ACA and the little health coverage and protections that Americans get from it.
1
As long as Republican orthodoxy is tethered to the idea that people should strive to pay as little in taxes as possible, and that government should do as little as possible, there is never going to BE any kind of Republican strategy to make a government-run healthcare system that is better or more efficient than the ACA or Medicare.
Don't you see that the very idea of the government providing any kind of social safety net program is fundamentally opposed by what Republicans think of as a governing philosophy?
9
While the Republicans in Congress are not in favor of the single payer plan, Trump has often expressed sympathy and admiration for it. Can the Democrats and Trump come together on this one issue?
Here is governor Perry of Texas: "He's for single payer," Perry said. "How can anyone who's a conservative stand up and say I am for single-payer health care?"
By Linda Qiu on Sunday, August 2nd, 2015 at 5:03 p.m
1
For those of us who thrive amid chaos the prospect of Sanders-Trump is a dream come true! With the right puts in place, a Sanders victory will send the S&P down 1000 points - the S&P, mind you - and the correct puts will be worth millions. Meanwhile in the run-up to election day, all sorts of “counter-plays” will produce outsized gains as the markets whipsaw with each published poll. More millions! Then, no matter the outcome, early “retirement” to the Dubai penthouse for a time until new opportunities to fleece the lambs come forth. Pays to have a plan folks.
3
1. Health is the only true wealth.
2. Health Care is a basic human right in a civilized nation.
3. American businesses are at a disadvantage.
4. Bernard Sanders is the gentle Lion of the Left.
8
@ErikW65 "Health Care is a basic human right in a civilized nation." While I agree with this, it is also true that "health care" is a broad umbrella term and covers everything from inoculations to heart transplants to gender change.
I support single payer but warn America that unless there are limits, bankruptcy is coming. We are already going a trillion dollars more in debt every year.
2
@Ludwig While the deficit is arguably a concern to me (although economists differ widely on the importance of the deficit), one always has to look at the SOURCE of the deficit. It's all well and good to rail on about "spending", but one has to look at some of the "spending" that has ballooned the deficit:
1) Iraq War #2: $2 trillion, with costs over the next decade to cover the interest and the care of our wounded veterans pushing the cost to $6 trillion (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314).
2) Trump tax cut for corporations and the 1%: $2.3 billion added to the deficit over 10 years; $1.3 trillion of the tax cut went to corporations who promptly used that money to buy back $1 trillion of their own stock and pay increased dividends. This loss of income is, in essence, spending. It is also worth noting that an estimated $750 billion of the tax cut for corporations ending up going overseas because of foreign ownership of US securities. The bulk of the rest went to the top 1% of US citizens who own 38% of US securities...
Just saying... there seems to be LOTS of Republican support for spending money to wage war and support corporations, but not much for the everyday Americans who toil directly or indirectly
to keep the corporate wheels turning.
As long as the R's keep throwing crumbs to the masses and using racism and hatred to focus attention elsewhere, we'll never see the wizard behind the curtain.
10
The most striking sentence in this article on Bernie Sanders is the one describing how the Republicans work:
"Instead, Republicans tend to work within the system, defer to leadership and duck difficult questions about trade-offs."
In other words, they don't encourage fresh new ideas. Each of them pays obeisance to Mitch McConnell who himself is a vassal for Trump. The net result is that they have no ideas of their own. Moreover, they have to bend like pretzels as Trump makes a policy statement only to retract that and make an opposite statement in the very next breath.
Like the rats in the fable they follow the Pied Piper L'Orange.
17
@chickenlover Wait a minute, you say the Republicans don't have any ideas? Well, what about lowering taxes, and mainly on the wealthy? That idea for Republicans is perennially new. What about privatizing or getting rid of Social Security? I seem to recall that was something like one of the ideas of the famous thinker in the Republican Party, Paul Ryan, back when they were all saying that the Republican Party was the party of ideas. Oh, and trickle down economics, doesn't wealth at the top for the job providers lift all boats? Now that is another all time favorite perennial new idea. Oh, yes, and to prevent Democrats from ever being elected. Now that is a great idea and was the cornerstone of Mitch McConnell's pro American policy when Obama was president. He failed to prevent Obama's election but he stopped every policy proposal of the Obama administration with an overflowing batch of new ideas.
13
@Harold Johnson " Well, what about lowering taxes, and mainly on the wealthy?" Actually it wasn't mainly on the wealthy. Almost everyone earning less than $75,000 will now pay lower taxes. "Mainly on the wealthy" is something you say if you read the NYT and do not check facts.
1
@Ludwig You are absolutely right! Checking facts is very important. Like these:
Trump tax cut for corporations and the 1%: $2.3 billion added to the deficit over 10 years; $1.3 trillion of the tax cut went to corporations who promptly used that money to buy back $1 trillion of their own stock and pay increased dividends. This loss of income is, in essence, spending. It is also worth noting that an estimated $750 billion of the tax cut for corporations ending up going overseas because of foreign ownership of US securities. The bulk of the rest went to the top 1% of US citizens who own 38% of US securities...
9
I keep hearing the question about how to pay for Medicare for All. Economists have shown that the tax to cover it would be less than what we pay for insurance. Remember to put the enormous costs of insurance premiums when you complain about the costs of Medicare for All.
14
How about any idea, short of cutting taxes without even looking at the budget?
Republicans are all about destruction instead of construction these days.
8
Did it ever occur to anyone that Donald Trump helped to create Bernie Sanders? When liberals saw the cult-like following Trump attracted, they wanted to emulate it. For some reason they settled on a very old socialist from the whitest state in the country and gave him their undivided love and affection. Trump supporters and Sanders supporters (I call them Berniacs) are two sides of the same coin. Their heroes can do no wrong, and there isn't a flaw they can't make excuses for or rationalize. Both groups are cults of personality. If Sanders gets the Democratic nomination, which unfortunately is quite possible, he will guarantee Trump's re-election. The GOP will eviscerate him. Berniacs refuse to believe this. They'll follow him over the cliff.
6
@baldinoc
Trump stole whole paragraphs from bernie's campaign speeches. He promised to protect Medicare and SSI like Bernie. Who created who?
2
@baldinoc you got it upside down. Trump, I remember very well, at some point decided to use and abuse of Sanders’ main points during the campaign. That’s when Trump became popular. Obviously, it was all a con job. Not at all the other way around. Trump only won due to the political weakness of his rival and the horrible maneuvers of the electoral college. You want it or not, Bernie is the real thing, while Trump was a con all along...
Democratic voters were thrilled that Trump was running in 2016. A lot of people thought he was a Democratic plant trying his best to make Republicans lose the election as a favor to his good friends, the Clintons. Most Americans thought he was too extreme and too radical to have any chance of winning. Democrats actually thought he was going to drive Republicans to vote Democrat rather than embrace his extremist agenda.
Now every Republican is hoping that Sanders becomes the Democratic nominee. He's too extreme, they say. He's too radical, they say. He's so far to the left that he'll drive Democrats to vote Republican, they say. He's the rival every Republican has always wanted. Maybe Republicans should be careful what they wish for.
8
"A full-fledged Sanders-style single payer system is almost certainly too disruptive, too fiscally burdensome, too big a political lift..."
These claims were all made against the ACA and yet were proven false. In reality the only reason MFA would be "too big a political lift" is because those in power don't want it. It's not because MFA is too expensive, or too disruptive, or too complicated, it's because the health industry donates massive amounts of money to our supposed political "leaders". In short, it's not a matter of "can't", but of "won't".
Making these "leaders" even less motivated to replace our broken for-profit system is the fact that they all get platinum-level health care for free. Why should they care what average Americans have to deal with, and the costs they have to bear, for those lucky enough to have coverage.
In the end the only obstacle to adopting MFA is GREED. Greed by the health care industry and greed of the politicians. We can continue to support a system that makes huge profits off of peoples suffering and misfortune, profits that go to a relative handful of people and entities, or we can adopt a better, more humane, and ultimately less costly system that serves the majority of Americans. It's really that simple.
22
Sir,
A very well-crafted piece indeed. Between your accolades for Bernie Sanders, you insert the following paragraph:
"... A full-fledged Sanders-style single payer system is almost certainly too disruptive, too fiscally burdensome, too big a political lift, at least for the foreseeable future. And Mr. Sanders’s brand of cantankerous democratic socialism would pose real risks if he was installed in the presidency, where he would be expected to manage and govern rather than simply campaign.
Your message is clear: that old, billy goat might have something, but President?
For the record, I beg to differ. It is long past due for the United States to join the rest of the industrialized world in recognizing its obligations to its citizens and to put to rest the pie-in-the-sky nonsense about American exceptionalism.
20
I would be happy with Bernie as POTUS. I'm quite sure he could not accomplish even one tenth of what his most optimistic followers think he could; but just stopping the nation's slide into the utter insanity of Trump-ism would be accomplishment enough for one term anyway. What worries me is that his more irrational supporters may once again make it easier for Trump to win, if Bernie does not get the nomination of the Democratic Party, a party of which Bernie is not a member, as we all know.
7
@Joe Runciter he won’t be the nominee. The D party cannot aver that their very best idea for showing us the way is a near 80 year old white guy. Like him or not, it won’t happen.
Trump is not sharing his plans for healthcare reform until after the 2020 election. This is a tacit admission Republicans have no ideas on reforming healthcare. We knew that from their repeated efforts to kill Obamacare with no replacement offered.
There are no free market solutions to delivering healthcare fairly. The profit motive drives up costs. It creates perverse incentives. It excludes millions. The USA has the only system run primarily to enrich providers and insurers, and it’s the world’s most expensive and least efficient.
What’s the free market solution to pre-existing conditions? If I’m an insurer intent on making a profit and you make minimum wage and have leukemia, what’s my business incentive to take you on? None. None whatsoever.
20
Appreciate the praise for Sanders. However you ignored that all of his platform is widely popular. The Republicans and moderate Democrats can’t replicate his success because none of their ideas are popular.
16
There are a couple of Elephants in the room when it comes to Bernie Sanders. The first is that without Bernie Sanders' fantasy of having been denied the nomination by the Democratic Party, and the resulting, Bernie-or-bust disaster, Trump would not be President. The second elephant is that he is a "socialist" or a "democratic socialist". That is also a gigantic present to the Republicans: where else you can find a politician who proposes a less than moderate platform but out vanity paint himself as a "socialist"? A real gift.
So, no, the Republicans have nothing to learn or fear from Sanders. He is running again. He is again saying that the Democratic party was against him. He is again calling himself a socialist (a socialist? really? we do not even have a proletarian class any longer!) and proposing a vaguely defined "medicare for all" that is a perfect slogan to rally the Republican base.
Don't worry Republicans, you are safe. Bernie will go far enough to divide the Democratic party and the whole left, rally the right, and give the Presidency to Trump again.
7
Not a fantasy that superdelegates were already declared for Clinton, or supported her in states where the vote went overwhelmingly to Sanders. Or that tied outcomes from caucus votes decided by coin flips all went to Clinton. Or that Clinton received questions in advance from DNC operatives before debates. Or that the DNC scheduled debates for dates and times when low viewership was likely. Or that Clinton struck a secret finance deal with DNC that did not come to light until after the election.
17
@Xoxarle. Bernie was only able to appear close because he brought in busloads of screaming supporters to intimidate in CAUCUSES. He wasn't close in popular vote and the great majority of Democrats did not support him. This is a myth that he created.
1
@CLSW2000
"...the great majority of Democrats did not support him."
No, they didn't. But Independents preferred him to Clinton by a wide margin. And unfortunately for the Dems, they vote, or not, in the general if not the primaries or caucuses.
1
It's not completely true that Republicans generally work within the system. After all, ObamaCare was originally proposed by the Heritage Foundation think tank, and then implemented by governor Romney. The hue and cry about this conservative health care plan only started when a Democrat had the audacity to implement a version of it.
15
If health insurers want to stay in business, they need to demonstrate their value by offering good products at competitive prices. Instead, they are so inefficient in their business practices they can't compete with government run health care. The entire idea behind privatized medicine is that this wouldn't be the case. Now Republicans are left defending the system out of blind allegiance to capitalism. That simply doesn't cut it, which is why Bernie is winning.
22
@Joe As long as independent health insurers continue to duplicate administrative services, advertising costs, sales force costs, and taking enormous profits out of the system instead of returning all these expenditures into delivery of health care, they can never compete with single payer.
By definition, single payer eliminates duplication of enormous bureaucracies. By definition, single payer does no market itself because all belond. By definition - if the administration staffed by public servants - there is no need to extract profits to make owners, stockholders, and numerable executives rich.
But remove the last one - the enormous profits garnered by plans design to exclude risk and manage care - and private plans have no reason to exist.
No plan has more favorable ratings from more people than Medicare. Why? It is portable.
No favored plan is guaranteed to be there for an individual tomorrow except Medicare. Why? Because your employer will - and may do every day - switch the plans of their employees whether or not the those people want to switch plans - because it's a sweeter deal for the employer to pick another cost cutter.
"I want to keep my plan" - a reality only for those who pay enormous premiums as individuals. For everyone, it is just an odd myth rivaling the existence of the Easter Bunny.
There is advantage to no one but owners of health insurance company stock in continued existence of private insurance. Redundant and expensive and inefficient.
19
What this Republican learned from Bernie Sanders tonight in his Fox News town hall is that he bristles under tough questions. He argued with Martha MacCallum often and she repeatedly called him out for dodging questions. I learned he is at heart embarrassed to be a practicing capitalist. True socialists don’t have million dollar incomes. I learned he supports higher tax rates for others but not himself as he willingly availed himself of the benefits of the Trump tax cuts. I learned he’s charitably stingy. I learned he loves to say the word ‘billionaire’ over & over as this stokes proletariat resentment & bitterness with maximum effect.
I did not learn that I should perhaps consider voting for him. He favors class warfare - that didn’t work well in the French Revolution, it won’t work today. I learned that a lot of young people will be duped once again with promises of free stuff. I already know that socialism only works until it runs out of other people’s money. He will never have my vote.
5
What’s the Republican solutions to gross wealth inequality, corruption of political rule by monied interests, unaffordable prescription drugs, bloated military budget, tax cuts that only benefit the rich, skyrocketing student loan debt, climate change, shrinking middle classes, for profit incarceration, the millions uninsured and unable to access preventative care, below subsistence wages, tech giant monopolists, right to digital privacy, corruption of government agencies by industry lobbyists, education funding in crisis, gun carnage and crumbling infrastructure?
From what I can tell, nothing. Republicans are unapologetic about waging class warfare on behalf the rich against the rest. Sanders isn’t beholden to special interests, he represents the agenda of the working and middle classes.
17
Haiti? Venezuela? Pre-Thatcher England? These are better alternatives to America where the poor have basic ‘necessities’ like smartphones, vehicles, modern appliances in their homes and HVAC climate control? The poor in other countries would give a lot to have what America’s poor consider to be basic needs.
All of these had & have the state at the center of the economy. The general population suffered and was worse off for it. Populism rooted in class envy of success is not a long term solution.
2
@Once From Rome: Try Sweden, France, Denmark, Norway, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands. These are all countries with strong socialist programs and are the envy of the rest of the world, including us. Why? One reason is because the rich don't wage class warfare so much in these places as the way they do here. Thatcherite England was not a place to live btw.
7
Only in conservative America is a single-payer health-care system a "radical idea."
In the real world, it's the only solution to this problem that makes any sense.
27
@Andy
I agree it is not a radical idea, and besides, we need some radical ideas. However, Sanders is not the man to deliver them. He refuses to join the party he wants to elevate him to the presidency, and he failed miserably when called to join together with the rest of the party to defeat Trump. We need someone who is interested in building a coalition. He is not a uniter. Further, if nominated, he will lose to Trump the way McGovern lost to Nixon.
9
We’ve already tried running a corporate Democrat against Trump with a status quo agenda, no clear motivation for running other than entitlement, on the wrong side of military adventurism and banking bailouts, and she lost.
Time to try someone who believes in big solutions, knows why they are running, is funded by ordinary voters not rich donors and both energized the base and appeals to working class Republicans.
17
@T. Monk
The party is not going to elevate him... he is elevating the party, if you haven't noticed. Traditional coalition building is NOT going to get major reforms through that BOTH party establishments disfavor. There are far more Independent and non-affiliated voters than either democrats or republicans - and Bernie appeals to them. They and Bernie will bring us single-payer and other reforms, despite the party faithful.
9
"Republicans are, by most appearances, thrilled...to be running against Mr. Sanders and his plan, which would wipe out most private health insurance coverage..."
I love how elites still think that most people cherish their private health insurance. The private health insurance industry is despised almost as much as cable companies and even more than Wall Street.
https://qz.com/1033336/survey-americans-hate-the-health-care-industry-even-more-than-wall-street/
28
@Marc A: who could argue against buying into Medicare at 55? Any number of current-day Joe Lieberman clones. He is the one who killed it during the final development of the ACA. I wept that night. Yup I was 55 then. went on to continue self-paying five figures a year for individual coverage for next 10 years, hard earned money that could have gone toward retirement (no pension here, unlike the ex-senator). Health industry lobbyists have a lot of politicians in their pockets.
42
@jerseyjazz totally agree. Like you, all the millions I paid to the insurance companies over the years could have gone to my retirement, my children’s education, travels, and also for taxes that would give me honest, decent, stable, and great healthcare. A sad waste of our money... straight to the pockets of those billionaires.
6
Medicare covers approximate 15% of the population. Yet, medicare spending accounts for 15% of the total federal budget.
Leaving how this get paid for as "open for discussion" is why this will never happen. That is the single biggest item that must be addressed.
Clearly, if you make medicare for all, you're going to be taking away benefits from seniors, because the system cannot afford to extend the current benefit structure to the whole population. That will never happen politically.
3
There are systemic wasteful costs baked into the current system that single payer would address in tandem with covering everyone. The insane cost of drugs and the insanity of not capping prices as every other first world nation does. The administrative and billing overheads: a multiplicity of systems and networks and the denial for profit and insurance profiteering. The insanity of ER being the first point of contact for the uninsured. The inefficiency of separate insurance pools for old and young, employed and unemployed. The perverse incentives to over test and over medicate, and non-rationing of end-of-life care. The debt collectors and claim deniers. The differing costs for insured and uninsured.
The USA has by far the most expensive and exclusionary system in the entire world, run for the benefit of shareholders not patients. We can’t afford not to drastically reform it.
18
"Instead, Republicans tend to work within the system, defer to leadership and duck difficult questions about trade-offs."
How about, "instead, Republicans tend to sell out to the highest lobbyist-bidder"?
The real lesson the GOP should learn from Bernie Sanders is that it's easier to push for something you actually believe in, and that fits your principles. Oh yeah, first they'd have to HAVE principles...
24
So.. fantasy: Bernie gets elected, Dems have majority and then he enacts Medicare for All.. fast forward another 4 years and the next Republican president makes it a point to undo what the previous guy did.
So how does it matter from what we have seen go down last 3 years?
2
Ok, I will try again. I supported Sen. Sanders in 2016 and until someone comes along with a better health care plan I will probably continue that position. I admire Bernie's determination to thrust the most efficient medicare plan before the US electorate. He has also sponsored other useful ideas such as keeping big secret money out of our electoral process. His age is not an issue for me. It is mly opinion that he has every right to seek the Democratic nomination for president. I have heard him speak in person at a rally in Seattle and on the radio/tv. He is dynamic, determined and these are qualities I admire. He does not lie. He is not a racist. All of these things are something the other party should learn.
51
"You don’t have to support single payer — I certainly don’t "
So you support giving almost 20% of all health care costs to insurance companies, who offer no value to the health care industry? They don't deliver care; in fact, they restrict care to be sure they make a profit. Their job is to push paper, create groups of doctors and tell you what you are and are not insured against.
What's the value in that?
Available data indicates Single-Payer Medicare is substantially more efficient and almost universally (90+%) popular among seniors who are enrolled in it.
I am, and it's the best, most stable, easiest health care program I've ever had, and, as the head of a small company for a few decades, I've had to choose a plan for my employees. I've had several serious operations with $100k+ hospital bills and, with my supplemental policy, I walked out of the hospital by signing a piece of paper without paying a penny. You're going to beat that with private health care? Good luck.
97
Radical as used doesn't mean much. The Republican party and the President are engaged in a radical overhaul of the government of the USA changing the fundamental nature of our government. The steps from the existing medicare system to a universal health system is a change in scope. The radical thing would be to eliminate medicare. Selling computers or televisions or automobiles are businesses and engage in an effort to get buyers to pay more for gadgets. Healthcare is a service that should be available to all of us; the private healthcare system is focused on revenues and profits. You can create a system that allows private healthcare but we should have universal healthcare. Oddly enough, though, I suspect that the well-to-do who qualify are using medicare. Retirees with lots of people like me are using medicare. Perhaps a medicare plan to increase coverage could be gradually implemented. I suspect those of us who are eligible for medicare are using the system. If you tried to repeal existing medicare, I guess many of us would think taking medicare away would be truly radical.
7
Single payer healthcare would basically liberate us from the millstone of combining health and insurance. Businesses and companies could concentrate on their products rather than fret in the Human Resources department about costs.
Remember when the Affordable Care Act came out? There was this concern about having to digitalize and computerize health records. We now would be horrified to go back to file folders and hand written reports. Patients can now access their health records on line. What we need in this country is confidence to step into the future. Sure there will be problems, but they can be addressed.
25
What's super puzzling about "conservative" reactions to single payer health care is that there is no system that would be more Pro Business than Single Payer! It would remove the burden of health care from the business world, and the worry about losing medical care if you lose your job would be eliminated. Win-Win.
Why is this so hard to grok?
52
@jeremy g Easy. It is really conservative, something no Republican understands. It is restorative, another thing no Republican understands. Have you listened to a Republican lately talking billions for campaigning? Their words. Republican voters, are those billions in your pockets?
Tax-free health savings account? Horrible idea.
We already have to save for everything else--kids' college tuition, retirement, etc.
Now health gets determined by the size of your bank account? Talk about creating inequality. That will only appeal to the rich.
27
@g We are 60 and 69 with a single income of about $47K. Retirement is not on the horizon. Our HSA has maybe $4K in it. We owe out of pocket $11k for a heart attack my husband had in January. We now have to use the monthly funds that would have gone into the HSA, to pay off the debt. It will take about two years. In the meantime, NOTHING will be going into our HSA for the next emergency. You are correct, HSA's are a horrible idea for anyone but the wealthy.
36
@g
We know 401(k) plans have failed to deliver as well as group defined benefit pensions when it comes to building retirement income, so let's apply the same individual-account-based solution to healthcare too? Does the author not realize that insurance and savings are fundamentally different financial products that serve two very different problems?
I actually followed the link to the article and realized the proposal wasn't to fund health care expenses through tax-deferred savings. Rather it was to create tax-deferred savings accounts that people could use to buy insurance. Essentially, instead of your employer buying insurance for you, your employer would give you a chunk of (tax-sheltered) money so you can buy your own plan on a private market. But employers can generally purchase cheaper group coverage—and they have the resources to hire consultants and brokers and negotiate with insurance companies for good rates—or they just self-insure, which is often more economical. Individuals buying on the individual market get much poorer rates. I didn't bother reading the whole article—maybe there's some argument that all these new buyers will increase competition and drive down prices. But the price problem is the result of the underlying cost of care more than it is with any lack of competition in the insurance market.
I'm afraid the Republicans have one solution to everything. Cut taxes, cut social programs, deregulate business, and tell everyone "you're on your own."
12
I live in a country with a single payer safety net. And it is a good (really good) publicly funded safety net.
But there is also private insurance. And it works too.
But in America, I support Bernie (I am a US citizen) for going all on for public healthcare funding. It needs to be done, at least as a starting point.
He is like a John the Baptist who has been crying in the wilderness for years. And I love him for it.
77
Obamacare was originally proposed by the conservative Heritage Foundation as a Republican alternative to liberal single payer and passed by Romney in Massachusetts. There is no better conservative plan for universal coverage. Trump says the Republicans plan to plan after he is re-elected (just like he drained the swamp).
Most rich countries have better medical results spending LESS money than the great USA.
23
Most people have work place insurance are happy with it. Most European countries who cover all their citizens have something closer to Obamacare than they do to Medicare. Great Britain has the most socialized system in Europe; its citizens are mostly happy with their healthcare, but then again, the citizens of Germany, which has a different system, mostly approve of their system too. Obamacare needs to be strengthened; offering a public option would also be a good idea but in the first two years of Obama's term that couldn't get passed. Perhaps it could now.
5
I have a single question about Medicare for All - who are these All? Do we include everyone in the world, or just US citizens/legal residents? Right now with our open borders it looks like we are going to pay for every Central and Latin American person who will just show up at the doctor's door. We need to resolve our immigration before discussing Medicare for All.
6
@DL
Well, there is that pesky notion of the Hippocratic Oath.
5
@DL No we don't.
@DL
Frankly, it sounds like you have no interest in dealing with health care at all, only with making a tired pro-Trump point repeatedly, no matter what the topic is.
Ten years of repeal without any replacement confirms a lack of interest in healthcare reform by the GOP. McConnel showed not interest but promised to entertain any proposals from the White House.
Agree someone should embrace the challenge but seems unlikely.
11
1. There's nothing radical about Medicare For All. Our current system is the radical one, costing twice as much as most other developed nations, with a much worse outcome.
2. The questions about how it would be financed have been asked and answered repeatedly, and can be found by anyone willing to spend 30 seconds with Google. Yes, it will raise taxes, but still save money for most consumers who will then not need to pay for insurance premiums, co-pays, deductibles, etc. Certainly much more thought has gone into how this essential program could be paid for than either the recent 1.5 Trillion dollar tax cut for the rich, or the war in Iraq.
83
Medicare needs to be expanded. Lets expand it. Start covering people at age 55. Allow people to buy into Medicare before age 65. Who could possibly argue against this. How could anyone be opposed to giving people the option to buy into Medicare at age 55? This should have been done 25 years ago.
31
“Medicare for All” sells books and is easy to push for when you’re not actually doing it. Just look at David Brooks’ piece from a few weeks ago. It’s fantasy. There are no free rides on healthcare. I recommend people go to the public doctors in France or Italy when you have a serious condition, and then see how you feel about Universal Healthcare. Like it or not, when a serious illness occurs people in this country have very good care....and that’s what insurance is about. Risk mitigation against the worst cases.
1
@Mike Cos Medicare is not free, we all pay into it and continue to do so while we receive benefits. WE PAY FOR IT.
26
I broke my arm in Italy. I am a U.S. citizen. I got immediate, excellent care when I presented at a small country hospital. Free with kindness and smiles. Free follow up in Venice a few weeks later.
27
@Mike Cos So, Mike, how is it that people in France and other industrialized countries have better health care outcomes then we do? Based on the data, our system is not just too expensive, it gives poor results.
23
The Repubs' healthcare plan is extant: private, for-profit healthcare operates at a 17% administrative overhead so that the CEO's can become millionaires and billionaires, and make large contributions to Repubs; and the people who pay for the plans quake whenever they get sick for fear of not knowing if this or that is covered, and how much will the co-pays go up next week.
That's the plan.
46
I fear you're missing the point--Sanders' strategy has been successful because he is so right.
Adopting his techniques will do nothing if the policies proposed are wrongheaded or mean, as Republican health care proposals have invariably been.
93
@Josh Hill
What has he succeeded at?
Other than satisfying himself that he is right, while losing the nomination and helping to get Trump elected.
Republicans will continue to egg him on just like this author.
It's a win win, he loses the Democrat nomination but disaffected Bernie Bros either sit out in revenge or go on the down low for Trump.
Or he wins the election - and then the GOP makes the election about socialism and destroy him.
But hey...at least he will be "right" :sarc
1
Before the GOP can emulate Sanders’ Medicare strategy they will need to have good ideas that actually benefit most people. But they don’t.
64
“At the same time, he has left some of the most difficult policy questions open for discussion — in particular the problem of how to finance the significant increase in government spending that Medicare for all would entail. “
The payment for Medicare for All, would be done through your taxes instead to an insurance corporation. While you would have to pay increased taxes, you no longer have to pay for your insurance premiums, resulting in much lower overall outlays. Even better is no more $5000 or so deductibles, actual health care not junk insurance. Peace of mind.
The savings to the economy of Medicare For All is estimated at 5.1 trillion over ten years, or 2.1 percent of GDP - that is huge. Also the over 530,000 people that go in bankruptcy every year would be eliminated. People would actually get preventive care resulting in much lower deaths.
52
@steve But that would be too sane and logical... You see the common good is not good for the powerful and rich, and those people tell me I will lose my employer's health insurance... That I'm in no way paying for... I mean they pay for it... well except my co-pays and prescriptions... Anyway, Centrist for candidate 2020!!!
Am I sane?
4
@steve Republicans' ready answer: Republicans saddled America below the wealthy level with unbearable national debt starting after Trump's terms. Accordingly, America cannot afford the savings of Medicare. Republicans have America coming and going and for billions of reasons, Peter Suderman's unexplained word, perceive America has no choice but to vote Republican forever.
1
Mr. Roy’s reasoning is typical of a conservative: begrudging, agist, and generally of the “we could save money by letting people fend for themselves.” His solution would be to reduce Medicare to a trickle, and to forbid the selling of Medicare Supplement policies, thereby requiring the retired to spend more of their savings--already meager due to the absence of corporate pensions--on healthcare, or do without it.
It is bad to wish ill on others, but it would behoove Mr. Roy to get sick, lose his job, and have to pay or die--or imagine such a thing. I believe he would, if he could imagine himself in the average retired person’s place, living on a small fixed income, think of a different solution.
Yes, we need to reform healthcare in this country. Starting with encouraging or requiring a good diet and substantial exercise for all, coupled with plentiful time to sleep and enjoy the outdoors. We would still have illness strike the elderly, but there would be less of it.
9
"And Mr. Sanders’s brand of cantankerous democratic socialism would pose real risks if he was installed in the presidency, where he would be expected to manage and govern rather than simply campaign..."
I support Bernie, but even if I didn't - the current occupant of the White House proves anyone could be in there, and I would rather have anyone. ANYONE.
81
I admire Bernie and backed him in 2016. However, as much as I like Medicare (yes, I'm 78 and love it), I think it's too much to ask to uproot one-fifth of our economy with an powerful, entrenched private health insurance industry. The goal should be universal health care by the most feasible means possible, That may mean more Medicaid expansion and allowing a Medicare buy-in for those over 50, But, many Americans have private health insurance through their employers, are happy with it and would not want their plan forcibly removed. Better to allow a public option and avoid the cries of "socialism" and "socialized medicine" and new attacks by Harry and Louise. Then there's the cost of such a program. It's trillions while a modest expansion possibly could be paid for by reducing the costs of prescription drugs which most Medicare recipients struggle with annually in dealing with Part D. The Republicans have no ideas, but let's not make it easy for them to deny health care, as they continually attempt, to millions of Americans by endorsing an unattainable alternative.
9
@Paul Wortman You're naive to think the establishments of either party will cut into the profits of the companies that have donated to them for decades! ACA, while a step in the right direction, increased the profits of many of these companies AND continued to see the rise in healthcare costs per-capita. What truly worked was the Medicaid expansion. We pay SO much for healthcare while receiving so little coverage in what is a purposefully convoluted and mismanaged system while at the same time seeing our nations average life expectancy DECREASE!
Another point is that the money not spent on this convoluted system will not just disappear from our economy (to believe that would be truly naive, dare I say ignorant), instead, we might see for the first time in decades increases in REAL wages as well as decreased costs for the small businesses that are so beleaguered, albeit important, in our economy!
21
@Paul Wortman Visit a nursing home. Watch injured patients using one crutch; your proposal. A single payer system would free health care billionaires to spend and invest their billions. Living like kings and queens. No need to feel sorry for them. Avoiding Republican politicians' grasping hands. Theoretically, those politicians could become useful to society. Healthcare is not society's only problem.
@Paul Wortman Funny how we have trillions of dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but not enough to care for the sick. Also funny how we bailed out the banks and recovered from that as well. This perpetuation of "we can't afford it" is getting pretty stale.
1
Anyone not supporting single payer is complicit in the wholly avoidable deaths of tens of thousands of Americans each year due exclusively to lack of access to primary care. Why is the NYT giving a platform to such sociopaths? For shame.
44
If you think people are not getting care the you are naive. No one is turned away from the doctor in America. Just doesn’t happen. Doctor may not get paid for the care, but patient still gets care.
1
@Xoxarle Can you give a source for the statement that tens of thousands of Americans die each you due to lack of access to primary care?
@Xoxarle, BRAVO!
“Sweeping and radical idea” ... Single payer is how healthcare is organized and delivered in EVERY single other first world nation. Every one. Without exception.
127
Simply not true. Even in UK where they ha be single payer you can still buy insurance. I know an orthopedic surgeon there and he works for the government 2 and 1/2 days a week and rest is the week he takes private insurance. People buy the private insurance so they don’t have to wait a year for a hip replacement. Germany has a good system but it’s not single payer. No European country has straight single payer.
3
I had private cover thru my employer when I lived and worked in the UK. I’ve actually experienced both systems.
It can work as a supplement but the foundation was universal care: no hospital billing, no personal bankruptcies, no insane drug prices, no debt collectors, nobody left outside the system, no gross profiteering by insurers, hospitals or doctors, no loss of coverage if loss of job.
14
@D B
How would Medicare for All with the possibility for supplemental insurance, like with Medicare now, be much different from Germany, where 92% of the people use the "Krankenkasse"? Sure, many Europeans countries don't have single payer systems because they have nationalized health care, i.e. hospitals are public entities and the staff are paid by the government.
6
Yes, a healthcare system embraced and working in most of the developed nations with better results at far lower costs is clearly too "radical" for exceptionalist America. Next some crazy radical will suggest that 20k plus hand gun deaths a year are 20k too many, or that it would be too insane for the IRS to prepare tax filings for citizens to approve as is done in most counties rather than forcing us collectively to spend millions of hours and billions on tax prep software every year. I thank the gods every day for the GOP protecting us from all these evils...
156
@Doug
In Britain I filled in a short form to inform the government of any income beyond the salary I was paid. Since I retired many years ago on a decent pension I have only filled in one form to inform the Inland Revenue of regular income from an investment.
2
Bernie Sanders is one candidate who genuinely cares about making America a better place for everybody. He is an impressive human being, but probably the country is not yet ready for his far-reaching humanity.
75
@fearing for - Bernie has sponsored only four bills in the Senate, three of which were passed. Of these, two were to rename post offices. He has ideas but does not propose realistic ways to bring them to fruition.
Certainly Bernie has captured the imagination of many. But others see him as an angry self-centered man who loves the sound of his own voice. He cannot tolerate disagreement. In many ways he is Trump's alter ego.
We need to keep our eyes on the ball - getting Trump out of office. Bernie is not the one to defeat him.
@La Capitalista
Odd that you assume Sen. Sanders passing few bills reflects poorly upon him. It would seem that would actually reflect how bought and sold our congress is.
Both sides.
You also neglect to mention his co-sponsorship of bills.
How come?!
You also fail to mention that Senator Bernard Sanders is The Amendment King! Bernie passed more roll call amendments in a Republican Congress than any other member.
Seems his ability to get deals done across the aisle negates your claim about bringing ideas to fruition doesn't it.
There will be many divisive characters this election, Sen. Sanders shouldn't be one of them. But many commenters here are certainly trying their best to make it seem so.
Be aware of malignant factions/actors during the upcoming election.
9
Why isn't this country ready for his humanity? God knows we could use it now.
Bernie Sanders has one unfair advantage.
He can point to working examples of countries similar to ours, with government-run health care systems that have outcomes as good as ours, for about half the cost of ours.
150
Outcomes better than ours. Across an entire range of metrics.
46
All those countries have drastically different patient populations than we have in US. Those places are all homogeneous. They also don’t have absurd obesity rates like we do here. A lot of what happens in US is patients not caring enough to take any part of their own care.
1
@D B. Definitely not homogeneous. In France, for example, a significant fraction of the population is North African and Muslim; another is black sub-Saharan African; still another Asian and generally Indochinese. Roughly 30% of children born in Metropolitan France have at least one parent who is not native born. One of the difficulties in determining this is a law passed in 1872 that prohibits the government from officially distinguishing citizens by race or religion. As a result, demographic figures are limited to estimates.
20
It is impossible for Republicans to follow Sanders’ model of long term legislative advocacy, since their policy goal is the immediate wholesale elimination of the legislature.
29
Together with his Medicare for all plan (which should be applauded) unfortunately also released was Mr Sander's income tax returns.The last time around his rallying cry was against millionaires,billionaires and the one percenters- this time he is part of two of these groups and he will probably have to focus on trillionaires.Is this feeling of hopelessness just healthy cynicism or just getting old ?
1
@bananur raksas If you were to see Bernie changing his tune about taxation to give himself a better break, you might have a point. But just because the success of his books has put him in a higher tax bracket, doesn't change his policy one bit.
13
@Bob Claster Then why did he not agree to pay at 52% tax rate as he has suggested for all millionaires? Or did he mean all millionaires except him?
@bananur raksas
That rallying cry was against those that don't pay their fair share. Always has been. Not about making wealth.
Put Bernie in, with a congress to back him, and I'd guarantee his own taxes would go up.
As opposed to the current grifter 'n thief who promised the same thing.
2
Single payer isn’t radical and the GOP won’t get anywhere thinking they can dismiss it with name-calling. You also don’t give credit to the power of good ideas - the Sanders campaign is built on ideas that are standard in more successful countries. It’s not just a good sales pitch. The GOP should come up with some good ideas instead of yelling “radical” or “socialist”.
56
But Republicans do not want to be the party of health care, nor the party of fiscal restraint, nor climate change. What the Republicans are is the party of Trump and they don't seem to be bothered by it one bit.
69
Let he or she with a viable alternative plan to improve US healthcare cast the first stone.
30
@Individual One
Take Suderman up on his offer, and read Avik Roy's alternative plan.
I don't want to make anybody (else) suffer, so I'll summarize Roy's conclusions:
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/saving-medicare-from-itself
First... reforms should be implemented only for future enrollees age 55 or younger,
Second, we must appreciate the power of cost-sharing....
Third, we must introduce means-testing into Medicare....
Fourth, we should index the Medicare retirement age to life expectancy....
Fifth, we must address the substantial problem of Medicare fraud....
Finally, Medicare must evolve into a system in which individuals can shop for value in insurance plans....
[Brandolini's law prevents me from giving a point-by-point rebuttal, but I must point out that 40 years of high-quality research, starting with the Rand Health Insurance Experiment, shows that cost sharing results in worse outcomes, and higher costs -- when for example people stop taking asthma medication and wind up in the emergency room.]
3