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Can We Have Health Reform Without an Individual Mandate? Yes, It's Called 'Medicare for All'
The essential vote on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel that ruled that the individual-coverage mandate in President Obama’s healthcare reform is unconstitutional did not come from a reactionary Republican appointed by Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush.
Rather, it came from respected jurist whose two appointments to the federal bench—first as a judge for the Northern District of Georgia in 1994 and then to the 11th Circuit in 1997—were made by then-President Bill Clinton. No, Judge Frank Mays Hull is not a raging lefty, but nor is she a right-wing judicial activist. A former law clerk for Judge Elbert Parr Tuttle, who as the chief justice of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1960 to 1967 led the court in issuing a series of epic decisions on behalf of civil rights, Judge Hull has a reputation as a moderate defender of the rule of law who has earned reasonable marks for her pragmatic and decidely mainstream interpretations of the Constitution.
So why did Hull join with another member of the appeals court panel (Chief Judge Joel Dubina, an appointee of George H.W. Bush) to form the 2-1 majority that rejected the individual mandate while affirming the rest of the law? Perhaps it was because one can favor sweeping healthcare reforms—including an expansion of Medicare—while still believing that it is wrong to require Americans to buy insurance from for-profit insurance companies.
Hull telegraphed her thinking with repeated questions during June oral arguments in Atlanta regarding the case. Noting that “the panel spent a significant amount of time discussing whether the mandate is ‘severable’ from the rest of the law,” Politico pointed out that: “Hull in particular asked the federal government three times where the line should be.”
Ultimately, Hull and Dubina came to the conclusion that the individual mandate could, and should, be removed from an otherwise constitutional plan.
Why? Because, as the judges wrote in their majority decision: “This economic mandate represents a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority: the ability to compel Americans to purchase an expensive health insurance product they have elected not to buy, and to make them re-purchase that insurance product every month for their entire lives.”
Those of us who favor fundamental healthcare reform have always been uncomfortable with the individual mandate. So was candidate Barack Obama, who distinguished himself from Hillary Clinton (a mandate backer) by saying in a February 2008, interview: “Both of us want to provide health care to all Americans. There’s a slight difference, and her plan is a good one. But, she mandates that everybody buy health care. She’d have the government force every individual to buy insurance and I don’t have such a mandate because I don’t think the problem is that people don’t want health insurance, it’s that they can’t afford it. So, I focus more on lowering costs. This is a modest difference. But, it’s one that she’s tried to elevate, arguing that because I don’t force people to buy health care that I’m not insuring everybody. Well, if things were that easy, I could mandate everybody to buy a house, and that would solve the problem of homelessness. It doesn’t.”
Candidate Obama was right.
The individual mandate was always a bad idea. Instead of recognizing that healthcare is a right, the members of Congress and the Obama administration who cobbled together the healthcare reform plan created a mandate that maintains the abuses and the expenses of for-profit insurance companies—and actually rewards those insurance companies with a guarantee of federal money.
Those who think that the for-profit (or even not-for-profit) insurance industry has to control any healthcare reform initiative have every right to be upset with the 11th Circuit’s ruling—which almost certainly will send the case of the Obama healthcare plan to the US Supreme Court.
But those of us who have no desire to perpetuate the insurance industry can and should recognize that the proper—and entirely constitutional—reform is an expansion of Medicare to cover all Americans.
There is no question that Medicare is a sound and popular program. (Just ask House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, who took an epic political beating when he proposed a scheme to replace the successful single-payer system with a voucher scheme designed to enrich insurance firms.)
While Medicare is exceptionally popular, polling shows that the individual mandate is not—according to recent surveys, roughly 60 percent of Americans oppose it.
It also passes constitutional muster.
As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich notes: [No] federal judge has struck down Social Security or Medicare as being an unconstitutional requirement that Americans buy something. Social Security and Medicare aren’t broccoli or asparagus. They’re as American as hot dogs and apple pie.”
“So if the individual mandate to buy private health insurance gets struck down by the Supreme Court or killed off by Congress, “ says Reich, “I’d recommend President Obama immediately propose what he should have proposed in the beginning — universal health care based on Medicare for all, financed by payroll taxes.”
The insurance companies would, of course, scream.
But let them complain.
Americans don’t need mandates. They need healthcare.
And they have every right to ask, as activists with Physicians for a National Health Program have, that Medicare be expanded to cover all Americans —affordably, efficiently, capably and constitutionally.
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60 Comments so far
Show AllI fully agree with this analysis. I hope that "Medicare For All" will recognize that not all residents of our nation are equal. I suspect that the average number of annual doctor visits and hospitalizations of persons 0 to 10 years of age and older than 60 years of age are significantly greater than for all other age-groups. We must therefore guard against shouts of "abuse, abuse" by the first two groups.
I'm with you Crowsnest. His summation of what it should be “...universal health care based on Medicare for all, financed by payroll taxes” is spot on. But we've got a better chance of being hit by lightning with this corrupt Congress. Every other democracy has it and the cost is half as much. WTF.
I’m actually beginning to wonder if the CIA has files on Congressmen and is forcing them to vote in favor of crushing the people?
I mean, J. Edgar Hoover had files on everybody important and that was 70 years ago. Since then, for president, we’ve had an actor, a CIA director and his kid, and the satellites can see golf balls from outer space.
I’m being sarcastic, but…Congress can’t really be this wicked, can they?
It's not just congress. Obama made his dirty backroom deals with the insurance companies that killed single payer and medicare for all. Then he gave them the mandate. Obama's health care reform is not reform at all--it's just another bailout for the corporations--in this case, the health insurance corporations. Obama is Wall Street's boy.
"Medicare for all, financed by payroll taxes” is spot on"
Why financed by payroll taxes alone? That is an unconscious acceptance of our class based society by the working class. We are a society, not atomized individuals made up of lords and serfs. Medicare for all should be financed by taxes on ALL forms of income, not just "earned income." If the rich paid taxes for medicare and social security on 100% of their income, like 99% of the rest of us do, then we could raise benefits and lower the tax rate.
The Supreme Court ( 5-4 ) will find the health care law constitutional beacause it is pro-business. They won't take any money away from the health care industry.
Reich and Nichols are, as usual, clueless. If SCOTUS or Congress struck down the individual mandate in Obamacare, Oblahblah would just wait helplessly for the Rethugs to come up with a solution, and then he'd sign on to it. Or he'd propose something even more Rethuglican than the Rethugs themselves had dared to articulate in public, and wait for the opportunity to "compromise."
More likely, nothing would get done at all, but selecting one of the possible futures really isn't the point of this advocacy piece, is it? Rather, it's making a claim about what should happen rather than guessing at what will happen.
But then, if an article here said that the sky is blue and the byline was John Nichols (or anyone from "The Nation," really), there are people here who would argue that it's only true sometimes, and not at night, and it's just more of the corporate propaganda the Republicrats are using to make us forget about how the EPA is poisoning us.
"Why? Because, as the judges wrote in their majority decision: “This economic mandate represents a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority: the ability to compel Americans to purchase an expensive health insurance product they have elected not to buy, and to make them re-purchase that insurance product every month for their entire lives.”
I have to say I am relieved because I always found this part of Obama's plan to be fascist forcing Americans to give their money to super-rich insurance companies before they fed their children or paid the rent with that money. If laid off from my job, I could not - no way -- afford to pay those monthly fees for health insurance. I go without coverage during those times because otherwise I would be living on the street instead of in my small apt.
Under the mandate if it stands, food and rent would be the optionals. You'd be insured but homeless and hungry. You wouldn't have to pay fines while you and your family live under that bridge. I am not sure what your address on the policy would be, or even if the hospital could verify your policy before seeing you, which means you may wait a very long time before being seen. Which begs the question: Just what are you paying for? The right to live, or the right to medical care?
I know many here hate Nichols, and sometimes he ticks me off, too, but he's exactly right about this one, and I believe most here agree with, or would at least accept, a single-payer system. Personally, I'd go a bit farther than that, but single-payer is something I could live with while we still fight for something better.
I agree he's right, and I'm one of those that vomits a little inside everytime I read him.
The problem with Nichols isn't his positions on a variety of left-leaning policies; the problem is that he turns right around and stumps for a party or candidate guaranteed to ensure that those policies never come to pass.
But yes, Medicare for all would be a great step forward. It's also something the Democrats *as a party* will never allow.
Although I agree that a universal single-payer system is the only one that makes sense, reading this article made me wonder about something.
Perhaps the matter is too subtle for me. But here is what bothers me.
Today, everyone pays a payroll tax so they will be covered by Medicare when they are 65. The health care bill passed last year requires everyone under 65 to pay a private insurance company for coverage until they are 65. If a Medicare-For-All" bill is passed the existing payroll tax will have to increase.
What is the difference between being forced to pay the increased payroll tax to the government for coverage prior to age 65 and being forced to pay a private company for coverage before age 65? Why is one constitutional and the other not? I am not talking about the amounts involved, just the principle involved.
Well, one large difference is that it's a payroll tax, meaning you don't pay it when you're not on the payroll. This immediately makes things easier since the unemployed would still have to purchase insurance under Obama's plan, and though there's supposed to be a fund that would assist them, the paperwork alone would drive up the price, and I'm really not sure that homeless people with mental illness/addiction problems are going to be paying much attention to it, anyway, and that mandate also triggers using the IRS as an enforcement mechanism, something beyond its scope, honestly.
In short, a tax isn't the same as a premium.
But when your not employed you don't pay either. What this does is guarrantee a captive market. Which I don't think is constitutional, even though Obama and his staff managed to convince us all it was. I look forward to a Supreme Court decision, especially in this political climate.
There a great difference.
One is paying an entity for the greater common good of the society. The other is for the profits of a Corporation.
One system gathers tax revenues and distributes the proceeds to an entire population while the second gathers fees to enrich a small handful via profits.
I as a citizen want my taxes to be used to help fellow citizens who might be need of health care. I do not want them to be used to enrich a small handful with profits.
Now as to why one is Constitutional and the other is not. My understanding is that the Government of the United States of America has the authority to tax its Citizens for the betterment of the society. They do not have the authority to mandate people pay a Corporation in the same manner.
You MUST pay taxes so that we can provide you with schools is much different then you MUST pay JJ Enterprises 2000$$ a year and they will provide your child an education/
One little problem here: Not all workers are covered by Medicare when they retire or fall ill. As far as I know it is still true that a person has to work at least ten years before Medicare will cover you. Those who worked nine years: not covered. Even if they worked in, say, Canada for the other years. Otherwise, it's Medicaid. Big difference. For example, Medicaid is administered by states. Also, it is means-tested and many just can't get it. Moreover, even those covered by Medicare are not covered if they're in another country, like Canada. For that, you need some kind of Medicare supplement, and it's hard to even establish a claim from Canada. My Medicare supplement premiums are jumping rapidly upwards each year. Private insurance again. This doesn't look good.
I'm glad for this decision, too. I mean where in this instance (had the law held) would the government depart in any substantial way from MAFIA in demanding "Protection Money" for its key racket, the insurance companies? So long as THEY get to be the sole determinants of who gets medical care and who doesn't, and their decisions rest heavily on the profit motive, the premise was guilty from the get go.
Now, were I, as a woman in her 50's obligated to pay the $350-400 a month that would have gone into private insurance, into an extension of the Medicare Fund, I would do so.
Most of us want to know that we'll be taken care of if we face the need for heart surgery, or something that VERY few people have the cash on hand to pay for.
Imagine if all the money that's been sidelined into insurance coffers instead was directed at a Medicare extension program, how solvent said program would become? And no one could be turned away. What a novel concept!
Could our nation turn in a more humane directiion as a result of this court determination, added to the sorry fact that most states lack extra funds due to the collapse of the housing market, and the subsequent loss of property tax monies collected.
"Could our nation turn in a more humane directiion as a result of this court determination"
Probably not. The big players are positioned and invested to win at the expense of average citizens no matter how this decision falls.
Disagree. Healthcare is different. Forcing people to pay premiums to for-profit health insurance companies crosses a line. Medicare for all is the only alternative, even the courts are uncomfortable with a mandate.
People are angry: see http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=72684506-E406-4D40-9B9F-7B1846067E9A
And there are some players, as you suggest, who will fight for the companies: see http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/151980/how_the_head_of_fox_news_is_making_americans_more_right-wing%2C_more_ignorant_and_ever_more_terrified/comments/
Two excellent articles.
What have you been paying as a 50 year old woman for insurance over the past few years? Have you felt like your conditions were covered?
The mandate should be called what it is a form of EXTORTION. Obama and his pals are taking payments from the same Ins. / Hostipal / Physicans / Drug companies and associations that he is forcing us to them pay or be fined. This used to be called a protection racket. The Gov't is no better then the MAFIA the way this works and Obama and the rest of them know it. They just don't give a shit. In fact they are getting rich behind it.
>>"The Government is no better than the mafia..."
I agree with your post but differ on the above:
The difference between the Gov and the Mafia is....
The Mafia understands Respect
Here's a great PBS Frontline on how Obama came to reverse himself on the mandates:
"Obamas Deal"
http://video.pbs.org/video/1468710007
If I am forced to purchase something then I am entitled to a return. Thus this mandate is nothing more than another "entitlement". And being mandated I expect my government to oversee it's delivery. Will that be expensive...most probably, especially if the insurance companies are private contractors. The government has a problem with accounting for the funds spent on independent contractors. And independent contractors have a problem with accounting for government funds.
Otherwise it's a "free market" commodity and I have the choice of purchasing it or not. Either the company provides me with an adequate incentive to purchase their product or they languish into bankruptcy with unsold product. Why should I be forced to purchase a worthless comodity?
Be still my heart...a possibility of health care done somewhat the right way? As an owner of my own business and having to carry private insurance for the last 10 years, I am now to the point of thinking of letting it go. I am a breast cancer survivor (2 years now) with an individual policty that costs me more than my house payment each month...and it has a $5,000 deductible. My choice for next month's premium -- take out a home equity loan or leave my health care plan expire. I'm living proof of what Alan Grayson said. The Republican plan is don't get sick. And if you do, die quickly.
Medicare for all. The humane thing to do...the economically sound thing to do and the right thing to do. It'll never happen!! :).
Reich sez: “... I’d recommend President Obama immediately propose what he should have proposed in the beginning — universal health care based on Medicare for all, financed by payroll taxes.”
***
Yeah. I can totally see Obama doing that.
And the Rethugs and some Democrats filibustering it into oblivion.
Don't the insurance companies have much to lose if the individual mandate is struck down but the other provisions are maintained?
It may be a subtle point for some but even though I do not object to paying taxes to extend Medicare for all I do object to a mandate that forces me and others to buy crappy health care which enriches private for profit or supposedly not for profit corporate entities. The analogy to car insurance does not hold because one does not have own a car to live but everyone will eventually need health care to live. There is another way the analogy breaks down: purchase of health care through state controlled exchanges is not interstate commerce in any way I can figure, therefore being forced to buy insurance through an exchange is state supported control of private commerce--monopoly. In contrast, paying taxes to provide coverage is an acceptance of the responsibility for realizing health care for all as a human right.
Walking down Penn Ave in Pittsburgh with a sign, "Medicare for all" brought several derisive responses. The most cogent from a smartalleck who said, "count me in as long as I don't have to pay." "I hope you have good coverage," I said, "but even if you don't I 'd be willing to pay something, even for a smuck like you, my pleasure." What I've seen is that when help is needed and ability to pay is not there these "brave" self assured individuals will accept help if needed and individuals like myself even if we have moral disdain for such idiots will help them. The way to institutionalize this sentiment about what human decency requires is to make health care a human right and require we all support it through taxation. If that offend some idiots who say they don't want to be forced to pay taxes to cover the cost of that care-- too bad.
I am quite happy to pay for someone elses care because there is every possibility that at some point their undignosed, untreated disease MIGHT have impact on me or my family. Someone has a 'balckout while driving and climbs the curb, perhaps a stroke or sudden increase/decrease in blood pressure, perhaps some other brain lesion. I won't go on about all the possibilites including something as simple as speading flu virus. So yes maybe we DO need to pay for those who can't, or better yet universal medicare for all everyone in and NO body out. Personally I just hate the idea of the insurance companies getting any more money for what will no doubt be worse coverage in the long run.
Good article, but the "financed by payroll taxes" part is the fly in the ointment.
Because it is universal it must be paid for out of the general fund. Before the frigging Pentagon, citizen health gets paid.
One problem with this article is he never addresses why the individual mandate exists in the first place. It goes hand in hand with the part of Obamacare that prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Nichols makes it sound like the individual mandate was just put in the legislation for no good reason. There has to be a way to get healthy people to buy insurance in order to balance out those pre-existing conditions folks or else all you have is a bunch of unhealthy people joining the insurance rolls. Whether one likes Obamacare or not, a debate and analysis of the individual mandate is incomplete without first clarifying why it's in the legislation in the first place.
P.S. Why is health care a right but food and shelter are not? I think the "health care is a right" concept should be dropped from the single payer movement. It's not an effective part of the argument.
"P.S. Why is health care a right but food and shelter are not?:
Excellent question. But because they should be, your answer is wrong.
You know, with all these corporations getting filthy rich by exploiting the working class, shouldn't CORPORATIONS be the ones who pay for health care for all? Why should they be allowed to work a person to disability and death without having to be held accountable??? Besides, they're the only ones with tons of money to spend these days.
Tramaker,
You bring up two things that deserve answering in an honest way. The first is the reason for the mandate and the second is whether health care is a "right".
As to the first, I agree that for insurance pools to work the young and healthy people need to pay into it or the whole system collapses. So you are right in your assertion that the mandate was put in to solve this problem. Where you and I might disagree though is in the belief that for profit insurance pools should be how we handle the pooling of finances. Besides paying off investors these entities squander vast amounts of money on advertising, excessive executive pay, lavish corporate headquarters, and political lobbying among other things. These things siphon off tens of billions from actual health care delivery. Creating a national government single payer system in which everyone pays into through taxes eliminates all of that and coupled with the efficiencies of one single system would allow for complete coverage of everyone. Costs would be lowered and our businesses would be free of the burden of the obscene health insurance costs.
The reason people (myself included) deplore the mandate to buy insurance is that it forces us to buy a private product that provides for several hundred million dollar salaries for a few executives and that health insurance as currently offered is a lousy product. If you're an $8/hr worker as far too many of us are then nothing the insurance industry offers that you could actually pay for could actually be called health insurance. More correctly at this price level its catastrophic medical insurance with high deductibles and yearly and lifetime caps where you pay in but can't really use it for anything a typical person needs.
Is health care a "right". I think it is. Unless you think someone suffering a heart attack who doesn't have insurance should just curl up and die then absolutely its a right. In a civilized modern society all of the following should damn well be rights. We're rich enough and we certainly have the capability - the problem is that a small minority of the population insists on gathering all the marbles. In the 21st century its absolutely deplorable that we're still talking about poverty and homelessness.
1) Nutritious food in sufficient quantity to sustain health. This doesn't mean everyone needs steak & lobster but there's no reason for people to go hungry or do without food that is actually healthy.
2) Safe, clean water for drinking, cooking, and bathing.
3) Safe, sanitary shelter. There's absolutely no reason we can't provide every single person in this nation with a roof over their heads. It doesn't have to be plush, but there's no reason it can't be safe, secure, and comfortable.
4) Medically necessary health care (not talking about vanity plastic surgery here), necessary dental care (again not really talking about pure vanity stuff), and vision care (not talking about designer glasses or contacts)
5) A living wage job. Not one that's going to make you rich but one where a person isn't in a constant state of financial insecurity.
6) A free public education up to and including PhD. (If we quit pouring money into extravagant university sports stadiums and the student centers with high end fitness centers and bowling alleys we could easily afford this)
I could go on, but I imagine my idea of rights are quite different than yours. Yes, I believe in freedom and liberty - the right to live your own life without undue interference but I also strongly believe that we as a society have a responsibility to its members. If we are to be a society instead of just a bunch of individuals thrown together in close proximity then this is a moral imperative. Even if you're one of those who believe that we should all be basically on our own, pure self interest should mean that we provide for the basic economic, health, and educational needs of our nation's peoples. As you can plainly see around the world from London on fire to the violent battling of state security forces in the middle east, the downtrodden underclasses will only take so much before rebellion if not revolution takes place.
One thing I do agree with the conservative right is that welfare should be a hand up - not a hand out. Hence my firm belief in number 5 above. Except for the small number who are clinically psychotic or have some other extreme limitation, everyone can perform some productive job. Lord knows, we have enough things that need doing in this nation that would keep us all busy for decades. (Just cleaning up our environmental mess would take millions of people working 40 hour weeks for years).
: “This economic mandate represents a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority: the ability to compel Americans to purchase an expensive health insurance product they have elected not to buy, and to make them re-purchase that insurance product every month for their entire lives.”
Obama might respond that there is also a mandate for auto insurance. Of course, driving a car and therefore having insurance, is a choice.
Your point about the rationale for making insurance mandatory is a valid one- however, one might argue there are other reasons- for example, to bolster the profits of the health care industry- a kind of corporate welfare. The later is clearly not a compelling reason.
I believe that heath care, like food, shelter, education- even basic levels of caring are human rights. I also agree with Nichols that a Medicare for all is a much better solution.. In the end, if the US is to compete economically in global markets- it cannot sustain Obamacare and/or the current health care delivery system. Universal health care- single payer- is an economic necessity and therefore will come sooner or later.
However politicians like Obama often confuse political reality with "true" reality- which spells their downfall and the downfall of their countries. Compromise is essential in politics- however, as Solomon understood- splitting the baby- is less a form of compromise and more a form of moral collapse. Obama and his administration have split the baby so many times, it no longer even bares repeating.
The health insurance industry makes the mafia look honest and humane by comparison. The only solution is Medicare for all. The Insurance companies know this and have the entire Republican party and some Democrats ready, willing and able to destroy Medicare before that can happen. Don't ever kid yourself that the insurance industry isn't behind this attack on Medicare. They have the money to make it happen, too.
I filed two large insurance claims in the past five years. Both insurance companies turned out to be chiselers, total crooks. They get away with this because the deregulation movement seems to have given them the chutzpah to get away with it. They also need to get away with it because big companies need their money to eat up smaller companies, which has been going on for decades now. INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE CROOKED!!!
Good article. Nichols, you make sense.
So just WHERE is all the RealPolitikal footwork done to inform US workers and secure their major support for this idea (which could conceivable lead to its reality)? Has this been discussed by/in Congress? Has the Democratic Party been bringing this up in public places and fighting for it with unions and doctors' or nurses' associations?
The sad part: Medicare For All would have been DOABLE with Clinton nearly two DECADES ago, IF ... popular support had been drummed up; instead it was quashed and silenced by ... the Democratic Party (who was just doing its job for its oligarch funders), when, instead, they could have supported THEIR own supporters ... and fought for it -- IF they really were who they love to claim to be.
Face it, unless folks break from the deceptive two-party structure, anything that favors empowering real people (such as unfettered, public universal healthcare) will be shut down, off the table, and shut off.
I know Trylon used to mention it a lot but the point he was making was missed ny many.
Single payer is NOT enough. The for profit system of health care (along with for profit hospital chains and the likes) has to be dismantled as well. Even with Insurance funded in a single payer system health care must not be delivered as a commodity off which one makes profits.
For the USA, it would still be a good -- and MAJOR -- first step in changing who is in control. It would be important to start that shift.
Gw-North
I agree but there's two things that should be noted. The first is that non profit doesn't mean that people don't earn money it just means that money isn't siphoned off to satisfy some group of investors. The second thing is that even non profits can have incredible waste and obscene salaries for their executives.
Certainly people are entitled to a wage. A wage and profit are two different things. As example a Doctor in Canada pays himself a wage out of the number of patients he sees.
His WAGE does not go up by denying care.
This is quite different then the profit based system wherein one can in fact deny care and make greater profit. To your point on non-profits and the salaries paid.
Hospitals can be community owned as most Hospitals in Canada are. There certainly some debate that the higher ranking executives make too much money but this does not come from the patient in the form of fees charged because the patient is never charged. All the revenues come via taxes and the Government can if it chooses to can keep a tight lid on that.
You do not have to dismantle anything. They either accept the system or get out of the business. Healthcare for all is a human right.
That's right. They dismantle themelves.
Unfortunately, corporate government mandates all the time that we filter our money through corporations instead of any public/ governmental option that we might like. We are forced to pay auto insurance, too. We are forced to pay the Pentagon money that they then pass on to corporations like Lockheed, though we don't like doing so. We are forced to pay money for corporate bailouts, also. The Supreme Court probably will eventually back 'Obama/ Romney care' up.
Good points.
I think it would be helpful given today's "narrative" to point out to the "Lower taxes!" crowd that we pay all kinds of PRIVATE taxes, bank fees, car insurance (and so much more) all the time and have ZERO say in how they will be used.
Corps avoid public taxation, then give their (OUR) money to causes THEY like -- essentially creating thier own legislation and a parallel government. It's a form of coup.
You might like to google "ALEC exposed" for a website that shows what is really causing all this adverse legislation going on recently. It would seem the common people don't have much of a chance....
Medicare for all has little chance of ever being passed by Congress. And it's not primarily the insurance industry who will be responsible.
The Republicans KNOW it would be wildly successful and would be enthusiastically embraced by an overwhelming majority of Americans. It would be a repudiation of everything the GOP stands for, and it would keep them out of power for at least the next hundred years.
Medicare for all, like better nations everywhere.
The only candidate with backbone that has run in the USA gets turned down.
Why? Because the RINO and democratic party establishment tell voters this person does not represent america. Why do voters listen to the party establishment people who consistently screw up the economy and put americans out of work?
VOTE RALPH NADER who has represented america for 50 years as a brilliant consumer advocate backed by a brilliant legal mind. VOTE RALPH NADER the people's politician.