On Thursday, the Trump Administration’s Health and Human Services Department (HHS) <a href="https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/fiscal-year-fy-2019-medicare-fee-service-improper-payment-rate-lowest-2010-while-data-points">announced</a> that the 2019 Medicare Fee-For-Service Improper Payment Rate is now the lowest since 2010, thus strengthening the Medicare system by cutting out waste.
HHS reported, “Estimated improper payments for Medicare Fee-For-Service (FFS) declines more than $7 billion from FY 2017-2019.” HHS explained, “Improper payments represent payments that don’t meet program requirements – intentional or otherwise –and contribute to inaccurate spending of Americans’ tax dollars.”
As the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services <a href="https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/2019-estimated-improper-payment-rates-centers-medicare-medicaid-services-cms-programs">explained</a>:
<blockquote>The Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 (IPIA), as amended by the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010 and the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Improvement Act of 2012, requires CMS to periodically review programs it administers, identify programs that may be susceptible to significant improper payments, estimate the amount of improper payments, and report on the improper payment estimates and the Agency’s actions to reduce improper payments in the Department of Health &amp; Human Services (HHS) annual Agency Financial Report (AFR). The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has identified Medicare Fee-For-Service (FFS), Medicare Part C, and Medicare Part D; Medicaid; and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) as at-risk for significant improper payments.</blockquote>
Administrator Seema Verma asserted, “At a time when Medicare’s ballooning costs are threatening the long-term sustainability of the program, President Trump is taking action to protect the program. Every dollar spent inappropriately is one that should have been used to benefit patients. Under President Trump’s leadership CMS is pulling every lever at its disposal to safeguard precious resources and direct them to those who truly need them – both today and in the future.”
Verma added, ““Our progress on improper payments is historic, but there’s more work to be done. CMS has taken a multifaceted approach that includes provider enrollment and screening standards to keep bad actors out of the program, enforcement against bad actors, provider education on our rules and requirements, and advanced data analytics to stop improper payments before they happen. These initiatives strike an important balance between preventing improper payments and reducing the administrative burden on legitimate providers and suppliers.”
HHS continued, “The Medicare FFS estimated improper payment rate decreased to 7.25 percent in FY 2019, from 8.12 percent in FY 2018, the third consecutive year the Medicare FFS improper payment rate has been below the 10 percent threshold for compliance established in the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010.”
Different aspects of the American health system showed the decline in improper payments; home health claims corrective actions triggered a $5.32 billion decrease in estimated improper payments from FY 2016 to FY 2019; other Medicare Part B services (e.g., physician office visits, ambulance services, lab tests, etc.) saw a $1.82 billion reduction in estimated improper payments in the last fiscal year; durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies improper payments decreased an estimated $1.29 billion from FY 2016 to FY 2019.
HHS concluded, “CMS is taking steps to ensure that states are working with their eligibility systems vendors to guarantee that every person on the program meets eligibility requirements and states maintain appropriate documentation of their verification process.”

President Trump Discusses Drug Pricing At Health And Human Resources Department

Trump Administration Eliminating Waste In Improper Medicare Payments

Health and Human Services

Medicare

About <a href="https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/employment/health-medical-insurance-united-states">600,000 people</a> work in the health and medical insurance industry in the United States, according to market research firm IBIS World. Under Medicare-for-All, these people and many others would likely lose their jobs, since private insurance would be abolished.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who recently released her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elizabeth-warrens-plan-to-fund-medicare-for-all-is-a-complete-fantasy">dubious plan</a> to fund Medicare-for-All, was recently asked what would happen to the hundreds of thousands of people who would lose their jobs under her single-payer health care plan.
&#8220;No one gets left behind,” Warren responded. “Some of the people currently working in health insurance will work in other parts of insurance. In life insurance, in auto insurance, in car insurance. Some will work for Medicaid.&#8221;
“And there is a five-year transition support for everyone,” she continued. “Because, what this is about is how we strengthen America’s middle class and how we make sure, in transitions, no one gets left behind. It’s right there in the plan and it’s fully paid for.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Q: Where do those who work in health insurance go when private insurance is eliminated?
Sen. Warren: &#8220;No one gets left behind. Some of the people currently working in health insurance will work in other parts of insurance. In life insurance, in auto insurance, in car insurance.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/KGJ4Eg9VKR">pic.twitter.com/KGJ4Eg9VKR</a>
— The Hill (@thehill) <a href="https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1190441142069817344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 2, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
This sounds an awful lot like Warren is claiming ‘If you like your job, you can keep your job.” It also sounds like the much criticized “learn to code,” a skill journalists suggested displaced coal workers learn but then claimed the phrase was harmful when suggested back to them.
It is not so easy, even with the five-year transition plan to move one entire industry (health insurance) into another (car or life insurance). There are not 600,000-plus job openings in the other insurance industries to accommodate those people, and that’s not even factoring in where the jobs might be if they were available. We’re talking about thousands upon thousands of people potentially needing to move in order to transition into another type of insurance. That’s a ton of people whose lives will be uprooted due to Warren’s plan.
Luckily, the probability of Warren actually getting her Medicare-for-All plan passed is close to zero. She has claimed that her plan won’t raise taxes on the middle class, which is impossible and something her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has admitted would be necessary. Warren’s plan to fund her single-payer proposal hinges in part on immigration reform, something Presidents Donald Trump Barack Obama, and George W. Bush could not achieve.
Her funding plan would also end up costing the middle class, as the numerous taxes she plans to place on employers would inevitably be passed on to employees.
Warren also relies on phantom funding to raise $2.3 trillion toward paying the $52 trillion price tag on Medicare-for-All. She claims she can raise $2.3 trillion from better IRS enforcement, yet the Congressional Budget Office has previously stated improved enforcement would only bring in a net $35 billion.
Warren <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-elizabeth-warren-admits-medicare-for-all-would-cause-tremendous-loss-of-jobs">had admitted</a> previously that her health care plan could cost upwards of 2 million jobs, but dismissed those losses by discussing health care costs.
“I think this is part of the cost issue and should be part of a cost plan,” she said at a recent forum in New Hampshire. “Although I do recognize on this what we’re talking about, and that is in effect how much of our health care dollars have not gone to health care, how many of those dollars have been pulled out in other directions.”

Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren Asked What Will Happen To Health Insurance Workers Under Medicare-For-All, Claims They’ll Work In Car Insurance

Health Care

The modern-day Democratic Party is, on any number of issues, simply <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-democratic-party-has-become-parody-itself-josh-hammer">beyond parody</a>. The far-left tail that is the AOC-led &#8220;Squad&#8221; has long come to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-aocs-squad-will-destroy-democrats-2020-josh-hammer">wag the dog</a> that is the institutional party apparatus, and perhaps nowhere is this dynamic more obvious than in the intersection of economics and mathematics that sentient human beings have hitherto referred to as &#8220;sanity.&#8221;
In the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders (<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-bernie-sanders-entire-worldview-grotesquely-josh-hammer">Communist</a> &#8211; VT) was notable for proposing sundry pie-in-the-sky socialistic nostrums that far outflanked eventual nominee Hillary Clinton on the hard left. In the clown car pile-up that is the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, Sanders has once again outdone himself. As economic policy expert Brian Riedl recently broke down for <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/bernie-sanders-expensive-spending-proposals">City Journal</a>, Sanders&#8217; &#8220;current plans would cost as much as $97.5 trillion over the next decade,&#8221; and government spending as a percentage of gross domestic product would rise to an astonishing 70% — or three and a half times the 20% that has been the frequent post-World War II <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S">American norm</a>. The single priciest component of Sanders&#8217; hammer-and-sickle agenda, as the erstwhile Soviet Union honeymooner has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNP-AQlVZKM">conceded</a>, is his bankrupting &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; plan — to the tune of $30–$40 trillion over a ten-year timeframe.
What is simply remarkable is that Sanders&#8217; &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; price tag now looks positively conservative compared to the newly unveiled plan of 2020 Democratic presidential primary rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). As The Daily Wire&#8217;s Ashe Schow <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elizabeth-warrens-plan-to-fund-medicare-for-all-is-a-complete-fantasy">noted</a> earlier today, Warren&#8217;s new &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; proposal &#8220;would cost $52 trillion over 10 years.&#8221; Proving even more thoroughly that the quixotic Democratic Party mind lies somewhere between the idyllic river of dragon dreams and the paradisal valley of unicorn farts, Warren doubled down on the disingenuous mathematical impossibility that she peddled ad nauseam at the last presidential primary debate and informed us gullible plebeians that her plan will somehow <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/11/01/775335150/read-elizabeth-warrens-plan-to-pay-for-medicare-for-all">not result in middle class tax hikes</a>.
Hmmmm.
As Riedl has <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/8/7/17658574/democratic-socialism-cost-medicare-college-sanders-deficits-taxes">previously</a> <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-deficits-on-the-rise-and-not-because-of-tax-cuts-democrats-will-make-it-worse">demonstrated</a>, there is simply no world in which this exorbitant level of federal spending can be sustained. It is a complete and utter mathematical impossibility. Heck, we as a nation cannot even fiscally sustain our own previously pledged commitments to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-republicans-need-be-adults-and-talk-about-josh-hammer">bankrupting entitlement programs</a>!
But sure, what&#8217;s another $52 trillion in health care going to do, once we&#8217;re all already heading straight for a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/business/international/greece-debt-crisis-euro.html">Greece-style</a> sovereign debt abyss? At this point, the entirety of both the Democratic Party and &#8220;progressive&#8221; economic firmament seem to be unanimously in thrall to the <a href="https://economics21.org/modern-monetary-theory-rational-inflation">economically illiterate</a> fiction that is co-called &#8220;modern monetary theory&#8221; (MMT) — the nonsensical notion, as <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-4588060">explained</a> by Investopedia, that governments that print their own currency &#8220;do not need taxes or borrowing for spending&#8221; because &#8220;they can print as much as they need and are the monopoly issuers of the currency.&#8221; Intellectually honest Democrats would publicly proclaim their fealty to the MMT cabal, in lieu of constantly equivocating when pressed about how they might possibly fund their fiscally ruinous and un-fundable schemes.
Sober-minded citizens have already seen the 2020 Democrats lurch to the far left on all sorts of bread-and-butter cultural and civilizational issues — from border security to religion to abortion to transgenderism. But on perhaps no issue is this crop of hucksters more transparently nutty than on their various plans for perhaps the most rudimentary political issue of all: Government spending.

October Democratic primary debate

HAMMER: The Democratic Presidential Primary Is A Race To The Fiscally Illiterate Bottom

2020 Election

Democratic Party

Economy

Leftism

Obamacare

Progressivism

She might as well have said she’d pay for the plan with leprechaun gold.
After being asked repeatedly how she would fund her Medicare for All plan, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) finally released the details, and they are as impossible as one can imagine.
For starters, Warren’s 2020 campaign claims her plan to fund single-payer health care in America would not raise taxes on the middle class, something her opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has admitted would be necessary.
Warren’s plan would cost $52 trillion over 10 years, but remember, there is no sunset for the single-payer program. It would cost more than $5 trillion a year. For comparison, the federal government spent an already alarming $4.11 trillion in fiscal year 2018, up from $3.99 trillion in fiscal year 2017.
“Medicare for All puts all health care on the government’s books. But Medicare for All is about the same price as our current path — and cheaper over time,” said Warren, whose plan would cost $52 trillion over the next 10 years. “That means the debate isn’t really about whether the United States should pay more or less. It’s about who should pay.”
Warren says she can add that amount to the economy without crushing the middle class, by predictable cuts to military spending and tax hikes on the wealthy, the latter of which is likely unconstitutional.
Many of Warren’s pay-fors highlight the improbability of her plan. Politico’s chief Washington correspondent, Ryan Lizza, noted that Warren has rolled in immigration reform as a way to fund Medicare-for-All.
“To get a sense of how enormously difficult it is to raise the money to pay for Medicare for All, look at this section of the Warren proposal where she says that comprehensive immigration reform, a Herculean legislative feat that Bush and Obama failed at, will help pay for M4A,” Lizza <a href="https://twitter.com/RyanLizza/status/1190256613199941632">tweeted</a>.
The immigration reform portion of Warren’s plan claims that providing a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants and expanding legal immigration would increase federal revenue to fund her plan. “Based on [the Congressional Budget Office’s] analysis of the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill, experts project that immigration reform would generate an additional $400 billion in direct federal revenue.”
But as Lizza pointed out, neither of the past two presidents have been able to achieve immigration reform, and it is unlikely Trump will be able to do the same. Democrats’ immigration plans &#8212; the parts granting citizenship to those who came here illegally or providing free government services for illegal immigrants &#8212; would not get much, if any, Republican support. It is highly unlikely that Warren would have veto-proof majorities in the congress to pass her proposal should she be elected president.
Another part of Warren’s funding plan suggests that properly collecting taxes “would generate $2.3 trillion in additional federal revenue without requiring the imposition of any new taxes” (emphasis added). The CBO, however, <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-06/54667-budgetoptions-2.pdf">has determined</a> that better enforcement from the IRS would raise just $55 billion over 10 years, but the necessary costs of funding the better enforcement would cost $20 billion, meaning just $35 billion would be raised. That’s far from Warren’s claims of $2.3 trillion.
Warren’s plan would also cut payments to doctors. This could not occur in a vacuum. Those cuts would be passed on to the patients, meaning that Warren’s claims that people would save money from her plan, based on current health care prices, is likely untrue.
“The most sweeping and controversial piece of her additions to Sanders’ bill is a pledge to pay most physicians current Medicare rates — which are much lower than private insurance rates but higher than Medicaid — and to pay hospitals slightly above Medicare rates. She argues that doctors will save money overall because they’ll be able to dedicate the hours they currently spend billing a swath of interlocking private and public insurance plans to providing care,” Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/01/elizabeth-warren-medicare-for-all-plan-063775">reported</a>. “But medical providers who are <a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/story/2019/05/25/medicare-for-all-health-1436763">already mobilizing</a> against Medicare for All are likely to take this as a declaration of war.”
In addition, Warren’s plan proposes increased taxes on employers, including new Medicare taxes her campaign says will raise nearly $9 trillion over the next 10 years to pay for her single-payer plan. The campaign said that if they fail to reach the targeted revenue, they could impose a “Supplemental Employer Medicare Contribution” on corporations with “extremely high executive compensation and stock buyback rates.” This “employer tax,” would likely be passed on to the workers in decreased wages.
Warren may be able to get away with saying she, unlike Sanders, won’t impose any new implicit taxes on the middle class, her plan will require additional funds from the middle class as taxes, fees, and payment reductions are passed on to the workers.
This doesn’t even take into account the favoritism Warren shows in her plan to unionized companies. Warren’s plan proposes that companies with collective bargaining agreements will pay less than non-unionized companies. This sort of favoritism will likely lead to consequences Warren either doesn’t foresee or refuses to acknowledge.
In response to Warren&#8217;s plan, Kate Bedingfield, communications director for former Vice President Joe Biden, <a href="https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1190282040509452289">told</a> Associate Press White House reporter Zeke Miller that &#8220;The mathematical gymnastics in this plan are all geared towards hiding a simple truth from voters: it&#8217;s impossible to pay for Medicare for All without middle class tax increases&#8221;
The bottom line is that Warren’s fantasy accounting is unrealistic and would likely never be achieved, emphasizing the impossibility of the Left’s Medicare for All dream.

Elizabeth Warren’s Plan To Fund Medicare For All Is A Complete Fantasy

Speaking with an interviewer from New Hampshire Public Radio on Wednesday, Democratic presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who has been pushing for Medicare-for-All, admitted that she agreed with a University of Massachusetts economist who surmised that implementing such a system would cause a tremendous loss of jobs.
The exchange started with Casey McDermott of NHPR asking Warren regarding Medicare-for-All: “Where’s the money going to come from?”
Warren dodged the question, answering, “So, I’m working on a plan on that and it’s going to be out soon. And it’ll talk about two things: both how much Medicare for All will cost, and how we can pay for it. So, it’s hard; it’s something I’ve been working on for a long time but I’ll have a plan on it soon.”
McDermott quoted a questioner asking, “Will my taxes go up under Medicare for All?”
Warren replied:
<blockquote>Let me put it this way; I have spent a big part of my life studying why families go broke. And one of the principal reasons is the cost of health care. Back when I was studying about two out of every three families that filed for bankruptcy did do following a serious medical problem and here’s the thing: about two out of three of them had health insurance at the onset of the illness or accident. In other words, people who have health insurance are still not covered but the costs brought them down.
So here’s how I think of this: we know that Medicare for All is the cheapest way to provide health care coverage for everyone, so we can pay for this. You will see, most likely, rich people’s costs go up; corporations’ costs go up, but the costs to middle class families will go down. I will not sign any legislation into law for which costs for middle class families do not go down. I’ve spent my life fighting for families who are on the edge of going broke, and we need to change that in this country, and one part of that is we’ve got to reduce the cost of the cost of health care.</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/warren-agrees-medicare-for-all-could-result-in-two-million-jobs-lost-part-of-the-cost-issue">Fox News</a> noted, “A bipartisan study indicates it will be impossible to finance Warren&#8217;s plan using only taxes on the wealthiest Americans.”
McDermott then targeted the issue of jobs lost:
<blockquote>Regardless of what kind of money is involved, Medicare for All would likely result in a pretty significant kind of shift in how our health care system is structured. Even supporters of that approach within the health policy world have said that that likely would mean lost jobs in some form.
An economist with the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (Robert Pollin of UMass&#8217; Political Economy Research Institute) told Kaiser Health News earlier this year that that could result in about two million jobs lost. He said that would be mostly administrative positions and insurers, doctors’ offices, and he said that politicians who want to move toward that system, Medicare for All, have to think about what a “just transition, a fair transition” would look like. What would that look like for you?</blockquote>
Warren admitted, “So I agree. I think this is part of the cost issue and should be part of a cost plan. Although do recognize on this what we’re talking about, and that is in effect how much of our health care dollars have not gone to health care, how many of those dollars have been pulled out in other directions.”
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Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren Holds A Town Hall In South Carolina

WATCH: Elizabeth Warren Admits: Medicare For All Would Cause Tremendous Loss Of Jobs

jobs

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stated on Tuesday that moderate Senate Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) will ultimately vote in favor of his &#8220;Medicare-for-All&#8221; plan if he is elected president, despite their having previously voicing their opposition to the proposal.
CNBC Editor-at-Large John Harwood pressed Sanders on how he expects to get his expansive programs like &#8220;Medicare-for-All&#8221; to pass in the Senate in the event that Democrats narrowly take over the majority during the 2020 election. Harwood specifically questioned whether he would be able to rally the support of Manchin, who refers to himself as a conservative Democrat.
&#8220;Damn right they will [vote in favor of &#8216;Medicare-for-All&#8217;], you know why? Because they&#8217;re friends of mine,&#8221; Sanders responded.
&#8220;What happens right now is that your average politician sits around and he or she thinks — they say, &#8216;let&#8217;s see, if I do this I&#8217;m going to have the big money interest putting 30-second ads against me, so I better not do it,'&#8221; he continued. &#8220;But now they&#8217;re going to have to think &#8216;if I don&#8217;t support an agenda that works for working people, I&#8217;m going to have President Sanders come into my state and rally working class people.'&#8221;
&#8220;You know what? At the end of the day, the 1% is very powerful, no denying that,&#8221; Sanders added. &#8220;But the 99%, when they are organized and prepared to stand up and fight &#8212; they are far more powerful.&#8221;
Manchin, however, has been notably critical of his party&#8217;s embrace of a single-payer health insurance system, both in terms of the staggering price tag and its anti-capitalist structure.
&#8220;We&#8217;re kind of conditioned to want what you want, when you want it. If you&#8217;re willing to pay for it, make that sacrifice, then by God, in a capitalist society, you should be able to buy it,&#8221; Manchin <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/450426-democratic-senator-on-medicare-for-all-we-cant-even-pay-for-medicare-for">told The Hill in June</a>. &#8220;And we&#8217;re going to take that away?&#8221;
Referring specifically to Sanders&#8217; proposal, the West Virginia senator called it &#8220;an inspirational novel idea&#8221; — but further noted that the American taxpayers can&#8217;t afford to foot the bill for &#8220;Medicare-for-some&#8221; or the current Medicare program, so how could the country afford the $30 trillion expense.
&#8220;The fight right now is to get the American people to understand that we are spending twice as much per capita and that of course we can pay for it,&#8221; Sanders told Harwood during the interview. &#8220;We are paying it now in a very reactionary, regressive way — I want to pay for it in a progressive way.&#8221;
&#8220;Now you&#8217;re asking me to come up with an exact detailed plan of how every American, you know, how much you&#8217;re going to pay more in taxes, how much I&#8217;m going to pay more in taxes,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think I have to do that right now.&#8221;
While the Democratic presidential hopeful has been forthright about increasing taxes on all Americans in order to fund the government-run health care system, he has been vague on which taxes would be raised and by how much.
Manchin&#8217;s office did not return The Daily Wire&#8217;s request for comment.

WV Democratic Senate Candidate Joe Manchin Holds Election Night Party In Charleston

Bernie Sanders Says Joe Manchin Will Vote For His ‘Medicare-For-All’ Bill Despite Not Supporting ‘Medicare-For-All’

Bernie Sanders

Joe Manchin

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg criticized his Democratic Party presidential challenger,  Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), on Wednesday for not being candid with the American people about how she intends to pay for her proposed &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; plan.
&#8220;I have a lot of respect for Senator Warren, but last night she was more specific and forthcoming about the number of selfies she&#8217;s taken than about how this plan is going to be funded,&#8221; Buttigieg told CNN&#8217;s Alisyn Camerota. &#8220;That&#8217;s a real problem, especially when there&#8217;s a better way to deliver health care coverage to everybody.&#8221;
Warren, who has been battling Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for the progressive lane to the Democratic presidential nomination, has been running on a platform of enacting a single-payer health insurance plan that would abolish the private insurance market and subsequently force roughly 150 million Americans who are currently enrolled in private insurance plans to switch to a government-run program.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&quot;Last night, she was more specific and forthcoming about the number of selfies she&#39;s taken than about how this plan is going to be funded,&quot; says Mayor <a href="https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PeteButtigieg</a> on Sen. Elizabeth Warren&#39;s refusal to answer how she would fund &quot;Medicare For All.&quot;<a href="https://t.co/0bMsul8X00">https://t.co/0bMsul8X00</a> <a href="https://t.co/zWSHVRmBkK">pic.twitter.com/zWSHVRmBkK</a>
&mdash; New Day (@NewDay) <a href="https://twitter.com/NewDay/status/1184442536124997633?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
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While Warren has yet to introduce her own version of &#8220;Medicare for All,&#8221; she has endorsed a plan that Sanders introduced in the Senate while running for president in 2016.
Although his campaign predicted that the proposal would cost taxpayers about $14 trillion over the next decade, most other estimates are significantly higher. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget <a href="http://www.crfb.org/blogs/how-much-will-medicare-all-cost">forecast Sanders&#8217; health care plan alone</a> as costing $28 trillion during the first 10 years, which is in the range of other estimates.
Sanders has generally been forthright about the tax hikes that Americans will face in order to pay for a &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; plan. Instead, he argues that the net benefit of lower out-of-pocket costs outweighs the rise in taxes. Warren, on the other hand, has repeatedly dodged questions about any impending tax increases.
&#8220;Look, this is why people here in the midwest are so frustrated with Washington in general and Capitol Hill in particular,&#8221; Buttigieg told Warren during the Democratic National Committee&#8217;s primary debate on Tuesday. &#8220;Your signature, senator, is to have a plan for everything — except this. No plan has been laid out to explain how a multi-trillion dollar hole in this &#8216;Medicare for All&#8217; plan that Senator Warren is putting forward is supposed to get filled in.&#8221;
Buttigieg&#8217;s remarks come only days after he introduced a new campaign advertisement that takes a shot at &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; proponents.  The ad, titled &#8220;Makes More Sense,&#8221; specifically calls out both Warren and Sanders by name and escalates a division in their policy prescriptions. The timing of the ad release foreshadowed the clash that seemingly occurred during the debate.
<iframe title="Makes More Sense | Pete Buttigieg for President" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j8EA61P2Wcg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&#8220;What most Americans want is to have an opportunity to walk away from their private plan, to have that, what I call &#8216;Medicare for All Who Want It&#8217; alternative, but also to be able to keep their private plan if they would prefer,&#8221; Buttigieg continued to Camerota. &#8220;And I think that&#8217;s the right answer, especially when you do the math and realize it is also an answer that is paid for, unlike the &#8216;Medicare for All,&#8217; whether you want it or not plans, that still have this giant question mark over how it&#8217;s supposes to work.&#8221;

Democratic Presidential Candidates Participate In Fourth Debate In Ohio

WATCH: Buttigieg Goes After Warren For Dodging Questions On Her Health Insurance Plan: She’s More ‘Forthcoming About The Number Of Selfies She’s Taken’

Pete Buttigieg

On Tuesday, The Hill-HarrisX released a <a href="https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/462813-voter-support-for-forms-of-universal-health-care-declines?amp">new poll</a> on the public perception of various kinds of health care.
While health care is always a hot topic, the 2020 Democratic presidential race has served to magnify the issue, with candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) very publicly pushing government-run systems that would eliminate private insurance. Other Democratic candidates, such as Mayor Pete Buttigieg, have hedged, arguing instead for a hybrid system that wouldn’t eliminate private insurance entirely – at least at the start.
The poll, which was conducted between September 20-21, asked 1,000 registered voters which statement about health care &#8220;comes closest&#8221; to their view.
Coming out on top with 27% was the following statement: &#8220;Medicare/Medicaid should be expanded to cover all citizens regardless of age or income, but people should be able to purchase private supplemental plans.&#8221;
In second place with 25%: &#8220;Any citizen should be able to sign up for Medicare/Medicaid regardless of age or income while those with private plans could keep their existing insurance.&#8221;
In third place with 19%: &#8220;The current healthcare system should be kept as is.&#8221;
In fourth place with 18%: &#8220;The government should remove itself from paying for all health care.&#8221;
In a distant fifth place with just 10% was this statement: &#8220;Medicare/Medicaid should be expanded to cover all citizens regardless of age or income and private health plans should be abolished.&#8221;
For those keeping track, that’s 89% of voters who, to varying degrees, don’t believe that private health care should be abolished versus 10% who do. Moreover, 18% want the government out of health care altogether. For the Democratic presidential candidates advocating single-payer health care systems, those numbers represent quite a blow.
Further, this isn’t the only poll in which respondents have noted a distaste for government-run systems.
A <a href="https://morningconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/190675_crosstabs_POLITICO_RVs_v2_BH.pdf">Politico/Morning Consult</a> survey, conducted between June 29 and July 1, asked 1,472 registered voters, &#8220;Do you support or oppose &#8230; a &#8216;Medicare for All&#8217; health care system, where all Americans would get their health insurance from the government?&#8221;
30% of respondents &#8220;strongly support,&#8221; 23% &#8220;somewhat support,&#8221; 23% &#8220;strongly oppose,&#8221; and 13% &#8220;somewhat oppose.&#8221;
However, respondents were then asked: &#8220;Do you support or oppose &#8230; the public health insurance option, a system in which Americans can choose to purchase medical coverage either entirely from a federally-run health program, entirely from private insurers, or a combination of both?&#8221;
When the question included the idea of maintaining the choice of private insurance, the answers changed pretty dramatically: 33% &#8220;strongly support,&#8221; 35% &#8220;somewhat support,&#8221; 8% &#8220;strongly oppose,&#8221; and 9% &#8220;somewhat oppose.&#8221;
Lastly, the survey asked, &#8220;Would you support or oppose &#8216;Medicare for All&#8217; if it diminished the role of private insurers?&#8221; 24% &#8220;strongly support,&#8221; 22% &#8220;somewhat support,&#8221; 26% &#8220;strongly oppose,&#8221; and 9% &#8220;somewhat oppose.&#8221;
The results show that when private insurance maintains a presence in the question, favorability for a government-run option goes up. When private insurance is &#8220;diminished,&#8221; support goes down.
The plans proffered by the likes of Sanders and some of his colleagues would eliminate private insurance altogether. However, because the Politico/Morning Consult survey doesn’t explicitly ask respondents about such an option, the Hill-HarrisX poll is vital in gauging the feelings of the American people regarding a Medicare-for-All plan that would eliminate private insurance.

NEW POLL: Only 10% Of Americans Favor System Where Private Health Insurance ‘Abolished’

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) explained on Thursday that if he is elected president, the majority of Americans will face tax hikes to help fund his sweeping Medicare for All plan.
&#8220;Is health care free? No, it is not,&#8221; Sanders told host Stephen Colbert during an appearance on &#8220;The Late Show.&#8221;
&#8220;So, what we do is exempt the first $29,000 of a person&#8217;s income — you make less than $29,000, you pay nothing in taxes,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Above that, in a progressive way, with the wealthiest people in this country paying the largest percentage, people do pay more in taxes.&#8221;
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Referring to legislation that he introduced into the Senate during his 2016 presidential campaign, Sanders noted that the single-player plan will eliminate premiums, co-payments, and any additional out-of-pocket expenses. Furthermore, Americans would pay no more than $200 per year for any prescription drugs.
While Sanders&#8217; campaign previously contended that the proposal would cost taxpayers about $14 trillion over the next decade, most other estimates are significantly higher. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget <a href="http://www.crfb.org/blogs/how-much-will-medicare-all-cost">forecast Sanders&#8217; plan</a> costing $28 trillion during the first ten years, which is in the range of other estimates.
&#8220;Here&#8217;s the point: we are covering all basic health care needs,&#8221; Sanders said. &#8220;Medicare is a very strong program, all I want to do over a four year period is expand it to everybody and include dental care, hearing aids, and eyeglasses, and home health care as well.&#8221;
&#8220;So, we cover mental illness, we cover all basic health care needs. Somebody wants cosmetic surgery? Fine, go to some private insurance,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;But we cover all basic health care needs and the overwhelming majority of the American people will be paying less for healthcare than they are today.&#8221;
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) notably appeared on &#8220;The Late Show&#8221; only a week earlier, where Colbert also pressed her on whether her health insurance plan would raises taxes on Americans. Both Sanders and Warren have been competing for the far-left lane in order to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency.
While Sanders has been relatively open about his impending tax increases, Warren has steered clear of broaching the subject.
&#8220;You keep being asked in the debates how are you going to pay for it, are you going to be raising the middle class taxes,&#8221; Colbert said during her appearance. &#8220;How are you going to pay for it? Are you going to be raising the middle-class taxes?&#8221;
&#8220;So, here&#8217;s how we are going to do this,&#8221; Warren replied. &#8220;Costs are going to go up for the wealthiest Americans, for big corporations … and hard-working middle class families are going to see their costs going down.&#8221;
&#8220;But will their taxes go up?&#8221; Colbert again pressed the Massachusetts senator.
&#8220;But, here’s the thing,&#8221; Warren responded.
&#8220;But, here&#8217;s the thing,&#8221; Colbert interrupted. &#8220;I&#8217;ve listened to these answers a few times before and I just want to make a parallel suggestion to you that you might defend the taxes perhaps that you&#8217;re not mentioning in your sentence.&#8221;
Warren has yet to answer whether her health insurance proposal will increase taxes.

Bernie Sanders on The Late Show

WATCH: Bernie Sanders Admits He Will Raise Taxes, Even On Low-Income Individuals

Stephen Colbert

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi dismissed her party&#8217;s calls to pass Medicare for All on Saturday and instead defended the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as the most politically viable health insurance option for Americans.
&#8220;No, I do not,&#8221; Pelosi replied during an interview with NPR when she was asked if she agreed with many of the Democratic presidential candidates&#8217; demands to implement a single-payer health care system.
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&#8220;This is complicated to put together health care for as many Americans as possible. Our goal for all of us, including those presidential candidates is to have health care for all Americans — affordable, accessible, quality health care for all Americans,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;We believe that the path of the Affordable Care Act is the way to go, so I do believe that if you want to have whatever they are calling their plan — Medicare for all, whatever it is — the path to it is the Affordable Care Act.&#8221;
Former Vice President Joe Biden stands alone as the sole major presidential candidate to fully endorse the ACA, more commonly referred to as Obamacare. Biden has campaigned on reinstating the individual mandate as a way to guarantee that all Americans receive adequate health care coverage.
Through the mandate, the government would fine any individual who did not obtain sufficient health insurance. As a way to bypass the unconstitutional requirement to force Americans to purchase insurance, the individual mandate was categorized as an income-based tax levy. It was rolled back in 2017 after Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Many of the Democratic presidential candidates, however, have made universal health care plans cornerstones of their campaign platforms, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). The plan would notably force roughly 150 million Americans who are currently enrolled in private insurance plans to switch to a government-run program.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) faced widespread blow-back in January after she stated that she feels &#8220;very strongly&#8221; about fully embracing the single-payer health insurance system and thereby overhauling the entire American health care market. She later walked back her statements and argued that it is more nuanced than she previously illustrated.
However, Harris further stated that she wants a pathway to single-payer, but believes private health insurance should continue to cover people in the interim, which her campaign referred to as &#8220;Medicare for more.&#8221; Pelosi seemingly echoed a similar position on Saturday.
&#8220;I am with you as an advocate,&#8221; Pelosi said. &#8220;But as a member of Congress needing to get results for the American people, let&#8217;s take a path that takes us quickest and best and strongest to affordable care for all Americans.&#8221;
&#8220;I salute them if that is what they believe, I bless them for that, but that was, I think, not the practical path to get something done,&#8221; Pelosi added. &#8220;And I can, I say to them all of these issues, single-payer and all that, I have those signs in my basement from 30 years ago.&#8221;

nancy_pelosi

LISTEN: Nancy Pelosi Rejects Her Party’s Calls For Single-Payer Health Insurance

Nancy Pelosi

On Friday, former Vice President and 2020 Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden held an outdoor town hall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. During the event, Biden spoke about health care.
After claiming that the notion of Medicare-for-All, which has been proposed by presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), is &#8220;a great idea,&#8221; the former vice president noted that the estimated annual cost would be &#8220;twice the national budget,&#8221; adding that such a cost would require the raising of taxes, and could be especially harmful during a recession.
As Biden began to speak about his own health care plan, a woman in the crowd interjected, blasting &#8220;profits in health care,&#8221; and claiming that she would be willing to pay an extra 9% in taxes for a government-run system.
Following a brief back-and-forth, Biden roasted the woman by suggesting she has &#8220;the right candidate in Bernie.&#8221;
[Some of what the woman says is unclear. As such, the portions of her remarks that appear in brackets have been inserted for clarity, and aren’t necessarily the exact words she used.]
<blockquote>BIDEN: For example, we’ve got to be smarter in what we do to get to where we need to get. I take Obamacare and I reestablish all that was cut from it &#8230; and I add a public option to it, and I allow you to keep your private health insurance. If you&#8217;ve negotiated hard with a company over the years and you have a private plan you like – as long as you have it, you can keep it, but if you don&#8217;t like it or it&#8217;s cut, you can immediately join this new plan, which is an amped-up Obamacare. &#8230; My plan costs a lot of money. It costs $740 billion over ten years. It does not cost $30 to $40 trillion &#8230; over the next ten years, and I think [it] works better, by the way&#8230;
WOMAN: There’s still profits in health care though.
BIDEN: Sure there’s profits in health care &#8230; but everybody gets health care, and you only have a few people – are you prepared to pay nine more percent in your taxes?
WOMAN: You bet [because] I don’t even have the kind of health insurance that some companies cover.
BIDEN: Well, okay.
WOMAN: We need to have a leader that isn’t protecting insurance companies’ profits.
BIDEN: I am not protecting insurance – that’s unfair to say. &#8230; Here’s the deal. Insurance companies are strongly against my plan. They&#8217;re against Obamacare. They&#8217;re fighting against it because they know it costs them. But here&#8217;s the deal. If you have worked your whole life, you&#8217;ve given up five, seven, eight percent of your salary to get coverage with a plan that you may have with your employer, and now what’s going to happen? If you are no longer able to keep it, what happens? The employer gets multibillion-dollar breaks across the board, and you think they&#8217;re going to give it back to you?
WOMAN: [They’re going to give it back] to the government so we can pay for that insurance.
BIDEN: Well, they’re not going to give it to the government.
WOMAN: [We’re] going to make them do it.
BIDEN: Well, God love you. You’ve got the right candidate in Bernie; you got the right one. Well, and Elizabeth, or whomever you have. That’s a great thing, but here&#8217;s the point, folks. We have to be able to level with you &#8230; let&#8217;s at least acknowledge – tell Elizabeth &#8230; it’s going to cost a lot of money, and she&#8217;s gonna raise peoples’ taxes doing it. And what are we going to do in the middle of a recession if we ended up there?</blockquote>
The pertinent portion of the video begins at the 46:36 mark:
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According to <a href="https://reason.com/2019/07/17/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all-cost-40-trillion-obamacare-single-payer/">multiple estimates</a>, the cost of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare-for-All system would be approximately $32 trillion over ten years. Back in July, Sanders himself offered a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2019/07/16/transcript-candidates-sen-bernie-sanders/">similar estimate</a> of between $30 trillion to $40 trillion over a decade.
Sanders has <a href="https://www.apnews.com/a7268bd5902f40c3a98f0c64d9b78163">previously acknowledged</a> that middle-class taxes will have to be increased for a Medicare-for-All system to function.
Sen. Warren has been much more vague. During the most recent Democratic primary debate, she <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/read-full-transcript-abc-news-3rd-democratic-debate/story?id=65587810">said the following</a> about her health care plan:
<blockquote>And now the question is, how best can we improve on it? And I believe the best way we can do that is we make sure that everybody gets covered by health care at the lowest possible cost. How do we pay for it? Those at the very top, the richest individuals and the biggest corporations, are going to pay more. And middle class families are going to pay less. That’s how this is going to work.</blockquote>
When pressed by moderator George Stephanopoulos about a potential increase in taxes on the middle class given such an ambitious plan, Warren pivoted to &#8220;total cost,&#8221; and said in part that with &#8220;Medicare-for-All, costs are going to go up for wealthier individuals, and costs are going to go up for giant corporations, but for hard-working families across this country, costs are going to go down, and that&#8217;s how it should work under Medicare-for-All in our health care system.&#8221;

Joe Biden

Watch Biden Roast Woman In Exchange Over Health Care: ‘You’ve Got The Right Candidate In Bernie’

The Democratic debate in Houston on Thursday contained a whole lotta falsehoods, so many that the Associated Press decided to do a &#8220;fact check&#8221; on the numerous claims spouted by White House wannabes.
It wasn&#8217;t pretty.
There were claims that America has among the worst child poverty rates in the world, that the Obama-Biden administration didn&#8217;t &#8220;lock people up in cages&#8221; at the border, and that &#8220;every study&#8221; shows Medicare-for-all is &#8220;the most cost effective approach.&#8221;
Yeah, not so much, said the AP.
But the most egregious claim was that President Trump &#8220;inspired&#8221; — nay, &#8220;directed&#8221; — the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. The shooting at a Walmart happened on August 3, killing 22 people and wounding 24. The FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and a possible hate crime.
Robert &#8220;Beto&#8221; O&#8217;Rourke, who is barely a blip on most polls, sought to tie Trump directly to the shooting.
“Everything that I’ve learned about resilience, I’ve learned from my hometown of El Paso, Texas, in the face of this act of terror, that was directed at our community, in large part by the president of the United States. It killed 22 people, and injured many more, we were not defeated by that. Nor were we defined by that,&#8221; the former Texas congressman said.
Julian Castro, another candidate who is far behind the field, went even further.
“Look, a few weeks ago a shooter drove 10 hours inspired by this president to kill people who look like me and people who look like my family,&#8221; the former U.S. housing secretary said.
&#8220;THE FACTS: Nobody has claimed that Trump &#8216;directed&#8217; the shooting, as O’Rourke suggested,&#8221; <a href="https://www.apnews.com/93c4326ad44843978ec761a9fbb10f60">the AP wrote</a>.
&#8220;It is difficult to know for sure what led the gunman to open fire inside a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people. The suspect posted a manifesto online before the shooting that echoed Trump’s comments on immigration,&#8221; said the fact check. &#8220;The screed spoke of what the suspect called a &#8216;Hispanic invasion of Texas,&#8217; railed against immigrants and warned of an imminent attack. Nearly all of the victims had Latino last names.&#8221;
But then the AP wrote that the shooter &#8220;said his own views &#8216;predate Trump and his campaign for president.&#8217;”
That&#8217;s about as big a &#8220;false&#8221; as you&#8217;ll get from the left-leaning wire service.
On other whoppers told at the debate, the AP shot down Sen. Bernie Sanders&#8217; claim that “We have the highest child poverty rate of almost any country on Earth.” The AP said the U.S. &#8220;fared better than Russia, Chile, Spain, India, Turkey, Israel, Costa Rica, Brazil, South Africa and China,&#8221; then gave Sanders a primer on what poverty is, saying it is a &#8220;relative measure in which someone who is poor in one nation might look rather prosperous in another.&#8221;
Sanders made another iffy claim: “Every study done shows that ‘Medicare for All’ is the most cost-effective approach to providing health care to every man, woman and child in this country.”
&#8220;THE FACTS: Not exactly,&#8221; said the AP.
<blockquote>The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a report earlier this year that total spending under a single-payer system, such as the one proposed by Sanders, “might be higher or lower than under the current system depending on the key features of the new system.”</blockquote>
Those pesky details.
And on Joe Biden&#8217;s claim that the Obama-Biden administration &#8220;didn’t lock people up in cages, we didn’t separate families,&#8221; the AP was brutal.
&#8220;THE FACTS: His comment about cages is wrong,&#8221; said the wire service, adding that at the southern border, &#8220;the same enclosures were employed when Biden was vice president.&#8221;

gettyimages-1149455832.jpg

AP Grudgingly Admits That Despite Dem Claims, Trump Didn’t ‘Inspire’ El Paso Mass Shooting

Associated Press

Beto O'Rourke

El Paso Shooting

Julian Castro

GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) slammed presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) on Tuesday for claiming to an elderly woman that her health care coverage wouldn&#8217;t change under Harris&#8217; proposed health insurance plan.
&#8220;Amazing to watch how casually Kamala Harris lies to this Iowa Senior about health care,&#8221; Cheney said. &#8220;Harris wants us to believe she can impose [government] takeover of all health care while allowing current Medicare recipients to keep their coverage.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Amazing to watch how casually <a href="https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KamalaHarris</a> lies to this Iowa Senior about health care.
Harris wants us to believe she can impose govt takeover of all health care while allowing current Medicare recipients to keep their coverage.
“I’ll promise you that,” she says. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ItsaLie?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ItsaLie</a> <a href="https://t.co/XvjNuvNPLA">https://t.co/XvjNuvNPLA</a>
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) <a href="https://twitter.com/Liz_Cheney/status/1161256948538466305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Cheney&#8217;s remarks were in response to an exchange that Harris had with a resident at the Bickford Senior Living Center in Muscatine, Iowa a day earlier.
Roberta Jewell, a 91-year-old resident at the nursing home, confronted Harris over her plan to overhaul the entire United States health insurance market. Jewell questioned who is going to fund the massive government-run program if enacted.
&#8220;Well, we&#8217;re going to pay for it,&#8221; Harris answered. &#8220;Because right now, let me tell you something, we&#8217;re all paying for health care for everyone &#8211;.&#8221;
&#8220;No we&#8217;re not,&#8221; Jewell responded. &#8220;No we&#8217;re not.&#8221;
The Iowa resident urged Harris to &#8220;leave our health care system alone&#8221; and contended that people don&#8217;t want her to &#8220;mess with it.&#8221;
&#8220;I want to make sure your health care is the way you like it, so I&#8217;ll promise you that,&#8221; Harris replied to Jewell. &#8220;I won&#8217;t mess with the health care that you have.&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;ll promise you that,&#8221; Cheney repeated, emphasizing Harris&#8217; vow to the senior citizen. &#8220;#ItsaLie.&#8221;
Harris <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/29/kamala-harris-medicare-for-all-1438631">unveiled her signature health care plan</a>, dubbed &#8220;KamalaCare,&#8221; in July. The proposal stopped short of the full-scale government takeover of the private market that she has periodically promoted, but would achieve so-called universal health care coverage over a 10-year period.
The plan has been criticized for its vagueness, and it notably omitted critical details, such as an estimated cost as well as a way to finance the program.
The Democratic presidential contender faced widespread backlash on two separate occasions since launching her campaign for supporting the elimination of the entire private health insurance market in lieu of a government-run plan. She subsequently walked back her support both times.
Harris <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/31/kamala-harris-medicare-for-all-1130970">tried to clarify</a> her flip-flop in January, explaining that she wants a pathway to single-payer, but believes private health insurance should continue to cover people in the interim, which her campaign referred to as &#8220;Medicare for More.&#8221;
This is not the first time Cheney has called out the California senator for her &#8220;socialist&#8221; policy proposals. In February, Cheney criticized Harris and other Democratic lawmakers for claiming to work in the interest of the American people despite promulgating policies that strip Americans of their freedoms.
&#8220;Let&#8217;s never forget the fundamental fraud that&#8217;s at the heart of socialism,&#8221; the <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/24/liz-cheney-kamala-harris-cagop/">Wyoming congresswoman said</a> while speaking at the California GOP convention. &#8220;Every time you see Kamala Harris&#8217; campaign slogan &#8216;For the people,&#8217; I want you to remember what her real agenda is – taking power from the people to give it to the government.&#8221;
&#8220;[Harris] fully embraced the socialist wing of their party,&#8221; Cheney continued. &#8220;She wants Medicare for All to create an all-government health care plan.&#8221;

House Republican Conference

Liz Cheney Slams Kamala Harris For ‘How Casually’ She Lies To A Constituent

Kamala Harris

Liz Cheney

Following Tuesday night&#8217;s Democratic primary debate hosted by CNN, far-left MSNBC host Chris Matthews questioned presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) about the costs of her &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; policy proposal.
Matthews repeatedly asked Warren how much the plan would cost taxpayers, though he never did receive an answer from the senator. Clearly frustrated with Warren&#8217;s refusal, Matthews later knocked the progressive lawmaker on-air. &#8220;Warren wouldn&#8217;t answer that question,&#8221; he <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1156401216164941827">complained</a>.
&#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; will cost taxpayers more money, Matthews told Warren. &#8220;You guys dodged that tonight. … How much will your taxes go up?&#8221;
Warren refused to answer, suggesting the real question is, &#8220;How much are your costs going to go up?&#8221;
&#8220;I know that argument, but you&#8217;re covering it,&#8221; pressed Matthews.
&#8220;&#8216;Medicare for All&#8217; is cheaper than our current system — that&#8217;s the Republicans&#8217; version,&#8221; Warren said.
&#8220;I know the argument,&#8221; answered Matthews, &#8220;that you put it all together and you reduce the cost of healthcare premiums, and you get more benefits, therefore you come out ahead, but will you pay more in taxes? Why don&#8217;t you want to answer that question?&#8221;
&#8220;It’s a question about where people are gonna come out economically,&#8221; contended Warren.
&#8220;That&#8217;s not my question,&#8221; Matthews said. &#8220;That&#8217;s not my question. That&#8217;s not my question. My question is how much will taxes go up.&#8221;
Warren, again, refused to answer. &#8220;The question is about costs,&#8221; she said, about how much you&#8217;re &#8220;digging in your pocket&#8221; to pay healthcare costs.
&#8220;Will your taxes go up?&#8221; the MSNBC host asked, again. &#8220;Will your taxes go up? &#8230; There is no answer to the question, will your taxes go up.&#8221;
Matthews then moved on with the interview.
Warren and presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) both support a radical universal &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; program that would end private insurance and cost an estimated $32 trillion, $10 trillion more than the current national debt.
&#8220;Look at the business model of an insurance company,&#8221; Warren has argued, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/27/elizabeth-warrens-shift-puts-health-insurers-in-2020-crossfire.html">according</a> to CNBC. &#8220;It’s to bring in as many dollars as they can in premiums and to pay out as few dollars as possible for your health care. That leaves families with rising premiums, rising co-pays, and fighting with insurance companies to try to get the health care that their doctors say that they and their children need. Medicare for All solves that problem.&#8221;
Not all Democrats are on board with the controversial plan, however. Former congressman John Delaney, for example, has called the proposal &#8220;political suicide.&#8221;
During Tuesday night&#8217;s debate, Delaney bluntly told Sen. Sanders that his &#8220;math is wrong.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s been well-documented that if all the bills were paid at a Medicare rate, which is specifically — I think it&#8217;s in section 1,200 of their bill — many hospitals in this country would close,&#8221; said the businessman and presidential hopeful.
&#8220;We don&#8217;t have to go around and be the party of subtraction … telling half the country who have private health insurance that their insurance is illegal,” Delaney suggested, adding, &#8220;The question is, why do we have to be extreme? I&#8217;m starting to think this isn&#8217;t about health care, this is about an anti-private sector strategy.&#8221;
As <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/447515-sweeping-plans-from-2020-contenders-come-with-trillion-dollar-price-tags">reported</a> by The Hill, Warren’s proposal to erase student loan debt and eliminate tuition at public colleges could cost $1.25 trillion, while her environmental spending plan comes with a $2 trillion price tag.
WATCH (relevant comments begin at the 1:30-mark):
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WATCH: Chris Matthews Battles Elizabeth Warren: ‘Answer That Question’

Chris Matthews

Jake Tapper

Media

MSNBC

Taxes

During Tuesday night&#8217;s Democratic primary debate hosted by CNN, businessman and presidential candidate John Delaney <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=Delaney%20sanders&amp;src=typed_query&amp;f=video">called out</a> fellow presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for his &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; proposal, bluntly dubbing it &#8220;extreme&#8221; &#8220;bad policy&#8221; that would shut down hospitals, eliminate choices for the American people, and get President Donald Trump reelected.
CNN moderator Jake Tapper asked Sanders to respond to Delaney&#8217;s diagnosis of his proposal. &#8220;You&#8217;re wrong,&#8221; the senator said, lamenting the &#8220;dysfunctional healthcare system&#8221; currently in place, stating that there are &#8220;30,000 people dying while the healthcare industry makes tens of billions of dollars.&#8221;
&#8220;Listen, his math is wrong,&#8221; Delaney said of Sanders. &#8220;It&#8217;s been well-documented that if all the bills were paid at a Medicare rate, which is specifically — I think it&#8217;s in section 1,200 of their bill — many hospitals in this country would close.&#8221;
Sanders let out a laugh before Delaney noted that hospital administrators have told him that they would close their doors if all their bills were paid at the Medicare rate.
&#8220;But the question is, why do we have to be extreme?&#8221; Delaney asked. &#8220;I&#8217;m starting to think this isn&#8217;t about heath care, this is about an anti-private sector strategy.&#8221;
&#8220;We don&#8217;t have to go around and be the party of subtraction,&#8221; added Delaney, &#8220;telling half the country who have private health insurance that their insurance is illegal.&#8221;
At the outset of the debate, Delaney called out Sanders and fellow presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) for offering &#8220;bad policies like Medicare for All, free everything, and impossible promises that will turn off independent voters and get Trump reelected.&#8221;
Sanders&#8217; healthcare proposals are indeed radical. As noted by <a href="http://www.axios.com/medicare-for-all-health-care-cost-coverage-sanders-8db964fb-c738-4264-af98-e35606b67100.html">Axios</a>&#8216; Sam Baker, the senator’s latest version of &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; is &#8220;even more ambitious than his last one — which was already more ambitious than any other health care system on Earth.&#8221;
The proposal &#8220;would move almost everyone — whether you&#8217;re on Medicare or Medicaid, or buy insurance on your own through the Affordable Care Act, or get it through your job — into a single government-run program,&#8221; Baker noted. &#8220;You could not keep your existing plan. You could keep your doctor. … Taxes would go up. A lot.&#8221;
WATCH:
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">WATCH: John Delaney says rural hospital administrators would be forced to close their hospitals if they were paid at the rate Bernie Sanders&#8217; &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; bill would pay them.
Sanders laughs. <a href="https://t.co/ma9vdnWRxx">pic.twitter.com/ma9vdnWRxx</a>
— MRCTV.org (@mrctv) <a href="https://twitter.com/mrctv/status/1156366573336256512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 31, 2019</a></blockquote>
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WATCH: John Delaney Smacks Bernie Sanders On ‘Medicare For All’

We are still more than a year away from the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but no matter who is officially named as President Donald Trump’s opponent, we already know he or she will be pushing for a government takeover of the health care sector.
The only question is how fast.
All of the top U.S. senator candidates, including Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), have endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) “Medicare For All” health care bill. This is the most direct route to government-run medicine.
But while former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg have, so far, declined to sign on to Sanders legislation, they both have endorsed “single-payer lite” alternatives that purportedly let Americans “buy-in” to Medicare.
Unfortunately, as Juniper Research Group CEO Chris Jacobs explains in his <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Single-Payer-System_And/dp/1645720020">new book, “The Case Against Single Payer,”</a> all of these Medicare buy-in plans are simply slightly slower ways to get to the desired single-payer goal.
The problem with all of these plans, from both “Medicare For All to “Medicare For All Who Want It,” is that they are all pegged to the Medicare reimbursement system.
The thing is, doctors and hospitals do not get paid the same amount for every patient they see. Each private insurer negotiates a rate with hospitals, and then the government sets the rates for Medicare and Medicaid patients.
And hospitals get paid far less for the Medicare and Medicaid patients they serve. Currently, Medicare pays hospitals just 60% of what private insurance pays and Medicaid pays just 61%. If hospitals could only charge the Medicare reimbursement rate, many of them would go out of business. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 72% of hospitals lost money on their Medicare patients in 2017.
So, if most hospitals are losing money on every Medicare patient they serve, then where are they making all their money? From private insurance. And this is why the Medicare “buy-in” plans are no better than the “Medicare For All” plans.
The more people “buy-in” to Medicare, the more Medicare patients hospitals serve, and the more hospitals have to recuperate that money by charging private insurance more. The more insurers have to pay hospitals, the higher insurance premiums go, causing more and more people to “buy-in” to Medicare.
“Medicare For All Who Want It” plans are really just a death spiral for private insurance that will eventually lead to “Medicare For All Whether They Want It Or Not.”
“Good!” single-payer advocates will say. The sooner private insurance dies the better! “The insurance companies last year alone sucked $23 billion in profits out of the health care system, $23 billion,” Sen. Warren said at the first Democratic debate.
But as Jacobs notes in his book, when you start to look at all the fraud and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid systems, that $23 billion in insurance profits starts to look like a bargain. In 2018 alone, Medicare ($48.5 billion) and Medicaid ($36.2 billion) made $84.7 billion in fraudulent and improper payments. Not a dime of that money made a single patient healthier. It was a pure loss for taxpayers.
And that number would only skyrocket if Medicare became the only way Americans were allowed to finance health care. “In 2018,” Jacobs writes, “Americans spent nearly $3.65 trillion on health care. If a single-payer system in control of all that health spending maintains an improper payment rate equal to the current fee-for-service Medicare program, that would imply approximately $296.1 billion in spending on fraudulent or improper payments every year.”
There are many more reasons Americans should reject single-payer health care, and Jacobs touches on many of them in his book, including: Doctors being forced to perform abortions, the doubling all personal and corporate income taxes, and the loss of 1.5 million hospital jobs.
Our current system definitely has its flaws, and Jacobs has some suggestions on how to make it better; but the last thing we should do is double down on the worst parts of our existing system. Single-payer health care, however, would do just that.
Mike Lee, a Republican, is the senior U.S. senator from Utah.

LEE: Everything You Need To Know To Fight Single-Payer

Democratic Socialism

Health

Medicaid

Socialism

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) has been dodgy on whether her “Medicare For All” plan would abolish private insurance. Now her spokesman has confirmed that it likely would.
On Tuesday, Washington Examiner executive editor Phil Klein published <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/heres-a-list-of-benefits-private-insurance-wont-be-allowed-to-cover-if-kamala-harris-has-her-way">an article</a> that explained Harris’ MFA plan (which was actually proposed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders) would prohibit private insurance from covering any benefits that would be covered by the government plan. Included in the list are common benefits like hospital services, prescription drug coverage, and pediatrics. It’s a pretty long list:
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">If your private insurance covers any of these benefits, Kamala Harris wants to kill it: <a href="https://t.co/9viZOkyk13">https://t.co/9viZOkyk13</a> <a href="https://t.co/gwppVE1YMu">pic.twitter.com/gwppVE1YMu</a>
— Philip Klein (@philipaklein) <a href="https://twitter.com/philipaklein/status/1146094369054908416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 2, 2019</a></blockquote>
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As Klein wrote, Harris is not making the argument that people would lose their private coverage but gain better coverage from the government (which wouldn’t be possible anyway).
“Even if she&#8217;d face blowback for such a position, at least it would be intellectually consistent,” Klein wrote. “But that is not her current position. She claims that she opposes eliminating private coverage because there would still be a role for ‘supplemental’ plans.”
Based on the list provided by Klein that is pulled directly from the Sanders plan, which Harris backs, private insurance would only be able to cover things like plastic surgery, which The Washington Post’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/14/kamala-harriss-claim-that-medicare-for-all-doesnt-get-rid-all-insurance/?utm_term=.fed443616f96">fact-checker said</a> doesn’t make a lot of sense.
“That’s elective surgery generally not covered by health insurance. But insurance is purchased to defray costs for unexpected health problems. Who buys (or sells) insurance for the unexpected nose job or facelift? You can buy insurance for complications from cosmetic surgery, but that’s not going to be an especially large business,” the Post wrote, without awarding any Pinocchios.
When Klein tweeted out the list, Harris’ spokesman Ian Sams responded by saying, “Because they’ll be covered by everyone’s Medicare for All?”
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">Because they&#8217;ll be covered by everyone&#8217;s Medicare for All?
— Ian Sams (@IanSams) <a href="https://twitter.com/IanSams/status/1146098220856221697?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 2, 2019</a></blockquote>
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For Harris, this has been one of her biggest struggles as a candidate. A <a href="http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/07/01/rel8a.-.democrats.and.healthcare.pdf#page=5">recent poll</a> from CNN found that just 21% of Americans want a national health insurance program from the government to completely replace private health insurance. Complicating matters for Harris (and Sanders, though he is consistent in calls to abolish private health insurance) is a <a href="http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/07/01/rel8a.-.democrats.and.healthcare.pdf#page=5">recent report</a> from Bloomberg explaining that “the 181 million taxpayers with employer-sponsored coverage could miss out on the benefits of the Sanders[-Harris] plan, and even those receiving Medicaid could pay more, according to health-care policy experts on both sides of the political spectrum.”
The Bloomberg report also cautioned that the tax increase the plan would need to provide the benefits would outweigh the average Americans’ health costs.
Harris hasn’t remained consistent on the issue, as The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48968/so-does-kamala-harris-want-abolish-private-ashe-schow">previously reported</a>. In January, Harris told CNN’s Jake Tapper that we should “eliminate” the “process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require.” Her response was taken to mean eliminating all private insurance.
Months later, Harris said she was only referring to the “bureaucracy” of the process. At the first Democrat primary debate in late June, Harris raised her hand when asked if she would “abolish” private health insurance and replace it with a government-run plan. After the debate, she said she understood the question to mean that she would give up her personal insurance for a government plan.

Kamala Harris’ Spokesman Admits Her ‘Medicare For All’ Plan Would Kill Private Insurance

Democratic presidential candidate John Delaney challenged democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to a debate on Sunday after the 29-year-old former bartender mocked Delaney, who is a successful businessman and former Democratic Congressman.
Delaney slammed the idea of government-run healthcare during a speech on Sunday at the California Democratic Convention in San Francisco.
&#8220;Medicare for all may sound good but it&#8217;s actually not good policy nor is it good politics,&#8221; Delaney said. &#8220;This is called the battle of ideas my friends.&#8221;
&#8220;We should have universal health care, but it shouldn&#8217;t be the kind of health care that kicks 150 million Americans off their health care,&#8221; Delaney continued. &#8220;That&#8217;s not smart policy. I want everyone to have health care, but it&#8217;s got to be a plan that works for every American.&#8221;
The Democrat audience booed loudly after each statement from Delaney, and soon, the leader of the far-left chimed in on Twitter.
&#8220;Since there&#8217;s so many people running for President (&amp; not enough for Senate), instead of obsessing over who&#8216;s a &#8216;frontrunner,&#8217; maybe we can start w some general eliminations,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. &#8220;This awful, untrue line got boo&#8217;ed for a full minute. John Delaney, thank you but please sashay away.&#8221;
In a subsequent tweet, Ocasio-Cortez wrote: &#8220;Medicare for All IS sound policy &#8212; one may disagree w/ it, but plenty of other countries have single payer + better outcomes than the US. M4A IS good politics &#8212; it polls VERY well in swing states. &#8216;Third-Way&#8217; (aka lobbyist-backed Dems) WILL lose the presidency to Trump.&#8221;
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Since there&#8217;s so many people running for President (&amp; not enough for Senate), instead of obsessing over who&#8216;s a &#8220;frontrunner,&#8221; maybe we can start w some general eliminations.
This awful, untrue line got boo&#8217;ed for a full minute.
John Delaney, thank you but please sashay away <a href="https://t.co/0RDOwbfcgv">https://t.co/0RDOwbfcgv</a>
&#8212; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1135310167313178625?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 2, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Delaney responded in a tweet challenging Ocasio-Cortez to a debate, writing: &#8220;Hey @AOC, we have the same goal, universal healthcare for everyone, we just have different ways of getting there. Healthcare is the #1 issue for voters, so let&#8217;s debate the way forward. Any show of your choosing. Healthcare is too important for tweets, we need real discussion.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Hey <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a>, we have the same goal, universal healthcare for everyone, we just have different ways of getting there. Healthcare is the #1 issue for voters, so let&#8217;s debate the way forward. Any show of your choosing. Healthcare is too important for tweets, we need real discussion. <a href="https://t.co/LDrWa9sZQD">https://t.co/LDrWa9sZQD</a>
&#8212; John Delaney (@JohnDelaney) <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnDelaney/status/1135346766956716032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 3, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Ocasio-Cortez, who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/34321/twitter-explodes-after-ocasio-cortez-attacks-ryan-saavedra">has a history of shying away from debates</a> by playing the victim card, did not immediately respond to Delaney&#8217;s challenge.

Ocasio-Cortez Smarts Off To Democrat Presidential Candidate. He Challenges Her To Debate.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

During a House Budget Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) engaged with the Deputy Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Mark Hadley, and expertly dissected several of the major negatives of a single-payer health care system.
<blockquote>
CRENSHAW: I think it is time to put to rest [the] many false promises of Medicare-for-all and single-payer systems. Mr. Hadley, I want to start with talking about supply. On page 22 of the report from the CBO, you say, &#8220;Studies have found that increases in provider payment rates lead to a greater supply of medical care whereas decreases in payment rates lead to a lower supply.&#8221; Is this correct?
HADLEY: That&#8217;s correct. That&#8217;s what the report says.
CRENSHAW: Price controls, which are necessary when moving everyone under one payment rate, it affects supply, correct?
HADLEY: Yes, it can.
CRENSHAW: [A] single-payer system using current Medicare reimbursement rates decreases the number of doctors &#8211; they simply don&#8217;t get paid enough to keep up with expenses.
Second point, triage under single-payer systems. Do providers typically bill for whatever they want or is there an approved treatment list?
HADLEY: Typically there would be an approved treatment list.
CRENSHAW: Thank you. Generally, in single-payer systems, is the government or a government body in charge of listing out national guidelines and standards for practice that doctors must follow?
HADLEY: So, usually it&#8217;s a set of standardized practices, but that can be done sometimes by an independent advisory board&#8230;
CRENSHAW: Somebody has to do it. Under these systems, what are common methodologies for deciding what is listed on the national guidelines or standards? Is it a cost-benefit analysis?
HADLEY: Yes, they look at cost-effectiveness, but then through the prices for those, sometimes it&#8217;s through negotiation.
CRENSHAW: So, what we get to &#8211; maybe it&#8217;s a government bureaucrat, maybe it&#8217;s a third party &#8211; but a bureaucrat is using a cost-benefit analysis formula that will decide what a patient is approved for.
Third thing I want to hit, innovation. So, we have two issues here so far. We have lower payments to providers and a government-run list of approved care options. We have to ask ourselves, why would anyone invest in new, cutting-edge medical technology or medications? You won&#8217;t get paid as much; you&#8217;re not even sure the government will allow doctors to use your new innovation. How do you think that changes the calculus of investors? It changes it enormously.
Fourth thing I want to hit, quality of care. In your report, you write, &#8220;If the number of providers was not sufficient to meet demand, patients might face increased wait times and reduced access to care.&#8221; Is this correct?
HADLEY: That&#8217;s correct.
CRENSHAW: Later in your report, you say, &#8220;Public plans might not be as quick to meet patients&#8217; needs such as covering new treatments.&#8221; Correct?
HADLEY: Correct.
CRENSHAW: If we measure quality of care and wait times and innovative new care, wouldn&#8217;t we agree that quality is decreasing? So, there&#8217;s less providers, there&#8217;s less innovation, longer wait times, and overall less quality. This isn&#8217;t even the worst part. Let&#8217;s move on to who this might actually hurt the most.
Director Hadley, in your testimony, you write, &#8220;The public plan would provide the same set of health care services to everyone eligible, so it might not address the needs of some people. For example, the public plan might not be as quick to cover new treatments and technologies as would a system with competing private insurers.&#8221; In your testimony, you&#8217;re saying that a single-payer system might not address the needs of some people who need access to new treatments and technologies, correct?
HADLEY: That&#8217;s correct, depending on the design of the program.
CRENSHAW: Would you say that some of these people who need new treatments, they could be patients with cancer, genetic disorders, patients who suffer from two diseases like fatty liver disease or diabetes &#8211; all of whom have very complicated, complex conditions?
HADLEY: It would really depend on how quickly, and which technology or treatment was being provided, and which group that affected.
CRENSHAW: Sure, but in your testimony, you said &#8220;some people,&#8221; and it could easily include these people. Could those people that I just listed also be described as people with pre-existing conditions?
HADLEY: Yes.
CRENSHAW: So, a single-payer system is worse for people with pre-existing conditions. A private system is better for people with pre-existing conditions than a public system.
Let&#8217;s talk about what we&#8217;ve learned here, let&#8217;s summarize it. A single-payer system has to set prices, and if set at current Medicare rates, which all plans call for, this drastically cuts the money going to doctors and hospitals. They will have to cut resources. They will hire less, [and] they will buy less equipment. It is simple economics. Because there are less doctors, wait times will increase. With this newfound world of less doctors and more patients, the government will have to carefully screen or triage who gets care and who doesn&#8217;t, and what kind of care they get, all based on bureaucratic cost-benefit analysis. Innovators will be less likely to invest in a system where the payoff is significantly less because they can&#8217;t be sure whether the government bureaucrat will even allow doctors to use that new medical device, medication, or new procedure, and counterintuitively, the system ends up hurting patients with the most unique conditions, also knows patients with pre-existing conditions, because their care requires flexibility and innovation, both of which are drastically reduced in a single-payer system.
</blockquote>
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="385" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OwUB5yjaQIA" width="720"></iframe></div>
A primary issue when it comes to the health care debate in the United States is that the Democratic Party has been able to articulate their platform with buzz-phrases like &#8220;Medicare-for-all&#8221; and &#8220;universal health coverage.&#8221; These buzz-phrases effectively gloss over the critical details of implementing such a plan, creating a kind of psychological shortcut in the minds of their constituency.
Meanwhile, Republicans have struggled on two ends. First, they have often failed to succinctly dissect the negative ramifications of a single-payer health care system. Second, they have failed to articulate and disseminate to the voters their own solution.
What Rep. Crenshaw did so masterfully in the video above was concisely reveal several major flaws of a single-payer system &#8212; the lack of options for individuals with pre-existing conditions, the slowdown of medical and technological innovation, and the potential rationing of care.
If the Republican Party wants the American people to understand the consequences of a Medicare-for-all system, and therefore reject it, they need more politicians offering these brief and cogent analyses.

WATCH: Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s Awesome Take-Down Of ‘Medicare-For-All’

Republican Party

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) may be leading the pack of progressive potential options for the 2020 Democratic nomination, but he&#8217;s not sitting back and allowing others to get a leg up by suppoting vast new government expansions, like the Green New Deal.
On Wednesday, Sanders introduced a &#8220;revamped&#8221; version of his Medicare-for-All plan, which would completely replace private insurance in the United States with a single, public option &#8212; though this iteration of the plan is more comprehensive than previous versions, covering more, and expanding long-term care coverage to satisfy Baby Boomer voters.
<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/10/politics/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all-2020/index.html">CNN reports that Sanders</a> unveiled the bill with a sweeping speech likening the quest for &#8220;affordable health care&#8221; to unionization of the workforce in the early 20th century and the Civil Rights movement.
&#8220;We are involved in a great struggle not unlike, to be honest with you, the struggles of the labor movement, the struggles of the civil rights movement, the struggles of the women&#8217;s movement, the struggles of the gay community, the struggles of the environmental movement,&#8221; Sanders said. &#8220;This is what we&#8217;re about.&#8221;
The plan creates a federal universal health care program that completely supplants any private insurance (though that isn&#8217;t immediately clear from Sanders&#8217; rhetoric, which conveniently never mentions that people who like their coverage won&#8217;t keep their coverage). The system would cover &#8220;medically necessary&#8221; services and basic dental and vision services, as well as some prescription drugs. If you want name brand medication, you&#8217;ll have to pay $200.
&#8220;Insurers would only be allowed to provide services not covered by the universal plan, such as cosmetic surgery,&#8221; according to CNN.
In this plan, unlike previous plans, long-term care, including nursing care, is covered. The change seems tailor-made to attract older individuals, who might be used to a more comprehensive health care plan, into the Sanders&#8217; fold.
A few 2020 hopefuls, like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) are on board with Sanders&#8217; plan and support the move to universal health care. Others, like Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), expressed skepticism, noting that there&#8217;s no way a full overhaul of the existing health care system would pass a divided Congress, and a president might be better off seeking out bipartisan agreement on ways to make health care more affordable.
Few other 2020 candidates have spoken on the issue, and that&#8217;s likely because it&#8217;s probably not a winning proposal with most Americans. <a href="https://slate.com/business/2019/01/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all-plan-is-actually-unpopular.html">Slate, hardly a right-leaning outlet, reported last year</a> that while Sanders&#8217; has touted a poll that shows 70% approval for his Medicare-for-All plan, sentiment among voters changes when the question is restated to indicate that &#8220;Medicare-for-All&#8221; would be in place of their current private insurance.
&#8220;According to [health care company] Kaiser, support for Medicare for all drops to 37 percent if survey takers are told that the bill would eliminate private insurance companies, with 58 percent opposed,&#8221; Slate reported.
The &#8220;70%&#8221; &#8212; or, actually &#8220;73%&#8221; &#8212; is really support for a &#8220;public option&#8221; for health insurance, something that the Affordable Care Act tried to create, and that some 2020 Democratic candidates are proposing. But those same supporters of Medicare-for-All were skittish when asked whether they&#8217;d be willing to pay more in taxes to give their fellow Americans a health care safety net.
A whopping 60% said they&#8217;d oppose the measure if it meant they&#8217;d &#8220;feel the Bern.&#8221;
But Sanders is nothing if not consistent. He says he and the bill&#8217;s co-sponsors will present the plan officially in the coming days. In order to vote on it, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will have to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. That is, of course, unlikely.

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