Maine’s Mamdani has had better days. Faced with <a href="https://www.pressherald.com/2026/06/04/platner-bragged-of-nazi-tattoo-to-ex-physically-threatened-another-new-york-times-report-says/">new allegations</a> about his personal life, U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner — the far-left Democrat with the <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hated-women-explosive-abuse-new-nazi-tattoo-allegations-exes-rock-platners-campaign">infamous Nazi tattoo</a> — is fighting for political survival in a <a href="https://www.themainewire.com/2026/06/pro-collins-pac-internal-poll-shows-her-tied-with-platner-as-more-controversies-continue-to-plague-the-democrat/">neck-and-neck race</a> against incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/us/politics/platner-maine-senate-girlfriends-relationships.html">According to The New York Times</a>, several women who dated Platner describe the candidate as “disturbing” and “intimidating.” One ex-girlfriend <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/us/politics/platner-maine-senate-girlfriends-relationships.html">claimed</a> he “could be rough with her.” The accusations are enough to prompt even senior Democrats to express reservations, despite Maine offering a pathway to Senate control. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) — a Platner supporter — <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/04/platner-democrats-furious-new-york-times-report-00951496">spoke out</a>, “The behavior described in the New York Times story was wrong and toxic.” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) <a href="https://abcnews.com/Politics/sen-warner-platner-allegations-disturbing-decision-voters-maine/story?id=133660274">called</a> the allegations “disturbing” if true.
These are not Republican talking points. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/04/platner-democrats-furious-new-york-times-report-00951496">To quote a senior Democratic Senate aide</a>, “Everyone is apoplectic.”
Now, I am not one to judge a man based on allegations alone. Platner can take it up with God. We are all flawed, and political candidates often deeply so. Nor am I one to hold politicians to some lofty standard of moral decency and ethical conduct. Elected officials are public servants, but they don’t need to be role models. Inspiration can be found elsewhere.
But Mainers are missing the point. What matters most in this situation — in any election — is Platner’s worldview, which is his most disqualifying attribute even after the New York Times bombshell. For a candidate like Platner to resonate so much in Maine, a state near and dear to my heart, is at once disturbing and disheartening. Maine voters are <a href="https://www.wsj.com/video/series/on-the-news/maine-voters-back-senate-candidate-graham-platner-despite-allegations/41738C56-FF2E-4E18-A9A9-3C9802BCA5EC">doubling down on Platner politics</a> that make <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/janet-mills-shows-no-sign-reigniting-maine-senate-bid-graham-platners-rcna348706">Janet Mills</a> look like an establishment Republican.
Platner is a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/16/politics/kfile-graham-platner-maine-senate-candidate-deleted-reddit-posts">self-proclaimed</a> “communist” who <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/07/graham-platner-maine-primary-senate-susan-collins-00953171">believes that billionaires shouldn’t exist</a>. He has <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/top-off-the-wall-reddit-posts-haunting-graham-platners-maine-senate-bid">supported using deadly violence</a> against political opponents, dismisses “all” police officers as “bastards,” and believes that rural white Americans “actually are” racist and stupid. This comes from an oyster farmer in Sullivan, Maine — a population of barely 1,000 — who <a href="https://www.grahamforsenate.com/about">readily promotes his small-town story</a> as a working-class, anti-establishment badge of honor.
What the Maine Mamdani <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/06/05/us-news/meet-the-champagne-socialist-duo-who-groomed-rich-kid-graham-platner-into-working-class-candidate/">fails to promote</a> is his attendance at an $80,000-a-year boarding school, his lawyer father, or his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/20/arts/design/warren-platner-designer-is-dead-at-86.html">world-renowned architect grandfather</a> associated with a nearly <a href="https://www.priceypads.com/warren-platner-masterpiece-9750000/">$10 million real estate</a>. As former Maine Democratic Party chairman Tony Buxton put it, “If he’s an oysterman, I’m a florist, OK? Because I raise roses and give them to my wife.”
Nevertheless, Platner <a href="https://www.grahamforsenate.com/platform">rails against</a> America’s “billionaire economy” in a state with <a href="https://www.patriotledger.com/story/business/2025/04/02/how-many-billionaires-live-in-nh-maine-heres-the-2025-forbes-list/82778310007/">one billionaire</a> (Dexter Shoe Company heiress Susan Alfond), and he supports Medicare for All as a silver bullet. Our nation may need healthcare reform, but Platner’s vision of universal healthcare would cost Maine <a href="https://mainemorningstar.com/2025/05/15/amid-rising-costs-lawmaker-wants-to-restart-conversation-about-universal-health-care/">nearly $20 billion</a> — <a href="https://legislature.maine.gov/ofpr/total-state-budget-information/9304">more than the state’s entire budget</a>. A federal Medicare for All plan would amount to an <a href="https://www.crfb.org/papers/choices-financing-medicare-all">estimated $30 trillion to $40 trillion</a> over a decade. On an annual basis, this means that a single government healthcare program would account for about half of the annual federal budget (<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-12/us-budget-gap-hits-record-1-1-trillion-for-fiscal-year-so-far">roughly $7 trillion per year</a>).
If Platner confiscated the assets of all U.S. billionaires in far-left fairytale-land, Medicare for All could be funded — <a href="https://americansfortaxfairness.org/billionaires-1-5-trillion-richer-trumps-first-year/">for a year or two</a>. (This is impractical on multiple levels, given that much of billionaire wealth is derived from unrealized capital gains.)
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Back in reality, how do we pay for it? That part doesn’t make the final cut of a Platner campaign ad. On the conservative side, it would require a combination of a 32% payroll tax, a 25% income surtax, a 42% value-added tax, a $7,500-per-capita mandatory public premium, doubling all income tax rates, reducing non-health spending by 80%, or increasing debt to 105% of GDP.
<a href="https://www.crfb.org/papers/choices-financing-medicare-all">As the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget notes</a>, taxes on high earners and corporations alone could not finance Medicare for All. Taxes would have to go up on middle-class Mainers. How that makes the state more affordable remains unclear.
And that is just one Platner pipe dream, without even mentioning the proposed federal investments for environmental action, social justice, and other programs that would cost trillions of dollars in magic money.
On its 250th anniversary, America has many problems, but communism is never the solution. The popularity of Platner or New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani doesn’t make them pragmatic or principled.
For too many reasons to count, Mainers deserve much better than Graham Platner. But only they can disqualify him for good.
***
Luka Ladan is the President and CEO at <a href="https://zenicapr.com/">Zenica Public Relations</a>, based in Miami, Florida.

Senator Bernie Sanders Holds Fighting Oligarchy Event With Senate Candidate Graham Platner

The Most Disqualifying Thing About Graham Platner Isn’t What You Think

Communism

DW Opinion

graham platner

Maine

Medicare for All

The Harris Campaign told <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/harris-campaign-not-push-medicare-for-all-plan-despite-previous-support" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fox News</a> on Tuesday that the Democratic presidential nominee will not push a Medicare-for-all plan despite campaigning on providing universal Medicare just five years ago.
A Harris campaign official told Fox News&#8217; Peter Doocy that the vice president, who campaigned on pushing Medicare-for-all in the 2020 Democratic primary, will not make the same promise on this campaign.
Harris told Doocy in 2019, &#8220;So, the bottom line and the most important is that everyone have access to health care. That is the goal. That is the purpose for me supporting the policy of ‘Medicare-for-all.'&#8221; On her 2020 presidential campaign website, Harris wrote, &#8220;&#8216;Medicare-for-all&#8217; will cover all medically necessary services, including emergency room visits, doctor visits, vision, dental, hearing aids, mental health, and substance-use disorder treatment, and comprehensive reproductive health care services. It will also allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices.&#8221;
When Harris was still a senator representing California, she also <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1129/cosponsors" target="_blank" rel="noopener">co-sponsored</a> Sen. Bernie Sanders&#8217; (I-VT) single-payer &#8220;Medicare for All Act of 2019,&#8221; arguing at the time, &#8220;It’s not just about what is morally and ethically right. It also makes sense from a fiscal standpoint.&#8221; Sanders&#8217;s single-payer plan would have made the government completely responsible for covering health care costs and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/health/private-health-insurance-medicare-for-all-bernie-sanders.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">abolished</a> private insurance.
When CNN asked about private health insurance in January 2019, Harris <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/health/private-health-insurance-medicare-for-all-bernie-sanders.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, “Let’s eliminate all that. Let’s move on.”
Trump campaign Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt blasted Harris on Wednesday, <a href="https://x.com/kleavittnh/status/1823699993540133351" target="_blank" rel="noopener">writing</a>, &#8220;Kamala Harris’ spokespeople are once again alleging she has flip flopped on her positions — this time saying she no longer supports socialist Medicare for All. Kamala needs to stop insulting the intelligence of voters and speak for herself to explain why she is running from every liberal policy she has ever supported.&#8221;
<a href="http://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1723312978172000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1Kuw7_CFpxtIaxl4Gay5PU">WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI</a>
Harris&#8217;s Medicare flip-flop isn&#8217;t the only issue the vice president has been criticized for backtracking on after becoming the Democrats&#8217; nominee. While running for president in 2020, she said entering the U.S. without proper documentation should not be a criminal offense. The Harris campaign now says that her position is “the same as the administration’s — unauthorized border crossings are illegal,” POLITICO <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/09/harris-promises-to-go-tough-on-border-security-00173485#:~:text=Harris'%20remarks%20Friday%20were%20similar,on%20fentanyl%20and%20human%20trafficking." target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
Many of Harris&#8217;s policy positions have been impossible to nail down since she has not sat down for a major interview or held a press conference since becoming the nominee, and her campaign website has yet to publish a policy platform. The vice president said last week that she is hoping to get an interview on her schedule &#8220;before the end of the month.&#8221; Harris is set to debate Republican nominee Donald Trump for the first time on September 10 on ABC.
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walz-of-shame-ben-shapiro-exposes-kamalas-vp-pick-in-latest-episode-of-scamala-series">&#8216;Walz Of Shame&#8217;: Ben Shapiro Exposes Kamala&#8217;s VP Pick In Latest Episode Of &#8216;Scamala&#8217; Series</a>

Kamala Harris

Kamala’s Campaign Says She Will Not Push Medicare-For-All. She Fully Supported It 5 Years Ago.

Harris Campaign Says She Will Not Push Medicare-For-All. She Fully Supported It 5 Years Ago.

2024 Election

Biden Administration

Elections

Medicare

Politics

During a rally on Friday, former President Donald Trump played a new ad which takes aim at Vice President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/kamala-harris" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kamala Harris</a> by using her own past remarks against her.
Harris, the Democrats&#8217; effective 2024 presidential nominee, has an extremely left-wing history in politics, and voiced similarly radical positions during her failed 2020 presidential run. Video clips of those staked out positions by Harris were compiled by Trump&#8217;s team and featured in the new ad.
The ad opens up with the text, &#8220;Here&#8217;s what Kamala Harris would do as president&#8221; as audio plays of Harris bragging about being &#8220;radical.&#8221;
It then shows the VP voicing support for the controversial Green New Deal, issuing a total ban on fracking, supporting gun confiscation, eliminating private health insurance, providing taxpayer-funded health care for illegal immigrants, and supporting the radical &#8220;defund the police&#8221; movement, among other far-Left issues.
The ad closes with the text, &#8220;Kamala Harris: Failed. Weak. Dangerously liberal.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
WOW — Kamala in her own words.
Shockingly out-of-touch and dangerously liberal.<a href="https://t.co/OYgOmABnKJ">pic.twitter.com/OYgOmABnKJ</a>
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1822129038334328970?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 10, 2024</a></blockquote>
As highlighted in the ad, Harris said in 2019 that there&#8217;s &#8220;no question&#8221; she&#8217;s &#8220;in favor of banning fracking.&#8221;
“And starting with what we can do on Day 1 around public lands,&#8221; she said. &#8220;This is something I’ve taken on in California. I have a history on this issue.”
She further told CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper that she supports a single-payer, Medicare for All bill that would eliminate private health insurance. “Let’s eliminate all of that. Let’s move on,” she told the host.
<a href="http://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1722714742764000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1XzmEsRwzti1RFNuISwYgd">WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI</a>
Harris has also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kamala-a-to-z-from-marxist-influences-to-willie-brown-to-radical-policy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">praised</a> Australia’s strict gun ban and said she would implement gun confiscation for up to 10 million guns in the U.S. through a mandatory gun buy-back program.
Trump played the ad for his supporters on Friday during a rally in Bozeman, Montana. &#8220;Don&#8217;t take my word for it, listen: Kamala Harris&#8217; agenda straight fro her own mouth,&#8221; the Republican nominee teed up the video:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
SAVAGE: President Trump plays a compilation of Kamala&#8217;s radical policies — in her own words — at his rally in Bozeman, Montana
🔥 <a href="https://t.co/4QxU4nYYDA">pic.twitter.com/4QxU4nYYDA</a>
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) <a href="https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1822125501345087930?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 10, 2024</a></blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kamala-a-to-z-from-marxist-influences-to-willie-brown-to-radical-policy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kamala A To Z: From Marxist Influences, To Willie Brown, To Radical Policy</a>

Vice President Kamala Harris Speaks At Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority’s Boule In Houston

‘Yeah, I Am Radical’: New Trump Ad Use Kamala’s Own Words Against Her

WATCH: New Trump Ad Use Kamala’s Own Words Against Her

Donald Trump

Fracking

Green New Deal

Leftism

This year, we witnessed a truly unprecedented demonstration of medical and scientific prowess as multiple pharmaceutical companies developed effective COVID-19 vaccines in an unbelievable time span of just 10 months. However, not all vaccines are created equal. While the development of these vaccines exemplifies the scientific abilities of our civilization, the reaction towards the different vaccines also exemplifies the fundamental differences between free market and socialist medical systems.
United States: Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. Expensive, but 95% effective.
Two COVID-19 vaccines were produced by American pharmaceutical companies. Both have been approved by American authorities, with distribution efforts currently ongoing. The first was produced by Pfizer and BioNTech, and the second was produced by Moderna.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine “<a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/19/a-side-by-side-comparison-of-the-pfizer-biontech-and-moderna-vaccines/">showed</a> efficacy of 95% at preventing symptomatic Covid infection,” and the Moderna vaccine is “94.1% effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19.”
Both require two doses, and both require “an elaborate cold chain.” The Pfizer vaccine “must be shipped and stored at -94 Fahrenheit,” while Moderna’s “must be shipped at -4 Fahrenheit,” the temperature of a standard refrigerator freezer. Pfizer’s vaccine must be used within five days of thawing, while Moderna’s can be stored at fridge temperature for 30 days or at room temperature for 12 hours.
According to the <a href="https://observer.com/2020/11/covid19-vaccine-price-pfizer-moderna-astrazeneca-oxford/">Observer</a>, Pfizer’s vaccine costs an estimated $20 per dose, and Moderna’s vaccine between $10 to $50 per dose. Shipping and storage requirements add further financial restraints.
United Kingdom: Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. 62% effective, but cheap!
On December 30th, the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZenenca — a British-Swedish pharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, England — was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55280671">approved</a> for use in the United Kingdom, with the first doses due to be given in early January.
Compared to the stunning 95% efficacy rate of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine “showed 62% effectiveness.” However, the Oxford vaccine is easier and therefore cheaper to store and distribute, as it can be “kept at normal fridge temperature.”
According to the Observer, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will cost under $4 per dose.
The difference between free market and socialized medicine.
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, celebrated the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as “a triumph” for British science. British Health Secretary Matt Hancock declared, “This is a significant moment,” and said that the vaccine’s approval was “a huge British success story.”
The fact that what appears at the moment to be a vastly inferior vaccine is being described as a “triumph” says everything you need to know.
In the COVID-19 vaccine market, customers have three options. Two are more expensive and logistically complicated vaccines which provide a stunning efficacy rate of approximately 95%. The other option is a cheaper vaccine which will provide less of a logistical challenge, of which more than 1 in 3 will be ineffective.
Many on the Left want to emulate the British medical system — the golden calf of the National Health Service (NHS) — by “providing” American citizens with “free healthcare.” Those who support this notion should compare the systems of the United States and the United Kingdom — and how they are approaching vaccination against COVID-19 — and think again.
In the United States, under a (largely) free market system where quality is ensured through competition and private enterprise, the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are being distributed. Yes, they’re expensive. Yes, they’re complicated. But yes, they work — very well.
In the United Kingdom, under a government controlled medical system devoid of choice, competition, or quality control, which vaccine is being distributed? Not the expensive vaccines which work 95% of the time! No, the British government have embraced the “easier” option which works 62% of the time. In other words, the cheap vaccine which doesn’t work 38% of the time. 
Health Secretary Matt Hancock even boasted about the affordability of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in Parliament.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The <a href="https://twitter.com/UniofOxford?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@UniofOxford</a> / <a href="https://twitter.com/AstraZeneca?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AstraZeneca</a> vaccine is affordable, can be stored at normal fridge temperature &amp; offers hope for the whole world.
Like so much else in the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/coronavirus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#coronavirus</a> pandemic response, it’s been a big team effort. <a href="https://t.co/zqamVHixLs">pic.twitter.com/zqamVHixLs</a>
&mdash; Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattHancock/status/1344324823573528576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 30, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
You couldn’t find simpler or more definitive evidence of why the attitudes which underpin the American medical system far surpass those of the United Kingdom — or indeed any other socialist (or socialist-esque) systems. 
For the United States, and other free market medical systems, the primary concern is the quality of care. In this context, a vaccine with a 95% efficacy rate is a triumph, while a 62% efficacy rate is a failure.
For the United Kingdom, and other socialist medical systems, the primary concern is keeping costs down. In this context, an expensive and effective vaccine is an extravagance, while a cheap and comparatively ineffective vaccine is a &#8220;triumph.&#8221;
If you support Medicare for All but would choose either of the American vaccines over the British vaccine, then you need to take a long hard look in the mirror.
Ian Haworth is host of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkPxdVsNp7k&amp;list=PLhi-aq-5DfuTQRVv1IOVMnA735vEYO0f5">The Ian Haworth Show</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E05t2L69Sks&amp;list=PLhi-aq-5DfuRHu5r0IV5qr4h2rBAV9oBd">The Truth in 60 Seconds</a>. Follow him on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">@ighaworth</a>.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

NHS Vaccine

American Healthcare Created Vaccines Which Are 95% Effective. The ‘Cheap’ Socialist Alternative Is 62% Effective.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Health Care

Moderna

Oxford University

Pfizer

A Colorado Democrat who failed to win a seat in congress during the 2018 election cycle is back, and this time she’s claiming to be a moderate even though she previously supported radical left-wing policies.
Diane Mitsch Bush ran on the Green New Deal and Medicare for All while campaigning in 2018. Now she speaks out against both, and they are nowhere to be seen on her current platform, the Washington Free Beacon <a href="https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/colorado-dem-campaigns-as-a-moderate-obscuring-radical-record/">reported</a>.
In 2018, Mitsch Bush spoke of the Green New Deal in a positive light: &#8220;You’re creating jobs and helping to protect our environment and prevent climate change, so it’s a triple whammy.” Now she says the legislation “does nothing” and is insensitive to the needs of the people she wants to represent.
&#8220;[The Green New Deal] shows remarkable insensitivity to the kinds of issues we face in rural Colorado,&#8221; Mitsch Bush <a href="https://www.cpr.org/2020/10/02/elections-2020-colorado-district-3-diane-mitsch-bush-democratic-candidate-interview/">told</a> Colorado Public Radio last week.
Also in 2018, Mitsch Bush said she supported a universal, single-payer health care system, more commonly referred to as Medicare for All. Now she <a href="https://www.westernslopenow.com/news/local-news/diane-mitsch-bush-speaks-out-about-opponent-attacks-healthcare-environment/">says</a> she would only work to repair Obamacare and not attempt to create a public option.
As the Free Beacon reported, Mitsch Bush now describes herself as a “pragmatic progressive” even though she lurched to the left in order to win her primary.
“She has said in interviews she spent her career as a legislator reaching across the aisle. Her support for radical causes, however, stretches beyond 2018. As early as 1999, Mitsch Bush donated to In These Times, a pro-union magazine founded by an avowed socialist. Mitsch Bush donated for at least two more years, until 2003,” the Free Beacon reported.
“She further pledged to never accept any corporate PAC money for her campaign to demonstrate her commitment to Colorado residents. The longtime state lawmaker&#8217;s record, however, does not hold up to her claims of bipartisanship and pragmatism, nor does her previous campaign financing. Her last congressional bid netted thousands from liberal groups such as Swing Left, EdPAC, Emily’s List, and the Sierra Club. In April 2020, federal filings showed that Mitsch Bush took donations from Planned Parenthood Action Fund—the political arm of the billion-dollar abortion provider,” the outlet added.
Mitsch Bush’s claims to be more moderate are likely due to the fact that she is not running in a solid blue congressional district. She lost in 2018 to incumbent Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO) by 8 points (51% to 43%). Tipton lost his primary to Lauren Boebert, a political outsider who is pro-gun. Boebert owns a restaurant called Shooters Grill where the wait staff are allowed to open carry.
The district is not reliable for either party, though the Cook Political Report currently <a href="https://cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings">rates</a> it as “leans Republican.”
Tipton had held the seat since 2010 after beating then-incumbent Democrat John Salazar, who had won the seat in 2004 after incumbent Republican Scott McInnis decided to run for governor.

Diane Mitsch Bush

Democrat Congressional Candidate Claims To Be A Moderate, Previously Supported Medicare For All, Green New Deal

2020 Election

Colorado

Congress

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) claimed during an interview this last week that the United States has “not earned the right” to call itself a “humane society.”
Ocasio-Cortez made the remarks during an interview on far-left Democracy Now! about the coronavirus outbreak as she pounced on the opportunity to attack the Trump administration.
&#8220;We should have universal systems where every person can see the doctor free of charge when they need to see it so that they can get the care that they need,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez said. &#8220;That is what it means to live in an advanced and modern and humane society, and so long as we don&#8217;t do that, we have not earned the right to call ourselves one.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a> blames Trump for Coronavirus deaths, particularly among illegal immigrants, in NYC: 
These &quot;are deaths of incompetence, they are deaths of science denial, they are deaths of inequality and &#8230; [a] particular cruelty toward undocumented immigrants&quot; <a href="https://t.co/GeDmdkAMym">pic.twitter.com/GeDmdkAMym</a>
&mdash; Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1247526339336261634?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>DEMOCRACY NOW: Overall, your response to President Trump, his antagonism against any kind of criticism, the well-known documented lack of tests, lack of PPE, protective gear for people who work in hospitals, and now this, saying “Sure, test them before we deport them.”
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): Well overall, you know, uh, not just President Trump but this entire administration knew what was coming. Trump knew this pandemic was coming. The military knew this pandemic was coming. The CDC knew this pandemic was coming. HHS Health and Human Services knew this pandemic was coming, and there was a structural but also universal refusal to acknowledge and more importantly to act, and this pandemic is, you know, and and the casualties that we are seeing are, again, not just due to coronavirus.
There are people dying unnecessarily, as you mentioned earlier, there are people not just dying in hospitals. In New York City City alone, we are seeing 200 to 300 people dying in their homes a day, per day in New York City inside their homes in addition to the hospitalizations. These numbers that you&#8217;re seeing, all in all, many of them are confirmed coronavirus cases, as you mentioned, many people do not have access to tests, so a lot of these deaths that you are seeing, there are many more that are uncounted that are being counted as pneumonia or being counted as other causes of death because those people were not able to get a COVID-19 test. And so, these additional deaths, many of them are unnecessary, they are deaths of incompetence, they are deaths of science denial, they are deaths of inequality, and so it&#8217;s important for us to acknowledge how unnecessary the level of crisis that we are at right now that is due to the incompetence of this administration, that is due to the lack of responsiveness [of] this administration. And when it comes to the particular cruelty to undocumented immigrants, it is also a form of denial of the fact that many of these undocumented people pay taxes, they fund our public schools, and they fund a very public health system that they are being denied access to right now through the billions of dollars of taxes that they pay, billions more, by the way, these undocumented workers pay billions more in taxes than Facebook does, than Amazon does, and than many other corporations do. And so when it comes to contributions to our public systems, they do far more than these than these corporations do, and it&#8217;s extraordinarily important that they have safe access to our public health system, and by the way, it shouldn&#8217;t just be for COVID-19 cases, our public health system should be free at the point of service for every single person in this country.
There are folks that are saying, “Oh, you&#8217;ll get paid sick leave if it&#8217;s COVID-19 related,” as we&#8217;re seeing with Amazon, they&#8217;ll take your fever, if you don&#8217;t have a test, then you will not receive paid sick leave. We should have universal systems where every person can see the doctor free of charge when they need to see it so that they can get the care that they need, that is what it means to live in an advanced and modern and humane society, and so long as we don&#8217;t do that, we have not earned the right to call ourselves one.</blockquote>

Mark Zuckerberg

Ocasio-Cortez: U.S. Has ‘Not Earned The Right’ To Call Itself A ‘Humane Society’

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

COVID

The Democratic presidential primary has consolidated into a showdown between former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). One of the key issues on which the Democratic candidates are running is health care.
While the progressive gold standard seems to be a single-payer system, there’s a break within the party, with some preferring a more “moderate” approach to reform. Both Biden and Sanders have presented health care plans that would greatly expand the role of the federal government, and increase government spending by billions to trillions of dollars over a decade.
The “Medicare for All” plan put forth by Sanders is estimated to cost more than $32 trillion over a decade, while Biden’s plan is estimated to cost approximately $750 billion.
The Daily Wire recently spoke with health care policy expert Avik Roy about Medicare for All and the Biden plan, as well as what more conservative, free market solutions would look like. Roy is the co-founder and president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), which “conducts original research on expanding economic opportunity to those who least have it,” according to the organization’s <a href="https://freopp.org/our-mission-3b16e8e8c656">official website</a>.
In parts one and two of this interview, which you can read <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/interview-part-i-health-care-policy-expert-talks-medicare-for-all-the-so-called-moderate-alternative-and-free-market-solutions">here</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/interview-part-ii-health-care-policy-expert-talks-about-what-free-market-reform-actually-looks-like">here</a>, Roy discussed what “Medicare for All” really means, the flaws of such a system, the dangers of the “moderate” counterpoint, and what a conservative solution could look like.
In part three of this interview, Roy discusses hospital monopolization, the real progress conservatives have made on health care legislation, the pressure faced by elected officials to retain the status quo, and more.
<blockquote>DW: Is there a reason that hospitals have been able to consolidate in the way that they have, and how can we break those up?
ROY: The short answer is that both at the state level and at the federal level, the people who have the authority to regulate, to block mergers that create regional monopolies, haven’t been able to do so, for one reason or another. That&#8217;s been the first-order problem. The second-order problem is even in the occasional situation where the Federal Trade Commission or related state entities have brought lawsuits, a lot of times the courts have sided with the hospital. They said, &#8220;Oh well, you&#8217;re a nonprofit hospital, therefore you must be doing the right thing. Nonprofits can do no wrong. You’re not like the greedy for-profit people.&#8221; And that&#8217;s completely wrong. Just because you are tax-exempt does not mean you can&#8217;t be greedy.
“Nonprofit” in that sense is a bit of a misnomer. So-called nonprofit hospitals are among the most rapacious practitioners of monopoly power in the hospital sector. These are huge problems. Every year that these regional monopolies gain more power, they become harder to reign in because the more power they have, the more ability they have to influence their local politicians to do whatever they want. This has become an increasing threat to the living standards of America, the fact that hospitals are charging 8% more for the same stuff that they were doing last year simply because they have the power to do so. They’re just charging more every year. At a certain point, it becomes unsustainable. In fact, it already is.
If you actually look at the share of Americans&#8217; income that they send to the IRS, and the share of Americans&#8217; income that they send to the hospital industry, they send more of their income to the hospital industry than they do to the IRS on average. That is catastrophic. So, that can&#8217;t continue. We&#8217;re starting to see, on both the Left and the Right, constructive proposals to try to reign in hospital monopolies.
DW: What are the most prominent roadblocks to the implementation of your plan?
ROY: Well, first let&#8217;s talk about the progress. There’s actually been enormous progress in terms of developing legislation that reflects these principles. Last year, Bruce Westerman, a congressman from Arkansas, introduced the Fair Care Act of 2019, which is health reform bill that&#8217;s based on all of the principles I just described. A new version of that bill is forthcoming in the next several weeks or months that will build on the Fair Care Act of 2019, and potentially attract broader support. So, there&#8217;s real progress. There’s actually a bill now that&#8217;s online, that people can look at and critique and read and think about and add ideas to. That process has led to this second version of the bill that will be coming out in the next couple of months.
That&#8217;s the good news. The good news is that there&#8217;s a lot progress being made in turning these ideas into actual legislation that members of Congress can support and advance. As you would expect, the monopolies and crony capitalists who benefit from the current system are going to fight hard at any attempt to curtail their revenue streams. And of course people on the progressive Left are going to oppose plans like this because they strengthen and expand the role of private sector innovation in solving the problems of affordability and access to care and coverage. Those would be the two groups that you could expect to not like this approach – but there&#8217;s a lot about this approach that otherwise is pretty attractive.
It&#8217;s going to be appealing to a broad segment of the public. In order to pass health reform, it&#8217;s really important to remember, we can all throw up on a blackboard our dream system of what we think the health care system should look like, but at the end of the day, if you want to pass reform in Congress, you have to get 60 votes in the Senate. To get 60 votes in the Senate, it&#8217;s not going to be an ideological fantasy of what the health care system should look like. You have to have a reform that has enough public support that it can attract 60 votes in the Senate, and that means attracting some Democrats. Not all, but some.
The approach that we&#8217;ve designed is meant to do that. It&#8217;s meant to say, &#8220;This represents a gradual evolution of the system. It does deploy the private sector to do it, but it also achieves goals that moderate Democrats should appreciate, which is more people will be able to afford their health insurance, and there will be fewer people who will be uninsured.&#8221;
DW: Republicans don&#8217;t seem to be unifying around and really heavily promoting an alternative to what&#8217;s being offered by the other side. Why do you think that is? Is it pressure from monopolistic organizations?
ROY: There’s obviously partisan pressure to do partisan things, particularly if you&#8217;re running for president in the Democratic primary, or running for Congress in the Democratic primary. You&#8217;re going to want to do things that enable you to win that primary, so that&#8217;s going to be a more partisan ideological approach. The same is often true, obviously, in Republican primaries. The other piece of it, as you suggested, is that if you want to get elected, it&#8217;s easier to get elected if you don&#8217;t offend the powerful industry interests that otherwise could run a lot of ads claiming you&#8217;re a bad guy or bad gal.
So, don&#8217;t make waves, don&#8217;t really disrupt the status quo in terms of the crony capitalists, and that increases your chances of winning. The formula is to talk big, but not really actually do a lot to tackle hospital monopolies or other monopolies of crony capitalists, because if you really mean it, then you&#8217;re going to have those industry components and sectors against you. That&#8217;s what happened with Bernie. If Bernie had been the nominee, he would have elicited a lot of opposition from the industries that make a lot more money under the status quo than they would under Bernie&#8217;s plan, in theory.
That’s kind of the dynamic right now, but after the election, we&#8217;ll see. If Trump wins, then there are going to be more Democrats willing to come to the table and say, &#8220;Okay, we didn&#8217;t succeed in getting a Democratic president, but I still want to do work on health reforms. Let&#8217;s work together.&#8221; If Biden or some Democrat wins, and they&#8217;re approach fails to get through Congress, that could also elicit more interest in a bipartisan approach. So, the more partisan approaches have to fail for people to be willing to come to the table. That&#8217;s kind of what&#8217;s happened with Republicans.
Repeal and Replace failed, so there&#8217;s much more interest in what I&#8217;m describing in terms of a more gradual evolution to a better system. Similarly, I think the Medicare for All and public option type approaches have to fail for there to be more interest in a bipartisan approach.
DW: Is there anything that we haven&#8217;t touched on in this interview that you would want our readership to know about this particular issue?
ROY: Yeah, I would say that we haven&#8217;t really talked about what the Trump administration has already done, and what Republicans in the Senate are already trying to do to address some of these issues.
We talked about the Fair Care Act of Bruce Westerman, which is, I think, the most wide-ranging and ambitious and important attempt to achieve free market health reform, but it&#8217;s also worth nothing that there are things on a more incremental level that both the White House and the Senate are trying to do that would be helpful. The Trump administration has been trying to do a lot of work on price transparency. That could do a lot to benefit patients and businesses that are trying to keep their healthcare costs down.
The Senate Finance Committee has been doing some important work in trying to reduce Medicare spending on drugs in ways that I think are really constructive. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee – the Senate health committee led by Senator Lamar Alexander – is trying to do some good work to combat anti-competitive practices by hospital monopolies and others.
So, those are not the total solution, they wouldn&#8217;t on their own achieve free market health care, but they&#8217;re important reforms that your readers should be aware of and, in my view, get behind.</blockquote>
I’d like to thank Avik Roy for taking the time to speak about such an important issue. For more information, you can follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/Avik?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Twitter</a> or visit the FREOPP website <a href="https://freopp.org/the-freopp-founders-avik-roy-53719dfcaf05">here</a>.

Healthcare.

INTERVIEW (Part III): Health Care Policy Expert Talks About Free Market Options, Cronyism, Monopolies, And Progress Already Being Made

Bernie Sanders

Joe Biden

The Democratic presidential primary has consolidated into a showdown between former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). One of the key issues on which the Democratic candidates are running is health care.
While the progressive gold standard seems to be a single-payer system, there’s a break within the party, with some preferring a more “moderate” approach to reform. Both Biden and Sanders have presented health care plans that would greatly expand the role of the federal government, and increase government spending by billions to trillions of dollars over a decade.
The “Medicare for All” plan put forth by Sanders is estimated to cost more than $32 trillion over a decade, while Biden’s plan is estimated to cost approximately $750 billion.
The Daily Wire recently spoke with health care policy expert Avik Roy about Medicare for All and the Biden plan, as well as what more conservative, free market solutions would look like. Roy is the co-founder and president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), which “conducts original research on expanding economic opportunity to those who least have it,” according to the organization’s <a href="https://freopp.org/our-mission-3b16e8e8c656">official website</a>.
In part one of this three-part interview, which you can read <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/interview-part-i-health-care-policy-expert-talks-medicare-for-all-the-so-called-moderate-alternative-and-free-market-solutions">here</a>, Roy discussed what “Medicare for All” really means, the flaws of such a system, the dangers of the “moderate” counterpoint, and if a nation can achieve so-called universal coverage without a health care mandate.
In part two, Roy talks about how the current health care system in the United States is neither free market nor government-run, and what a conservative solution could look like.
<blockquote>DW: Can you describe the United States health care system as it compares to a free market system versus a much more regulated system? Are we not somewhere in between?
ROY: That’s exactly right, we&#8217;re somewhere in between. We&#8217;re not a 100% public system, and we&#8217;re not a 100% private system. We&#8217;re somewhere in between. Roughly half of all health expenditures – and actually more if you define it in certain ways – are paid for by the taxpayer through taxes and spending. It&#8217;s more like two-thirds of all health care spending in America is public spending if you include the value of the exclusion from taxation of employer-sponsored coverage, which is effectively a form of subsidy for that kind of coverage. So, if you put all that together, it&#8217;s like two-thirds. If you don&#8217;t include the tax expenditures, it&#8217;s more like half. The government’s role in health care in America is considerable and growing all the time. It’s a misperception out there that the American health care system is a free market system, and European countries are all socialists. That&#8217;s not true at all. There are countries in Europe that are much more market-oriented than the United States.
In fact, at FREOPP, we&#8217;re doing some research on this topic, really trying to identify which countries have the most market-oriented systems, and which ones have the most socialized. We&#8217;re coming to an analysis that suggests that there&#8217;s somewhere around a half dozen countries that are more market-oriented than the United States. The most notable example is Switzerland. In Switzerland, you have a system in which everybody has private insurance. There are not government insurers, there are no public options, there&#8217;s no Medicare, there&#8217;s no Medicaid. Everyone buys private insurance. There is an individual mandate in Switzerland, and in terms of our own health reform proposals, we are opposed to an individual mandate.
In Switzerland, it&#8217;s all individual private insurance. Everyone shops for their own coverage much like we do in Medicare Advantage, and that coverage is subsidized for people in the bottom fifth of the spectrum in terms of income, illness, and things like that. So, it&#8217;s a pretty good system that&#8217;s much more fiscally sustainable than ours, and where everyone has universal coverage. That&#8217;s an example of the model that we can look to and say, &#8220;Hey, if you want to achieve universal coverage, you don&#8217;t have to go the socialist route. You can actually go the market-based route. You can learn from Medicare Advantage, you can learn from Switzerland.&#8221; That&#8217;s why at FREOPP, our health reform plan is called “Medicare Advantage for All,” because we really want to highlight that Medicare Advantage is a great model for thinking about how to expand coverage in an affordable way.
DW: What is the conservative solution to healthcare? What are the tentpole ideas of the solution to what we have now?
ROY: First of all, it&#8217;s very important to embrace the concept of universal coverage. I think too often conservatives have fallen into the trap of saying that just because the Left supports a certain policy outcome, we must be against it. That doesn&#8217;t make any sense because if you are a true believer in free enterprise, if you are a true believer in capitalism, you know that it’s free enterprise and free markets that have led to almost everyone in America being able to have a job, to almost every American having a smart phone, to almost every American being able to afford a laptop. These things are possible because of free market innovation and competition.
So, if we believe that free market innovation and competition can make those kinds of services cheaper and more accessible and more abundant and more available to every American, why don&#8217;t we think the same about health care? We should. We should understand that it&#8217;s actually free enterprise that does the best job of delivering affordable health insurance to every American.
Using that as our philosophical premise, we start by saying we should embrace the cause of universal coverage, and show how markets can achieve it. So, how would markets achieve it? The simple answer is, we should learn from Medicare Advantage. The irony of Bernie Sanders talking about “Medicare for All” is that if you look at the Medicare program today, from 15 years ago to now, there has been zero growth in the number of people enrolled in the single-payer component of the Medicare program.
All the growth and enrollment in Medicare has come from private insurance, from the Medicare Advantage program. Why is that? Because the private insurers have shown that they can deliver the benefits of the Medicare program at a lower cost, on average about 10% less expensive than the traditional government-run Medicare program. They&#8217;ve gotten so much more efficient that they&#8217;re now adding extra benefits like vision care and dental care on top of the traditional Medicare benefits – and prescription drug coverage. So, you&#8217;re getting a lot more benefits at a lower cost.
Every year, the gap between private plans under Medicare Advantage and the single-payer or government-run approach under the traditional Medicare widens. Our concept, what we propose, is to learn from that, to offer more affordable options to people elsewhere who are under the age of 65.
We basically describe “Medicare Advantage for All” with four core principles. The first is that you have to have a system that&#8217;s affordable for every generation. What do I mean by that? It means that we haven&#8217;t solved the problem if we&#8217;ve made health care and health insurance affordable for the Americans living today, but made the system fiscally unsustainable for future generations. It&#8217;s incredibly important to do both, to make health care affordable for those who need it today, but also make health care and health insurance affordable for the taxpayers of tomorrow. That’s number one because if we have a system we can&#8217;t afford, either today or tomorrow, we haven&#8217;t solved anything.
Principle number two is to have personalized insurance and personalized options. Milton Friedman famously wrote a book called “Free to Choose,” and that is an essential principle of market-based health reform, that all Americans should have the freedom to choose among a wide variety of plans that suit their needs. So, under Medicare for All, you have no choices, you just have the government0-run plan, so-called Medicare for All. Under the current system, under the status quo American system, very few Americans actually have a choice in the way they get their health insurance.
If you&#8217;re in Medicaid, you&#8217;re basically handed a government-assigned plan. If you get insurance from your employer, yes, it&#8217;s a private insurance plan, but you didn&#8217;t choose it – some HR bureaucrat at your company chose it, and imposed it on you whether or not that&#8217;s a good plan for you. That&#8217;s not a choice. And a lot of people who are in the Medicare program are basically in a single-payer system where they don&#8217;t have any choice. All Americans should have the freedom to choose among a wide variety of private plans, just like they can in the Medicare Advantage program. That&#8217;s a core element of our approach.
The next element is fairness to taxpayers. What does that mean? That means that to the degree that we publicly finance our health care system, those taxpayer revenues must be as focused as possible on the vulnerable population. The sick, people with pre-existing conditions, people with birth defects, and childhood genetic disorders, and the very poor and the disabled. Not the wealthy.
One of the things that&#8217;s most wrong with our system today is that you and I pay taxes so that the wealthiest Americans – millionaires and billionaires, to borrow a phrase – can have government-subsidized insurance. Why is it that steel workers and truck drivers are asked to pay taxes so that millionaires and billionaires can have government-subsidized health insurance? That&#8217;s insane, and that&#8217;s something we absolutely have to reform. If we do that, we can save an enormous amount of money in terms of the deficits and debt, and what we spend on health care without threatening coverage for anyone.
The fourth point is innovation and competition for patients. What we&#8217;re talking about there is the rise of monopoly power, and crony capitalism in the U.S. The problem of crony capitalism and monopolies that both extract favors form the government and extract monopoly prices from patients is a huge problem in the United States – and they go together because regional monopolies, like a regional hospital monopoly, has incredible power not only to charge higher prices to patients, but also to lobby their congressman and say, &#8220;Hey, we control a lot of the economy in this district and we control a lot of jobs in this district, and unless you do what we want, we will scream bloody murder.&#8221;
A lot of congressmen and state legislators cave into that. That’s a huge problem. We&#8217;ve got to do more to curtail the power of monopolies to raise prices on patients, and also because monopolies prevent the rise of innovation. You have to have competition in order to have a more innovative system.
Competition is really important for reducing prices and also for increasing quality and increasing innovation. Innovation and competition for patients is essential. Monopolies are not the solution. Again, there are a lot of people in conservative and Republican circles who are confused about this. They say, “If it’s a monopoly, but it&#8217;s a private sector monopoly, that&#8217;s okay.” What we&#8217;re arguing is that monopolies are bad regardless of whether they&#8217;re private sector monopolies or government sponsored monopolies. If you really want a market-based system, you actually have to have a market, and having a market means that you have to have choices as to where you get your care and your coverage.</blockquote>
In part three of this interview, which will be released on Sunday, Roy discusses hospital monopolization, the real progress that conservatives have made on health care legislation, the pressures faced by elected officials to retain the status quo, and more.
I’d like to thank Avik Roy for taking the time to speak about such an important issue. For more information, you can follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/Avik?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Twitter</a> or visit the FREOPP website <a href="https://freopp.org/the-freopp-founders-avik-roy-53719dfcaf05">here</a>.

Nurse

INTERVIEW (Part II): Health Care Policy Expert Talks About What Free Market Reform Actually Looks Like

The Democratic presidential primary has consolidated into a showdown between former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). One of the key issues on which the Democratic candidates are running is health care.
While the progressive gold standard seems to be a single-payer system, there’s a break within the party, with some preferring a more “moderate” approach to reform. Both Biden and Sanders have presented health care plans that would greatly expand the role of the federal government, and increase government spending by billions to trillions of dollars over a decade.
The “Medicare for All” plan put forth by Sanders is estimated to cost more than $32 trillion over a decade, while Biden’s plan is estimated to cost approximately $750 billion.
The Daily Wire recently spoke with health care policy expert Avik Roy about Medicare for All and the Biden plan, as well as what more conservative, free market solutions would look like. Roy is the co-founder and president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), which “conducts original research on expanding economic opportunity to those who least have it,” according to the organization’s <a href="https://freopp.org/our-mission-3b16e8e8c656">official website</a>.
In part one of this three-part interview, Roy discusses what “Medicare for All” really means, the flaws of such a system, the dangers of the “moderate” counterpoint, and if a nation can achieve so-called universal coverage without a health care mandate.
<blockquote>DW: Medicare for All has become kind of the gold standard for progressives, despite Bernie losing some currency in the race as of Super Tuesday and beyond. What are the major flaws of such a system?
ROY: Well, before we get to the flaws, I think it&#8217;s important to actually define what so-called “Medicare for All” is, because when pollsters ask questions about whether people support Medicare for All, the polls make it clear that people don&#8217;t actually understand what it is. So, let&#8217;s define what Medicare for All is or at least – I always put quotes around “Medicare for All” because it&#8217;s not actually Medicare for All, what Bernie Sanders is proposing. More than a third of the people enrolled in the Medicare program today have private insurance through a program called Medicare Advantage, which is a robust, competitive market-based program to give seniors the coverage they need.
That would be abolished under what Bernie Sanders and others call “Medicare for All.” Under what they call Medicare for all, all private insurance would be abolished. So, it would end Medicare as we know it first and foremost because nearly 40% of all seniors are enrolled in private plans in Medicare today. That&#8217;s just for the Medicare physician and hospital benefit. Even more seniors, almost all seniors, enroll in private plans to offer prescription drug coverage through the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act. That would also be abolished under the Bernie Sanders plan. So, if what Bernie calls “Medicare for All” were enacted, Medicare as we know it would be wiped out. It would be repealed and replaced by an entirely new program in which there is no room for private insurance.
That&#8217;s really important to understand, that what Bernie and the Left call “Medicare for All” would repeal and replace Medicare along with Obamacare, and the employer-based market, and everything else about our healthcare system. So, it is truly a dramatic, if not a radical, departure from the system we have. It does not resemble Medicare in its current form.
On the polling side, when you ask voters what do they understand the term “Medicare for All” to mean, the vast majority understand it to mean that if somebody is uninsured or they don&#8217;t have an affordable option to get their coverage, they&#8217;d have an option that resembles Medicare. And because overwhelming majorities of Americans want every American to have health insurance – just like we want every American to have a good public school education – people support that. People support every American having affordable health insurance. Again, that is not what Medicare for All is. Medicare for All is not an option for people to buy affordable coverage if they don&#8217;t have any affordable options today; it’s a removal of options, because any choice you have today in your insurance care, it would be eliminated under “Medicare for All.” Instead of having more affordable options, you would have only one option, the government run option, and that option would be not necessarily more affordable than what you had before.
The two most important gaps between what is described as “Medicare for All” and the reality of single-payer health care is one, that under Medicare today, most seniors have some form of private coverage whether it&#8217;s through Medicare Advantage or the Medicare prescription drug program – and those options would be abolished. Two, it&#8217;s important that people understand that Medicare for All is not the same thing as what Bernie is describing as “Medicare for All.”
DW: What are the primary flaws of Sanders’ system, or something like “Medicare for all who want it,” which was proposed by former candidate Pete Buttigieg?
ROY: The first is that the plan that Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren and others have put out there would basically make healthcare &#8220;free&#8221; at the point of care. There would be no premiums, no co-pays, no deductibles. You could basically go to the doctor, go to the hospital, get any kind of healthcare service you want, and the government would pay for it. That&#8217;s the theory.
Of course, if you set up that kind of system, you create a health care system that&#8217;s the equivalent of me at an open bar at an in-law&#8217;s wedding, where I&#8217;m going to consume everything and anything that I can pull off the shelf because it&#8217;s free to me. So, what you see in every single-payer system, particularly the British system and the Canadian system, is that there are massive restrictions on access to care, and heavily regulated prices and controls on prices of care.
Because otherwise, if you just have a system where everyone can consume any health care they want and they don&#8217;t have to pay a bill, you&#8217;re just going to have massive over-utilization of the health care system, and prices can go up because if you&#8217;re a hospital or a doctor or a drug company, you can charge whatever you want and pass the bill off to the taxpayer. That&#8217;s a great model for the health care industry, but it&#8217;s not a great model for the taxpayer. What most rational single-payer systems do is ration care. They say, &#8220;We are going to make it free on the front end, but we&#8217;re going to restrict your ability to use the health care system so that we don&#8217;t go broke.&#8221;
And Sanders&#8217; plan doesn&#8217;t really account for that. It tries to have the “free Christmas tree for everybody,” but tries to minimize, from a political standpoint, how the plan would restrict access to care or restrict payments to hospitals and doctors, because Bernie understands that those details are politically problematic.
It would result in massive increases in taxes, and that would also be controversial. So, those are the various ways in which single-payer is problematic and even unworkable. That’s why, frankly, I think it has been a mistake for conservatives to spend all their energy debating single-payer. Single-payer is bad. If Republicans were to ever run against a Democratic nominee who was a genuine advocate of single-payer, I think that would be pretty clearly expressed.
I think what conservatives and Republicans have done a pretty bad job of doing is really thinking through things that are more incremental than single-payer, but are also things that restrict human freedom and may increase costs in the healthcare system.
DW: Such as?
ROY: Well, let&#8217;s talk about the Biden plan. Joe Biden&#8217;s plan is not a “Medicare for All” plan. If we’re spending all this time talking about Medicare for All, and Medicare for All is not really what’s mainstream in the political conversation, even among Democrats, then the utility of that discussion is somewhat lower. What&#8217;s really important to discuss is what Joe Biden wants to do, which is much more reflective of, let&#8217;s call it the Democratic establishment, or the center-left Democratic establishment.
To oversimplify, there are two major components to Joe Biden&#8217;s health reform plan. One is a $750 billion bailout of Obamacare. As we all know, Obamacare has doubled or tripled health insurance premiums, particularly for younger and healthier people who need to buy insurance on the ACA exchanges. Biden doesn&#8217;t want to reform the dumb regulations that have driven those premiums upward; instead, he wants to ask taxpayers to spend another $750 billion over the next decade to paper over those mistakes.
That is a much more serious threat, I guess you could say, or policy probability, than single-payer health care. Single-payer health care, the Bernie plan, would increase federal spending by $38 trillion, give or take a few trillion, over ten years. The Biden plan is considerably smaller in scope relative to the Bernie plan. It would increase federal spending by about $750 billion over ten years. So that&#8217;s something like 50 times smaller than the Bernie plan in it&#8217;s ambition, but $750 billion is still a lot of money. Obamacare spent $2 trillion over ten years trying to cover the uninsured. So, $750 billion is a lot, especially when you consider the net spending of Obamacare.
Because Obama also cut Medicare spending by $800 billion over ten years to fund that coverage expense, the net spending increase of Obamacare is more like $1.2 trillion over ten years. So, Joe Biden&#8217;s plan is comparable in scale to Obamacare, at least fiscally, in terms of what it would do to paper over the rising premiums that Obamacare caused.
So, that&#8217;s much more important for liberty-oriented people to consider because it&#8217;s the kind of plan that is now described as the “moderate plan.” The “responsible, pragmatic, moderate” plan on the Democratic side is to increase federal spending by $750 billion over the next ten years.
DW: Is there any successful health care system anywhere in the developed world that does not offer universal coverage or include an insurance mandate?
ROY: “Mandatory” is a complex topic actually in the context of the international discussion of health care. For example, if you&#8217;re in the U.K. system, it&#8217;s not mandatory that you sign up for health care under the NHS, but your taxes go to pay for it. The analogy is – and this is true of a lot of single-payer systems in particular – it&#8217;s a lot like what we do in America for public schools. We all pay property taxes and sometimes income taxes to pay for the cost of public school, but not every American sends their kids to public school.
But the parents that send their kids to private school are still paying the taxes to send their kids to public school. So, is that mandatory or is it not? Because you&#8217;re not being mandated to go to public school, but you&#8217;re being mandated to finance public school.
The way a lot of European systems work is like that, where you&#8217;re mandated to pay taxes to fund the public system, but you&#8217;re not mandated to participate in the public system – and that varies among countries. The British NHS is on one end of this in terms of really trying to steer you or pressure you to participate in the public system. On the other end of the spectrum are countries like Australia. In Australia, there&#8217;s a public system that works exactly like American public schools, where everybody pays taxes to pay for the public system, but a considerable proportion of Australians opt to buy private insurance to have access to private hospitals and private doctors.
So, the answer is yes. You can achieve universal coverage without a mandate.
Not every country has a mandate for you to participate in a public system, but universal coverage does involve taxes that are used to finance the public system. By the way, that&#8217;s true in America, too. Everyone who pays taxes pays taxes to fund the public health care system. If you&#8217;ve ever received a paycheck, it includes something called FICA taxes, which go to fund the Social Security trust fund and the Medicare trust fund. So, every single one of us who has taken a job of any kind has paid taxes to finance public health care in America. In that sense, America is not that different from a lot of those other countries. So, I do think you can say that there are countries that have achieved universal coverage without a mandate.
A lot of it depends on how you define “universal coverage.” Does universal coverage mean that every single person has health insurance? 100% enrollment? Is that universal coverage? That&#8217;s not actually how most scholars define universal coverage. Most scholars define universal coverage as everybody in the country having access to an affordable option for health insurance. Even in the Medicare program – which Bernie Sanders would call universal coverage for the elderly, and most of us would too – 2% of seniors don&#8217;t sign up for one reason or another. There are a small minority of people who don&#8217;t actually participate in Medicare.
So, if you define universal coverage in that way, saying it may not be that every single person has health insurance, but every single person has the opportunity to buy reasonably affordable health insurance, we can definitely get there without a mandate.</blockquote>
In part two of this interview, which will be released later today, Roy talks about how the current health care system in the United States is neither free market nor government-run, and what a conservative solution could look like.
I’d like to thank Avik Roy for taking the time to speak about such an important issue. For more information, you can follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/Avik?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Twitter</a> or visit the FREOPP website <a href="https://freopp.org/the-freopp-founders-avik-roy-53719dfcaf05">here</a>.

Avik Roy of FREOPP

INTERVIEW (Part I): Health Care Policy Expert Talks ‘Medicare For All,’ The So-Called ‘Moderate’ Alternative, And Free Market Solutions

Free Market

Sen. Bernie Sanders said: &#8220;I believe that health care is a right of all people.&#8221; He&#8217;s not alone in that contention. That claim comes from Democrats and Republicans and liberals and conservatives. It is not just a health care right that people claim. There are &#8220;rights&#8221; to decent housing, decent food, a decent job and prescription drugs. In a free and moral society, do people have these rights? Let&#8217;s begin by asking ourselves: What is a right?
In the standard usage of the term, a &#8220;right&#8221; is something that exists simultaneously among people. In the case of our U.S. Constitutional decree, we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our individual right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness imposes no obligation upon another other than the duty of noninterference.
As such, a right imposes no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech is something we all possess simultaneously. My right to free speech imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference. Similarly, I have a right to travel freely. Again, that right imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference.
Sanders&#8217; claim that health care is a right does impose obligations upon others. We see that by recognizing that there is no Santa Claus or tooth fairy who gives resources to government to pay for medical services. Moreover, the money does not come from congressmen and state legislators reaching into their own pockets to pay for the service. That means that in order for government to provide medical services to someone who cannot afford it, it must use intimidation, threats and coercion to take the earnings of another American to provide that service.
Let&#8217;s apply this bogus concept of rights to my right to speak and travel freely. In the case of my right to free speech, it might impose obligations on others to supply me with an auditorium, microphone and audience. It may require newspapers or television stations to allow me to use their property to express my views. My right to travel freely might require that others provide me with resources to purchase airplane tickets and hotel accommodations. What if I were to demand that others make sacrifices so that I can exercise my free speech and travel rights, I suspect that most Americans would say, &#8220;Williams, you have rights to free speech and you have a right to travel freely, but I&#8217;m not obligated to pay for them!&#8221;
A moral vision of rights does not mean that we should not help our fellow man in need. It means that helping with health care needs to be voluntary (i.e., free market decisions or voluntary donations to charities that provide health care.) The government&#8217;s role in health care is to protect this individual right to choose. As Senator Rand Paul was brave enough to say, &#8220;The basic assumption that you have a right to get something from somebody else means you have to endorse the concept of theft.&#8221;
Statists go further to claim that people have a &#8220;right&#8221; to housing, to a job, to an education, to an affordable wage. These so-called rights impose burdens on others in the form of involuntary servitude. If one person has a right to something he did not earn, it means that another person does not have a right to something he did earn.
The provision by the U.S. Congress of a so-called right to health care should offend any sense of moral decency. If you&#8217;re a Christian or a Jew, you should be against the notion of one American living at the expense of another. When God gave Moses the Eighth Commandment — &#8220;Thou shalt not steal&#8221; — I am sure that He did not mean, &#8220;Thou shalt not steal — unless there is a majority vote in the U.S. Congress.&#8221;
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Medicare for All sign

WILLIAMS: Rights Versus Wishes

Free Speech

Human Rights

Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) made a recent appearance on &#8220;The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon&#8221; where he cited the current spread of the coronavirus as a perfect example of why America needs a single-payer health care system.
&#8220;We should talk about coronavirus if you don&#8217;t mind, I watch the news, I read the news, and I just don&#8217;t know who to really trust,&#8221; Jimmy Fallon said to Bernie Sanders.
The socialist senator from Vermont then used the moment to paint President Trump as being &#8220;anti-science,&#8221; while criticizing his decision to appoint Vice President Mike Pence as head of the task force.
&#8220;That is the problem we have today, we have a president who is anti-science, doesn&#8217;t believe in the reality of climate change, who has appointed Mike Pence, who is also not known to be much of a scientist, to lead the task force,&#8221; said Sanders. &#8220;Clearly, at this moment, you need somebody who you can trust who is going to bring together the best scientists, doctors, researchers, work with the entire world, to do everything that we can to halt this terrible pandemic.&#8221;
&#8220;And I think there are clearly some things we need to do right away,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;The idea that we have so many people in this country, the only country on earth, major country, that doesn&#8217;t guarantee healthcare to all people, we have to make sure that everybody, right now, feels free when you’re sick to go to a doctor, regardless of your income.&#8221;
Sanders then segued into a major pitch for single-payer, government-run healthcare.
&#8220;And you know what? The government will pay that bill,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Number two, we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid medical leave. If you can believe it, there are people who are sick today, who may actually believe they have symptoms of the coronavirus, who are going to work because they have no income. &#8230; We have got to do what every other country on Earth does and guarantee paid family and medical leave, and do it right now on an emergency basis.&#8221;
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Sen. Bernie Sanders on the Trump Administration&#039;s Coronavirus Missteps, Greed, Grandkids" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y2P5QbaJt_g?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
As noted by Christopher Jacobs at <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/10/no-bernie-sanders-single-payer-wouldnt-eliminate-the-coronavirus-outbreak/">The Federalist</a>, a single-payer healthcare system would not exactly be a panacea, considering that Bernie was essentially echoing recent claims made by Britain&#8217;s Jeremy Corbyn regarding the coronavirus outbreak:
<blockquote>Yesterday, our part-time prime minister finally published the steps that his government will take to tackle the outbreak of the disease. The strategy broadly has our support, but a decade of Tory austerity means that our national health service is already struggling to cope. Bed-occupancy levels are at 94% and hundreds of our most vulnerable people are being treated on trolleys in corridors. What additional funding will our overstretched and underfunded NHS be given to deal with this crisis?</blockquote>
On Wednesday night, President Trump spoke from the Oval Office where he announced &#8220;several strong but necessary actions&#8221; to combat the coronavirus, which has now begun to hurt the American economy. One of his top actions included ensuring that &#8220;working Americans impacted by the virus can stay home without fear of financial hardship.&#8221;

Sanders on Fallon

WATCH: Bernie Sanders Says Coronavirus Shows Why U.S. Needs Single-Payer Healthcare

When I first began to read, listen to, and watch political commentary, and identify my position on the socio-political spectrum, I felt a great passion about numerous issues. I was young, and the fire burned brightly. A decade and a half later, I’ve slowly come to realize that passion can act as a sort of cataract to political decision-making.
It’s entirely reasonable and even appropriate to feel passionately about certain political issues – after all, without passion, we would have little motivation to engage in politics at all. That said, we must be keenly aware of the ways in which our fervor is influencing our ideology as it pertains to the way in which we would like to see things be accomplished.
There are two apt examples that illustrate the poison of passion – one on the Left and one on the Right.
The debate about how the health care system can be fixed has raged for decades, and despite some disruptive changes, e.g. the Affordable Care Act, little has actually been accomplished for good or ill.
Groups on both sides have their arguments locked and loaded, and are so settled into what they perceive to be the truth that no amount of data or reasoning will break their line of thinking. As a self-identified conservatarian, I have a set of ideas based on my conversations with several experts, as well as what I believe to be a logical assessment of the data set before me, of how to reform the health care system in such a way as to improve quality and make it both more affordable and accessible.
What I have tried to do is allow new information and perspectives to inform my ideology so long as such information and perspectives stand up to scrutiny. This has led to moments of evolution in the way I view the means by which the health care system can be made more effective. In other words, I have worked diligently to keep passion from infecting my perspective to the extent that I would not countenance information that challenged my ideology as it’s currently framed.
I have not always been successful, having on several occasions dug my heels in when my desire to be “right” meant more to me than understanding the issue more fully.
Setting aside politicians, many of whom seem to be driven not by a craving for solutions but by an appetite for votes, I believe that the average progressive American is just as motivated to find solutions as their counterparts on the other end of the political spectrum – they have simply allowed passion to infect their perception, leading to the formation of blind spots.
Progressive Americans want to see the less fortunate have access to health care, they don’t want surprise medical bills sending families to the brink of bankruptcy, they want more affordable medications for chronic medical problems, among other things. None of these wants are bad. In fact, they are the exact opposite.
Conservatives want very similar things. Where good faith progressives and conservatives diverge is over the “how” of it all. Progressives generally believe that government intervention is how these things can be appropriately achieved. Conservatives generally believe that deregulation and the free market is the answer.
Watching the health care discussion as it occurs during the Democratic primary process is illustrative of the idea that passion often overrides common sense. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has proposed a “Medicare for All” plan that would, according to him, provide every American with “free” access to health care. He admits that middle-class taxes would increase, but claims that the positive impact outweighs the higher taxes. The estimated cost of the plan is approximately $32 trillion over a decade.
Whether Sanders is a genuine believer is unimportant in this case. Supporters of the senator, as well as supporters of other candidates offering similar plans featuring massive increases in government spending and scope, have been essentially blinded by their passion for the issue. They see an opportunity to accomplish a desired good, and are blinded to the negative externalities.
However, the negative externalities of such a plan are numerous – the elimination of private care, untenable increases in government spending, allowing the federal government full control over an extraordinarily large, multifaceted industry. These initial negatives are only exacerbated by what would follow. As can be seen in other nations that have nationalized or semi-nationalized systems, giving the government control over the health care industry inevitably leads to access burdens, ballooning costs, subpar care, talent loss, and innovation shrinkage.
Because of this blind fervor, supporters of nationalized health care cannot properly assess, with any intellectual vigor, the pros and cons of the situation. If they were able to look at the issue with dispassion, they could engage with those who do not support such a plan, and work toward a meaningful, effective, and feasible solution.
But since passion has coated their eyes, they have lost all depth of perspective, and can only push out talking points crafted by progressive politicians. They cannot reach any deeper, or wrestle with information that doesn’t comport with their established worldview. This is why when pressed, they often become angry or indignant. They cannot fathom the notion that someone wouldn’t see the world as they do. They are ill prepared for such a confrontation because they haven’t taken the time to learn to articulate their point of view, and the only option left is to short-circuit.
Dispassion could alleviate this ideological rigidity.
On the Right, there is a similar rigidity when it comes to President Donald Trump. Prior to the 2016 nomination of Trump, there was a divide among Republicans as to who was the best choice to represent conservative values in the general election against Hillary Clinton.
Conservatives of all stripes had their favorites. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), and even former Ohio Governor John Kasich were favorited by different segments of the Republican Party. Many individuals who supported these candidates saw Donald Trump as a cruel, unstable, ideologically chaotic narcissist.
After Trump won the November 2016 election, there was a small band of conservatives who dug their nails in. They didn’t support Trump during the general, and they weren’t going to support him as president. These people are known colloquially as “Never Trumpers.” It doesn’t matter if some of the president’s policies are good – they don’t like him, and they will oppose him at every step of his presidency.
On the other end, there is a base of Trump backers who, regardless of his policies, are hellbent on supporting the president. Conservative policies? Great! Not-so-conservative polices? He’s playing 4D master chess, and you’re just a fool! There isn’t any in-between for these supporters. Let’s call this group of people “Always Trumpers.”
Somewhere in the middle is a third group who applaud the president when he enacts conservative policies, appoints originalist judges, and fights back at the dishonest media, but condemn him when he behaves poorly or supports policies or agendas that are not so conservative.
The “Never Trumpers” and those who support Trump no matter what are equally blinded by passion.
It has to be acceptable to reward good behavior while taking the president to task over his shortcomings. Donald Trump has appointed at least one stellar Supreme Court Justice in Neil Gorsuch, reduced the unemployment rate to record lows, cut taxes, repealed regulations, taken a dishonest media to task, and sided with pro-life and religious freedom causes, among other things.
He has also failed to do anything about the rapidly increasing national debt despite swearing to reduce spending, his long-promised border wall is essentially nonexistent, and his childish cruelty has shoved political discourse further into the mud, facilitating the greater tribalization of the American people.
This isn’t to say that the Democrats are any better. They’re not. They’re actively running a socialist in the primary race for president. However, the “Always Trumpers” are the type who will, when reading the above paragraph, become indignant at the very notion that a Republican or conservative would dare say anything negative about the president. They will take to the comments section in a huff to excoriate the author, calling them a disloyal cuck or something equally ridiculous, despite the clearly articulated message above that one can support President Trump, even vote for him, and still recognize the less flattering aspects of his presidency.
These “Always Trumpers” cannot handle dissent or any information that doesn’t comport with their worldview that President Trump is the greatest of all time and must not be criticized. Because of this, much like the far-left Medicare for All advocates who have lost all depth of perspective, they will respond to critics with ad hominem attacks and meltdowns.
Dispassion would allow “Always Trumpers” to step back, and see the world in colors other than black and white.
There’s no such thing as a world without passion. As mentioned at the beginning of this piece, passion is a necessary component of politics, and of life in general. However, when passion isn’t tempered by dispassion, it can evolve into a monstrous blindness that devours anyone and anything it perceives to be a threat.
Blind passion is poisoning us. The United States is two milky-eyed beasts on a collision course.
The tonic of dispassion is sometimes unpleasant, and it requires humility and a willingness to open oneself up to contrary notions, but if we don’t take this tonic, we risk destroying beyond salvage our credibility to fight for and defend the ideas in which we strongly believe.

Donkey & Elephant

CAMP: Blind Passion Is Poisoning Our Political Process

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