Writer and television producer Natalie Shure joins Michael Brooks on today’s Majority Report to discuss her latest piece in the Jacobin, “Elizabeth Warren’s Health Care Plan Still Leaves a Lot of Unanswered Questions.” Michael and Natalie begin their conversation considering the ways politicians have described Medicare for All as anything but a single-payer system that is free at the point of service. Despite previously endorsing Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill, Warren’s new plan for Medicare for All remains murky. Warren’s strategy as it exists now does not mention eliminating cost-sharing. According to Natalie, “while single-payer shifts costs entirely into taxes, plans that maintain cost-sharing redistribute those costs more heavily onto people with greater care needs — disproportionately sicker and poorer people and women.” A big sticking point for Natalie in the healthcare discourse is the word choice of politicians who refer to reforms as “access to affordable health insurance.” This is not the language of candidates who are interested in creating a robust public institution, like Medicare for All, but rather the message of candidates create a more efficient market that should be reformed but not abolished. Considering all this, do voters think that Warren will fight for a vigorous Medicare for All while she hedges her language on healthcare and has pledged to make government corruption her primary campaign concern. Michael and Natalie end their conversation looking back at the Obama administration’s existential fight to get the ACA passed in 2010. Remember, the ACA was initially proposed with a public option only to strip that away and then watered-down by lobbyists and health insurance special interests in DC. It will take a grassroots, continued effort from voters, pressuring their representatives to pass a Medicare for All option because the insurance industry will throw everything it has at stopping Medicare for All.
And in the Fun Half: updates from Oklahoma and Kashmir, the pedantry of the MR university, how to protect unions and expand them beyond 2019, how Bernie plans to help workers in the executive office, Michael goes deep on Bernie’s housing plan, how to convince Warren supporters of Bernie’s positions, the possibility of single-payer healthcare, Andrew Yang calls for the decriminalization of all drugs, Mayor Pete still wants to pay premiums, plus your calls and IMs!
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