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Bernie Sanders: Time is ripe for Medicare for all
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Bernie Sanders: Time is ripe for Medicare for all
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/09/25/medicare-for-all-bernie-sanders-editorials-debates/105971268/
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare legislation that guarantees comprehensive health care to all Americans over 65 through a single-payer, federally funded health care system. This is an effective, popular program.
My Medicare for All Act of 2017, with 16 co-sponsors, improves and expands Medicare and, over a four-year transition period, provides health care to every man, woman and child in our country.
In doing that, the U.S. will finally join the ranks of every other major country on Earth in recognizing that health care is a right, not a privilege.
We now have the most wasteful, inefficient and bureaucratic health care system in the world. In fact, we are spending almost twice as much per capita as any other country, while our health care outcomes are often worse. Instead of providing quality care to all in a cost-effective way, our current system is designed to provide hundreds of billions in profits to insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry and medical equipment suppliers.
40 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
reality is that the ACA added 4 million jobs, 400,000 jobs almost immediately. The Insurance companies will be fine 
and the American people will do even better.
Medicare is.
Do you know if it covers what Medicare covers?
"google it yourself."
You've noticed, too, eh? 
He became a Democrat one month after Reagan was inaugurated, despite having voted for him. He never voted for a Republican again.
Maybe that's not such a good comparison for Sanders to make....
Johnson maneuvered every step of the way getting this bill through Congress, and one of the things he did — and this is a little dicey in today's climate — was suppress the costs. So this young kid gets elected from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, in 1962, and Johnson is explaining to him [over the phone] how you get a health bill through. And what he tells him is don't let them get the costs projected too far out because it will scare other people:
"A health program yesterday runs $300 million, but the fools had to go to projecting it down the road five or six years, and when you project it the first year, it runs $900 million. Now I don't know whether I would approve $900 million second year or not. I might approve 450 or 500. But the first thing Dick Russell comes running in saying, 'My God, you've got a billion-dollar program for next year on health, therefore I'm against any of it now.' Do you follow me?"
We believe, after looking at the evidence, my co-author [David Blumenthal] and I, that if the true cost of Medicare had been known — if Johnson hadn't basically hidden them — the program would never have passed. America's second-most beloved program would never have happened, if we had had genuine cost estimates.
"A health program yesterday runs $300 million, but the fools had to go to projecting it down the road five or six years, and when you project it the first year, it runs $900 million. Now I don't know whether I would approve $900 million second year or not. I might approve 450 or 500. But the first thing Dick Russell comes running in saying, 'My God, you've got a billion-dollar program for next year on health, therefore I'm against any of it now.' Do you follow me?"
We believe, after looking at the evidence, my co-author [David Blumenthal] and I, that if the true cost of Medicare had been known — if Johnson hadn't basically hidden them — the program would never have passed. America's second-most beloved program would never have happened, if we had had genuine cost estimates.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112234240
You can't do that now because we have the CBO, whose job it is to crunch the numbers.
And LBJ worked WITH people - across the aisle. He didn't pontificate that his was the only ethical and moral route, and anyone who disagreed was corrupt.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/24/johnson.lbj.health.care/index.html
Editor's note: President Lyndon B. Johnson secured passage of Medicare, the Voting Rights Act and other milestone legislation. Tom Johnson, who served as one of LBJ's White House press secretaries, is former chief executive of CNN News Group and former publisher of the Los Angeles Times. He is an associate member of the board of visitors of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
He would have a willingness to horse-trade with every member.
He would keep a list of people who support each member financially. A call to each to tell them to get the vote of that representative.
He would have Billy Graham calling Baptists, Cardinal Cushing calling Catholics, Dr. Martin Luther King calling blacks, Henry Gonzales calling Hispanics, Henry Ford and David Rockefeller calling Republicans.
He would get Jack Valenti to call the Pope if it would help.
He would have speeches written for members for the Congressional Record and hometown newspapers.
He would use up White House liquor having nightcaps with the leaders and key members of BOTH parties.
Each of them would take home cufflinks, watches, signed photos, and perhaps even a pledge to come raise money for their next election.
He would have a willingness to horse-trade with every member.
He would keep a list of people who support each member financially. A call to each to tell them to get the vote of that representative.
He would have Billy Graham calling Baptists, Cardinal Cushing calling Catholics, Dr. Martin Luther King calling blacks, Henry Gonzales calling Hispanics, Henry Ford and David Rockefeller calling Republicans.
He would get Jack Valenti to call the Pope if it would help.
He would have speeches written for members for the Congressional Record and hometown newspapers.
He would use up White House liquor having nightcaps with the leaders and key members of BOTH parties.
Each of them would take home cufflinks, watches, signed photos, and perhaps even a pledge to come raise money for their next election.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/24/johnson.lbj.health.care/index.html
