Health Care and Insurance Industries Mobilize to Kill 'Medicare for All'

[PatrickforO]

33. Gosh, I'm going to have to disagree with you.

First of all, I find your hyphenated description of people like me a bit offensive.

Second, neoliberalism is what is in charge in Washington now - it is the ideology that we need to deregulate, privatize everything we can, and cut social programs to the bone. Because, hey, we can trust corporations to be good citizens...can't we?

Third, and this question is quite legitimate, why is the US government spending $750 billion on 'defense' better for me and my family than healthcare? Why is a $13 trillion tax cut for billionaires and corporations better for me and my family than healthcare?

Fourth, I do agree with you that the ACA is easily fixable, but if we are going to talk realpolitik here, Medicare will necessarily have to be expanded. There is a bunch of popular pressure, and if we keep it up, we will likely get a couple of good concessions, such as Medicare eligibility dropped to age 55 or even 50, and a public option.

Fifth - and here's where we digress the most - the root cause of the evils in the healthcare system we have today is the primacy of the shareholder doctrine. If you are a CEO of a publicly held company, your ONLY responsibility is to legally maximize shareholder earnings. So, you're going to bust unions, gobble up pensions if you can get away with it, cut corners on worker safety. You are going to work really hard to give your patients the minimum service you can get away with because to actually provide people with the treatment that would benefit them most is in direct conflict with the profit motive and shareholder earnings. And, finally, you are going to foul the environment if you can get away with it, and simply write off the damage as an 'externality' as long as your shareholders aren't hurt by it.

This is why I plug Medicare for All Americans whenever and however I can, and answer objections line by line.

Still, fixing the ACA and expanding Medicare eligibility would be a fantastic step in the right direction here, and I'm certainly not naive enough to believe that we're going to fight down the well-funded corporate lobbies - because hey, we have Citizens United, corporations are people and dollars are free speech.

Now I have one last question for you. And I ask this question in humility and in utter seriousness:

Why do you ridicule the idea of basing social policy on morality?