Quote of the Day: Next Time, Health Care Reform Will Be a Real War

From Harold Pollack, mild-mannered professor at the University of Chicago, on the strategy for health care reform when Democrats return to power:

Democrats will be much more ruthless the next time around.

Pollack explains this further in more academic tones, but I’m not sure he needs to. Basically, Republicans waged a relentless 7-year war against a program even as moderate and market-friendly as Obamacare. It’s obvious that being moderate and market-friendly buys you nothing these days, so what’s the point? Why not just give the public what it really wants: a simple, universal health care system funded by taxes? How much worse can the war be?

This is all in response to a new proposal from the Center for American Progress called Medicare Extra for All. This is not the most euphonious name ever invented, but I suppose it gets the point across. MEFA basically does this:

  • Makes Medicare better.
  • Provides it to anyone who needs it.
  • Allows private plans to stay around as long as they provide care pretty similar to MEFA.

The cost of enrolling in MEFA would be zero for families under 150 percent of the poverty level (currently $25,000 for a family of four), and on a sliding scale ranging from 1-10 percent of income for everyone above that level. Employers could continue to offer private insurance or could pay to enroll their workers in MEFA. There would be cost controls and various funding sources. Here is CAP’s summary:

Roughly speaking, this is national health care (everyone is insured) but with premium payments for some people instead of just funding the whole thing through taxes. It’s still more complicated than it needs to be, and I assume this is because the CAP authors want to keep the cost down and the extra taxes minimal. In other words, perhaps Democrats still aren’t being ruthless enough. But I suppose that’s easy for me to say.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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