Medicare for All: As Healthcare Costs Soar, Momentum Grows to Guarantee Healthcare for All Americans

– As Democrats prepare to take control of the House, pressure is growing on the Democratic leadership to embrace Medicare for All. Nearly 50 newly Democratic members of Congress campaigned for Medicare for All. In the last year, 123 incumbent House Democrats also co-sponsored Medicare for All legislation, double the number who supported a Medicare for All bill in the previous legislative session. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical, insurance and hospital companies are paying close attention. As the Intercept’s Lee Fang reports, over the summer the groups formed a partnership to fight the growing support for expanding Medicare. We speak to three proponents of Medicare for All who have assembled in Burlington, Vermont, for a gathering of the Sanders Institute: Kelly Coogan-Gehr of National Nurses United, British anesthesiologist Dr. Hosnieh Djafari-Marbini and organizer Jo Beardsmore.

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Medicare for All: As Healthcare Costs Soar, Momentum Grows to Guarantee Healthcare for All Americans

49 thoughts on “Medicare for All: As Healthcare Costs Soar, Momentum Grows to Guarantee Healthcare for All Americans

  1. It’s hilarious watching corporate power flailing around trying to stop this movement. Medicare For All is inevitable. It’s going to happen. All they can do is delay their execution.

    • 1. Med4all 32 trillion, Current national health expenditures 34 trillion upwards to 49 trillion estimated
      2. I don’t think you would understand this but I’ll try to explain. Medicare for all is a deflationary event, Job losses will occur as a result of efficiencies (Medical billing staff etc). You don’t raise taxes to address job losses you either lower taxes or increase spending (for example federal job guarantee).
      3. Do a bit of research, feel free to ask if you don’t understand something.
      4. I’m sure you will ask where does the money come from!

    • You morons still talking about this? Obama already screwed you over.

      There’s 0% probability this is going to happen, the USG is bankrupt, American health is ruined, nobody has the money.

    • Kevo A Your argument died when the Koch’s released their study saying it will save trillions over a ten year period. Sorry, you lost this battle of public opinion. Use your socialized medicine to get some psych help, right after you finish your remedial English course that you sorely are in need of.

    • Trust me, they can and most likely will kill Health Care for all, and hear is why… 1. Money it talks and is more coveted than the will of 80 percent. 2. Even if the Democrats win in 2020 they will take them having a super majority in Congress, and that will not be enough. 3. If one and two fail to keep Insurance companies happy as fat hogs, 3 is that Trump will have in one term appointed three to four supreme court justices who hate public run insurance. The court in 2021 after a one term Trump will be at LEAST 6-3 in Conservitive favor. My bet is it will be 7-2. That means that Health Care is impossible for another thirty to forty years. It is DOA right along side other issues that have popular suport like LGBTQ rights, Civil Rights, and voting rights. Unless we chose to raise the number of Justices from 9 to 15, it is all over but the crying until the 2040’s at the least. Trust me, most Democrats do not have the balls to pack the court because the GOP will use it as the driving wedge to return to power in 2022 and 2024. Most likely you will see the Democrats in the early 2020’s quietly put the pieces of Single Payer into place slowly over time so as not to incur the wrath of the Insurance lobby and their GOP pitbulls. it will be better under them, but do not expect it to be rammed through. Same with Civil Rights including LGBTQ they will have to move slowly with the starting point pushed back to the 1980’s by Trump. I hope they have the balls to pack the court because that is the only way and it would be a gamble, but one we may have to take to keep this nation from plunging into civil War, but doing that may cause what we are trying to avoid. Sorry to burst bubbles but this is cold reality of a Corperate and religious choke chain on out nation by a very powerful minority that votes almost in unison and tend to be creative in denying other citizens their right to vote by card check or just closing down polling places in undesirable communities.

    • Erin Prather We will start to see if you are right in your thoughts for the future of our country very soon, when 6 separate cases allowing discrimination against LGBT Americans come before the Supreme Court for rulings.

    • +mountaingoat1003 I think you need to look up the definition of communist they worry about the economy as much as anybody and let’s face it we destabilize crap for shits and giggles and profit. Yemen for a weapons deal and oil. Oil when we should be going green and till then supporting ourselves we arm extremists we are aiding with alkieda however you spell that. Our enemy supposedly a terrorist group and we are aiding with them now. That alone should tell you our countries current agenda. Its pathetic and indefensible on any moral grounds or economic for that matter. Dependence on Saudi Arabia really? That’s just fuckled.

  2. And then the corporate Democrats will say can’t be done and that they agree with the Republicans and we all get f***** in the end

    • +Ptolemy 3 a machine that rakes in billions every quarter as they like to remind us on an hourly basis. the most glaring example of this is Amazon, who has to be paid $1b+ in tax payer revenue to open satellite offices and who also receives billions in gov’t contracts on top of that. while we as tax payers are told time and again, there’s no money for you tho to feed, shelter and heal folk. dark ages indeed.

    • +Ptolemy 3 there are folk out there scrambling from one part time job to the next that are just plain tired and they get no benefit from the current employment system.

    • +Ptolemy 3 this country runs better with mom and pop shops … end Walmart corporate welfare … as many other corp. ran the mom and pop out of business

  3. It’s a shame Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin. They literally have the exact same platform except for the social wedge issues that they push to divide us all.

    • Ask yourself, why did Obama not push through Medicare for all when he had the majority in Congress? Why did Hillary Clinton not support Single-payer last election? It’s because the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries gave $$$millions to their campaign coffers. They were bought off.

  4. Great show, ladies and guy! I have Medicare and I love it! I pick my own doctors and they see me within 72hours and sometimes a week for my specialists. I have a physical every year and I don’t have to worry about the money. It needs to happen and will save us (the actual people on it ) 2 trillion dollars over a 10yr period.

  5. I for the life of me I really can’t figure out why you Americans don’t have single payer health care. If us Canadians can figure it out surely you Americans can I mean come on. I have had all kinds of life and limb saving surgery due to accidents.  I have never had to wait for needed care or received  substandard care from our health care professionals in Canada

    • +Paddy Maguire just be wiser with the wallet, make the medicare system available for everyone, super simple. way cheaper, that is in canada, what we have here over 65, they have it for all people.

    • +The Everyday Progressive Show Yes, we have shitty health-care, but we have THE BEST propoganda machine in the world! (usa! usa! usa!)

  6. It’s not just a lot cheaper, it takes a gigantic terrifying fear away from people. People like myself are terrified of a serious illness that will send us into bankruptcy or inadequate care. It will stop people from putting off care. Putting off care is extremely detrimental to people’s health.

  7. If Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House, there will be no progressive agenda allowed. Donald Trump endorses Nancy!!! Get it!?! Pelosi put her agenda out already. Pelosi’s number one: Campaign finance and ethics reform. HAHAHA, she is guilty on all counts, this is something she will laugh at privately for years as she continues to pose as a Democrat. Number one for the American people is healthcare! Pelosi’s number two: lower prescription drug prices. Every one of her top three are the same tired old Republican promises that have gone no where. She and the Republicans are feeding at the same trough. Wait and see. Pelosi’s number three: infrastructure. The infrastructure money went to the wealthy and big corporations already. She is totally insincere about doing anything for the American people.

    • Boyd Gilbreath, Agree, given the unpopularity of Trump the Democratic win was woefully paltry. When the Republicans won they won with numbers in the 50th and 60th. And, the only reason Democrats won some paltry 30 plus seats is because people like this household which normally votes Green and Republicans and Independents voted D to break the total control of Republicans. But come 2020 without a people oriented agenda the Democrats will once again lose the House.

  8. Don;t let 2020 candidates avoid this issue like they just did in 2018! We need a national discussion of this. Working people unite!

  9. It makes no difference how many new electee’s are in favor of single payer healthcare if these new electee’s support leadership (Nancy Palosi) who do not support it.

  10. Your kid breaks his arm the doctor bills are overwhelming you neglect your house payment next thing you know you’re homeless because of a kids broken arm

    • PATRICK DeCambra
      Yep. We have insurance but it’s “catastrophic” because we can’t afford a higher plan. Every time there’s an emergency we’re throwing money at it for two years to avoid either a lawsuit or bankruptcy.

  11. The fragmentation of services is actually so many particular private interests making up the whole medical field as a market based system.
    The simple solution is the abolition of particular interests in the medical field for the medical field to be universalized.

  12. In Canada we had same system as US at 1 time.The most popular Canadian in history is not a liberal or conservative PM but a NDP member who gave us single payer,Tommy Douglas.Shows how thankful and important health care is to a nation.

  13. Good old neoliberalism really is a disease that needs destroyed. The myth of free-market fundamentalism and extreme individualism works very well for the very richest but not for the vast majority of us. I mean, are we in this together or not? There is no reason we cannot all do very well, even with a large private sector, and the billionaires still stay billionaires, just look at post ww2 USA, until the late 1970s. Even bettter if some essential areas of the economy are taken into public hands imho. As for the “I don’t want to pay for some stranger’s healthcare” brigade, well if taxation is done well that burden lands on those who are already doing pretty bloody well within this system, while the majority work their asses off to feed, clothe, build yachts for them :).

  14. Money in politics. The politicians are bought by big Pharma and Insurance industry paying big money to them so Medicare For All won’t become law

  15. The Brits are complaining about 10 minute physician visits ?! That is about 3 times as long as we get in the U.S. – and we pay out our asses for it!!

  16. For-profit insurance companies make no sense. They are motivated to make a profit, not to help people. To make a profit they are motivated to lower costs. What are the costs? The costs are actually giving people health care.
    A large chunk of the cost is CEO compensation which can be tens of millions of dollars per year. The only reason they make so much is because the stockholders believe the CEO is good at competing against other insurance companies. So there is an arms race and that drives up the cost of CEOs and executives. But what’s the benefit of that? Insurance companies don’t make anything. So there is no real innovation. All they do is decide who gets health care and who doesn’t. They just lure the healthy people and try to avoid the sick people. And whichever company is better at that wins.

    • ‘SoldAir54321, here is one of the rubs. We don’t manufacture anything anymore so Health, Education, Justice System/Prisons, which should all be social entities, have become major industries traded on the stock market making some people very rich. Going to an NHS type health service would throw thousands out of work and cost our 1% dividends they really don’t need. Our economy is totally screwed up. 40 years of neoliberalism – Thatcherism/Reaganism has proven that the private sector does not always do everything better but that it makes some, at the expense of the many, very rich. Time for a reset.

  17. I personally handle my own healthcare. I would not willingly turn over that responsibility to any government entity.

    Try and get vitamins and natural healthcare from the government. Government healthcare is oriented toward drugs and surgery.

    Insurance companies are the same way. Try to get an insurance company to pay for chiropractic or naturopathic solutions. Not likely.

    No thanks, I’ll see to my own healthcare.

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