The Clinton campaign's aggressive attacks on Bernie Sanders' long-term goal of Medicare-For-All are shameful, disingenuous and betray fundamental Democratic values:
It's a fundamental distortion to claim that Medicare-For-All would deprive millions of Americans of their healthcare by eliminating Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIPs; instead it would guarantee true universal healthcare for all Americans by enrolling every American in Medicare and doing away with the profit-sucking private health insurance industry.
It's also a fundamental distortion for Clinton to claim that Medicare-For-All would effectively be a tax increase on middle class Americans.
It's true that it would be funded by payroll deductions on employers and employees; you can call it a tax or you can call it an insurance premium, but the differences are purely semantic. The more fundamental point is that it would eliminate all private insurance premiums, whether paid by employers on behalf of their employees, by employees as co-pays, or by individuals for their own policies. It would allow employers to increase wages by the amount of their prior insurance premiums and lift the burden of paying for employee's healthcare to create more jobs. And it would net out to save the average middle class family approximately $5,000 per year.
Even more disturbing, Clinton's full-throated attack on single payer healthcare is an attack on the fundamental values of the Democratic Party. They echo a chorus of Republican attacks on universal healthcare that began in the days of FDR and continue to this day.
But the truth is that every advanced capitalist country in the world, except the U.S., has a either single payer or public utility healthcare system, better healthcare outcomes, and per capita costs of 50 percent to 60 percent of those in America. (Before the 2008 elections I wrote a 6-part series on why Medicare-For-All is superior to what turned into the Affordable Care Act. You can find the first 4-parts here.)
Medicare-For-All is clearly superior, more effective, and less expensive, than for-profit health insurance. It's simply a question of how much people power will be required to overcome the financial power of the insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital industry. (A recent poll shows that a majority of Americans -- including 80 percent of Democrats and even 25 percent of Republicans support a single payer system.)
One has to wonder whether Hillary adopting the healthcare-industrial complex's attacks on single payer -- despite the popularity of single payer among voters generally and Democrats in particular -- has anything to do with the millions in personal income she and Bill have received from the healthcare industry for a series of speeches lasting less than an hour each. From 2013 to 2015, Hillary alone made $2,847,000 from 13 paid speeches to healthcare corporations and interest groups, almost as much as the $2,935,000 she made from 12 speeches to Wall Street groups. During a similar period, Bill Clinton was paid over $2.5 million for speeches to healthcare industry group. Over $5,000,000 in personal income from the healthcare-industrial complex could easily influence the Clintons to trash Democratic principles.
It would be one thing for Hillary Clinton to argue that despite the superiority of Medicare-For-All, it would be politically difficult to overcome the power of the healthcare-industrial complex in the near future. Even Bernie admits that Medicare-For-All would not come about on the first day of his Presidency but will require a mass popular movement that a President Sanders would be prepared to lead.
But for Hillary to adopt Republican talking points to attack single payer on principle from the right, triggered by her sinking poll numbers, raises serious doubts about Clinton's honesty and integrity. It reinforces voters' distrust of Hillary--A recent Quinnipiac poll indicates that by 60 percent to 38 percent, voters think Hillary is not honest and trustworthy.
It also directly contradicts Hillary's 2008 campaign attacks on President Obama for abandoning core Democratic values in failing to support full universal healthcare. Back then she said,
[The Obama campaign] has the worst kind of tactics reminiscent of the same sort of Republican attacks on Democrats. Well I am here to say that it is not only wrong but it is undermining core Democratic principles. Since when do Democrats attack one another on universal health care?
This is wrong and every Democrat should be outraged because this is the kind of attack that not only undermines fundamental Democratic values but gives aid and comfort to the very special interests and their allies in the Republican Party who are against doing what we want to do for America. So shame on you, Barack Obama!
And shame on you, Hillary Clinton!