WHY, NANCY, WHY?!

is Pelosi a Master Tactician or Anti-Progressive?

On February 5th, 2019, The Intercept ran a piece by Ryan Grim entitled, TOP NANCY PELOSI AIDE PRIVATELY TELLS INSURANCE EXECUTIVES NOT TO WORRY ABOUT DEMOCRATS PUSHING “MEDICARE FOR ALL” 

Pelosi Aide Tells Insurance Execs Not To Worry

According to the Intercept,  the Aide -- Wendell Primus, well known as a staunch opponent of Big Pharma -- met with executives of Blue Cross/Blue Shield less than a month after the Democrats won the midterm elections, many of them campaigning on "Medicare for All." Primus, said Grim, told the executives that "the party leadership" had "strong reservations" about single-payer healthcare, and assured the Executives that the Democrats would be their allies in the fight against single-payer, because their chief focus was fighting against Big Pharma's high prices, and they wanted the insurance companies' assistance in that fight.

All this was conveyed in a presentation of slides which were obtained by The Intercept and "re-created" to protect their sources. One of them appears below:

Note that the 5 bullet points objecting to single-payer boil down to three:

1. It's too expensive.
2. It's controversial.
3. It would be hard to implement.

As for the first, national economics differs radically from kitchen-table economics. In the latter, you try not to spend what you don't have. But for the United States as a whole,  that kind of economics  went out when we went off the Gold Standard. The truth is that the government can fund whatever it wants to. As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez points out, our government has no problem writing a check for trillions -- when it will benefit the super-rich. It's only when the money is for good, moral causes, like education, healthcare, or fighting global warming that our pockets are suddenly empty, and we become deficit hawks.

Unfortunately, Pelosi is herself a deficit hawk who seems really to believe that stuff. The Intercept notes:

When [Pete} Peterson, a billionaire who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to push Washington policymakers toward austerity, died in 2018, Pelosi delivered a floor speech that praised him and his vision effusively, speaking of the man as if he’d dedicated his life to eradicating child malnutrition or curing cancer, rather than as a Wall Street tycoon who spent millions pushing for major cuts to Social Security and Medicare. “Pete was a clarion voice for fiscal responsibility, and a strong moral conscience in Washington,” Pelosi said in her House floor eulogy of Peterson, who, by 2012, had already spent half a billion dollars targeting Social Security, Medicare, and other spending programs.

As for the second point. who are the "stakeholders against it" here? According to Grim's article, Primus (and his sponsor, Pelosi) seem to believe that the only stake holders are the insurance companies and Big Pharma.  But what about the American People, whose stake in this is their health, not to mention their money: Don't they have a stake in this, too?  And as for winners and losers, the THE WINNERS WOULD BE EVERYONE -- except Big Insurance and Big Insurance.  But if Big Pharma's profits were less grand, and if millionaire insurance CEOs went away, that wouldn't bother me. Some of the insurance employees would need help finding new jobs, but that is feasible. 

And as for the other implementation challenges -- sure there would be some. But in my experience, when a problem poses a dire threat, somehow the difficulties solving it seem well worth overcoming.

Now before we brand Pelosi as our enemy, let's give her the benefit of the doubt: She is a master tactician to be sure, and she may be feeling that instead of attacking healthcare's entire profit-making nexus at once, better to attack one at a time. And in attacking Big Pharma, she fixes on a problem not only for the American people at large, but also for the health insurance companies, who really don't benefit from high-priced pharmaceuticals.

Maybe Pelosi hopes to make the insurance companies into an ally -- albeit a temporary one.

Having said all that, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that, having been pressured by the progressives in her caucus to let single-payer be debated, she agreed to a debate -- but not in the Ways and Means Committee which has the power to frame legislation, but in the budget committee which has no such power.

So what is she -- master tactician, anti-progressive, or both?

You decide.

Dio

PS: If you'd like to leave a comment -- and I encourage you to do so -- simply click on the "number of comments" area, and share your thoughts in the "comment rectangle" that appears.


PPS: We know that there are plenty out there who have stories to tell -- stories of your trying to cope with our dysfunctional healthcare system. Trouble is, we don't know what these stories are! That's where you come in. If you have a story to tell, you can email me at indivisible12401@gmail.com. You can be as anonymous as you like. Thanks!

DOING THE RIGHT THING

In my last post, I included a clip of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responding to Chris Cuomo's challenge: "How are you going to pay for all the stuff you want?" in a way that left him almost at a loss for words. 

She said, "We write unlimited blank checks for war. We just  wrote a 2 trillion dollar  check for that tax cut, and nobody asked those folks how are they going to pay for it. So my question is: Why is it that our pockets are only empty when it comes to education and health care for kids? Why are pockets only empty when we talk about 100% renewable energy that is going to save our planet and allow our children to thrive? We only have empty pockets when it comes to the morally right thing to do. But when it comes to tax cuts for billionaires, and when it comes to unlimited war, we seem to be able to invent that money very easily, and it [betrays] a lack of moral priorities right now, especially in the Republican party."

And I say, ABSOLUTELY -- RIGHT ON!  In my opinion, if ever there were an emblem of immorality, it would be our healthcare system, which renders a lot of people too poor to live.

But this moral argument -- which I happen to agree with passionately -- is a dangerous one to make. Why? It's subjective; you can't prove it.  If I say that Single-Payer will save money, that is a claim which I can buttress with careful calculations based upon observable fact. Indeed, three research groups have come to this favorable conclusion, including one -- the Koch-funded Mercatus Institute -- which was trying to prove the opposite!

But if I say, "it's the right thing to do," then will come the rejoinder: "right according to whom? Might is right. The survival of the fittest is right; not only is it right, it's the rule of life. If I have the wherewithal to build for myself and my family a luxurious life, I am right to do so -- regardless of whom it may hurt -- that's just the way it is!  If I have an advantage, it would be WRONG of me not to pursue it. And if people starve and go hungry, who cares? I have got mine, so let them get theirs! Anything else is just the B.S. they teach in Sunday School."

Ah yes ... Sunday School, where you read about the your responsibilities to visit the sick, clothe the naked, comfort the widow, and leave some  of your ripened grain standing in the field so that the poor may take it.  And where did these responsibilities come from? From God, of course.  

I can hear some hedge fund operator crying out: "From God? Give me a break!"

Morality can be a very fluid thing. Following AOC's video clip, there were all sorts of comments, including an irate attack on her: "In your district there was an M13 killing -- you murderer!"

In spite of the above, I hold it as an article of faith that it is wrong to let someone die when you can help her live; it is wrong  to raise drug prices simply because you can; and it is wrong to give profits priority over patients -- indeed it is wrong to have our healthcare system driven in any way by the profit motive. 

Recently I was researching the financial status of the Pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer.  In not one analysis of their profit prospects was there any intimation that there were real people who would be at the receiving end of the drug "pipeline" -- if they had money enough.

The poor -- though they are less likely to receive Pfizer's drugs -- seem to be more generous than rich ones.  It's not that the poor give more -- they obviously cannot -- but that they give a greater percentage of their substance than do the wealthy. I'm guessing that because they themselves know what it is to suffer economic privation, they have more empathy for suffering than do those better off. But those with money -- or their forbears -- have worked precisely to distance themselves from any stress whatever. And the greater the distance, the less real become the sufferings of the poor. Those with money love not to be reminded of them, and of their obligation to do the right thing.

I think in our culture, doing the right thing seems to be something delegated to the woman -- especially care-giving. Our stereotype seems to be that empathy is attractive in women, but a downright hindrance to a man climbing the ladder of success. To be "hard-nosed" is a most positive attribute in a businessman, who, at home, can be very solicitous for his family's well being, but in his office, knows that to be cut-throat can increase profits.  So when he increases the price of insulin, he must calculate whether the increase in profits is worth incurring the public revulsion from the deaths that result. All too often, from my point of view, he decides that doing the right thing is to raise those prices.  And if he does it enough, he is promoted possibly to a corner office, the path to which is strewn with dead bodies. Of course, the corporate execs don't see them there. 

It's our job to make them visible, so that the country can see the full cost of what big business deems is doing the right thing.

Dio

PS: If you'd like to leave a comment -- and I hope you will -- simply click on the number of comments area and share your thoughts in the "comment rectangle" that appears.

PPS: If you or someone you know has been struggling in any way with our healthcare system, please consider sharing it. You can  be as anonymous as you like, but having a file of those stories will help persuade our state legislators to vote for our benefit.  And if you'd like to tell me in person so I can make a video of your testimony -- from the rear, if you like, so that nobody will know who is sharing this experience -- that would be fabulous.  You can email me at indivisible12401@gmail.com. Thanks!