Michael Winship interviewed Wendell Potter from Tarbell and Business for Medicare for All. They discussed many topics including healthcare reform, Medicare for All, the Affordable Care Act, rising costs of medical care and propaganda campaigns by private insurers.

Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Victor R. Fuchs take an in-depth look at what they are citing as the four fallacies about our healthcare system:

1) Employers pay for employees’ health insurance
2) Medicare for All is unaffordable
3) Insurance companies’ profits drive health care costs
4) Price transparency can bring down health care costs

In order to save money, American patients and their surgeons are going out of the country to get treatment. Medical Tourism is on the rise. thanks to NASH, North American Specialty Hospital. 

Dr. James G. Kahn and Dr. Elliot Marseille created a 7 point cheat sheet on the facts of Medicare-for-All in an effort to clarify points made in the June Democratic debate. thehill.com 7/17/19

Read Medicare for All: A Voter's Cheat Sheet.  What are your thoughts? Please write your comments below.

NPR reports that over the past 3 years, Medicare has been overcharged an excess of $30 billion by different health insurers, and recuperating the money is a slow and difficult process. Medicare Advantage plans are the cause of this crisis. 

Sen. Michael Bennet is one of the Democratic Party’s chief mouthpieces for private insurance, promoting “Medicare X,” a plan that maintains private health insurance as its centerpiece. As a major recipient of money from insurance, PhARMA, hospitals and other segments of the medical industrial complex, Bennet adopts many of industry’s talking points, as former insurance executive and whistle blower Wendell Potter describes in this February 11, 2019 article that will continue to resonate into the coming year and months of presidential campaigning.

Phil Galewitz, from KHN Kaiser Health News, examines why an increasing number of businesses support universal health care.  The rising costs in our current system is certainly one of the reasons.   He interviewed several people, including Richard Master who stated  “Insurance companies are not watching the store and don’t have incentives to hold down costs in the current system.” 

HCACF Board members Michele Swenson and Tom Gottlieb wrote a letter to the House Ways and Means committee in response to the recent Hearing on Pathways to Universal Health Coverage. 

Employers have provided private health insurance as remuneration (fringe benefit) for workers since WWII.  Beyond 1980, this benefit has become more destructive than beneficial.  (See the New York times article written by Matt Bruenig on April 29, 2019).

Two new Medicare-for-All Acts have been proposed in Congress:  H.R.1384 - Medicare for All Act of 2019 is sponsored by Representative Pramila Jayapal and S.1129 - Medicare for All Act of 2019 is sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders. Both bills have co-sponsors from colleagues in both the House and the Senate.