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The View from Capitol Hill: A Very Special Conference Episode
- 2024/06/17
- 再生時間： 1分未満
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あらすじ・解説
It's the most wonderful time of the year! For activists in the movement to make Medicare for All a reality, this is the week when we gather to plot, scheme, and kvetch. Welcome to the 2024 Annual Medicare for All Strategy Conference, “Healthcare Beyond the Ballot Box,” organized by Healthcare NOW! For those of you who are attending the conference right now, you are getting a sneak preview of our Very Special Conference Episode! Since our theme this year is about what happens to Medicare for All in an election year — and beyond — we wanted to invite some of our favorite policy people with their fingers on the pulse of what’s happening in DC to help us sort out what’s happening with healthcare on Capitol Hill and what role we can play to get some justice out of DC in the coming year! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n36v0eTV1a8&t=1167s powerpress Our guests are Eagan Kemp and Alex Lawson. Eagan Kemp is the health care policy advocate for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. He is an expert in health care policy and served as a senior analyst at the U.S. Government Accountability Office prior to coming to Public Citizen. Alex Lawson is the Executive Director of Social Security Works, the convening member of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition— a coalition made up of over 340 national and state organizations representing over 50 million Americans. Show Notes With one of our major candidates being a guy who is solidly against Medicare for All and the other being Trump, is 2024 a bad federal election cycle, or the worst federal election of our lifetime, and why? Alex puts a positive spin on it: we are closer to M4A with a Biden presidency than any other Democratic presidency. He's definitely not a M4A guy, but all his other economic policies are based on Sanders-esque populism, rather than Obama-esque neo-liberalism. We've seen Biden enact serious corporate reform in several sectors, and in a second Biden administration, taking on corporate greed and sociopathy in health insurance is on the agenda. On the other hand, we know exactly what's at stake with another Trump presidency, driven entirely by profit for his billionaire friends. Eagan notes that there has been movement on Medicare in recent years, including die-hard GOPs shying away from talking about cuts to Medicare until after the election. At the same time, we're seeing Biden moving more toward the M4A movement and the folks trying to expand and improve traditional Medicare. We're seeing insurance companies running scared, feeling the pressure from our movement in a way they haven't before. Alex notes that Biden's economic vision contains a lot that Medicare for All folks can work with. Our movement worked hard to expand Medicare to include vision, hearing, and dental, which was ultimately included in Biden's Build Back Better plan. We didn't get that, but we did get prescription drug negotiations, which is a huge part of improving Medicare before we expand it to everyone. (Go back and listen to another episode where we were joined by Alex to discuss prescription drug negotiations for more details.) We've also seen a lot of good work against Medicare privatization, via Medicare Advantage, and that solidarity has moved the ball a lot - more than ever before to restrain private insurance companies. We didn't just give up when we knew Biden wouldn't sign M4A; we pivoted to expanding benefits and reversing the privatization with a lot of success. Eagan found a silver lining in - of all places - the subject of private equity in healthcare. He thinks we've passed the peak of PE ravaging healthcare, and they are now backing off the healthcare sector in part because of increased pressure from the DOJ, FTC and HHS. That's due to pressure from doctors, patients, and whistleblowers. Eagan also notes that the Trump administration pilot of throwing seniors in traditional Medicare into private relationships with providers.