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Biden, Buttigieg and Harris Rewarded by Industry for Waffling on Medicare for All

Nathan Whitmore, a researcher from The People’s Lobby’s Fair Elections Task Force, contributed research to this article. 

On July 30 and 31, the Democratic presidential hopefuls will face off in the second round of debates in this election cycle, and Medicare for All may once again be a theme of the night.

Support for single-payer Medicare for All, a program that would eliminate private health insurance by expanding Medicare to cover all Americans, has become something of a litmus test for the 2020 Democrats. Medicare for All is an incredibly popular position across the political spectrum. Many candidates, however, have attempted to stake out a position somewhere between opposing it and wholly endorsing it.

All 20 candidates at the June debates were asked to raise their hands if they supported a Medicare for All plan that would eliminate private health insurance. Only four of them did: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Bill de Blasio. The next day, Harris backtracked, claiming to have misunderstood the question. 

The candidates who kept their hands down rushed to explain and stipulate. Pete Buttigieg expressed his support for “Medicare for All who want it,” a plan which would allow Americans to buy into a program with, as he called it, the “flavor” of Medicare. Joe Biden echoed Buttigieg’s support for a public option that would include a “Medicare-like” plan. When Beto O’Rourke said that he, too, prefers a public option to a single-payer program, de Blasio cut in. “Why,” he demanded, “are you defending private insurance?”

It’s a question worth asking. Over half of Americans support single-payer healthcare—one poll even cites a 70% approval rating for Medicare for All. In 2018, a Gallup poll found that healthcare is among the most important issues for voters, a statistic that indicates widespread dissatisfaction with America’s current healthcare system. With demand for Medicare for All so high, Democratic hopefuls are loath to stick to the status quo on healthcare. So why are candidates, including several who co-sponsored Sanders’ Medicare for All bill in the Senate, hesitant to endorse true single-payer healthcare? Of course, there may be a factor besides personal conviction and constituent opinion: money. Several big-donor industries have a lot to lose from Medicare for All.

The health insurance and pharmaceutical industries spend large amounts to ensure political influence. During the 2016 election cycle, healthcare insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield shelled out over $25 million on lobbying and more than $9.6 million on political contributions (about $8.2 million from their PACs and other affiliated organizations, and $1.4 million from company employees). Pfizer, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, spent nearly $9.9 million on lobbying and $2.9 million on contributions ($1.98 million from PACs and organizations, and $892K from employees). For both companies, the top two recipients of political contributions were Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and House Speaker Paul Ryan’s congressional reelection.

Both industries have been central to the fight against Medicare for All. Last summer, health insurers, pharmaceutical companies and private hospitals teamed up to create the Partnership for America’s Healthcare Future (PAHCF), an organization dedicated almost entirely to killing Medicare for All. Over the past year, members of PAHCF have lobbied Congress members and spent thousands on online ads to reduce support for Medicare for All among voters and politicians. According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, the members of PAHCF spent a total of over $143 million on lobbying in 2018.

But it appears that even before PAHCF was founded, the health insurance industry was alarmed by the growing momentum of Medicare for All. In 2017, MapLight and Pacific Standardrevealed that Senators who opposed Sanders’ bill received, on average, double the amount of money from the health insurance industry as did those who supported the bill. 

Sanders seems to believe that healthcare industry money may be influencing his 2020 opponents as well. At the end of a speech on July 17th about Medicare For All, he pledged to reject all contributions over $200 from the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries, and called on his opponents to do the same. His pledge encompasses donations from PACs, lobbyists, and high-ranking executives. The healthcare industry, he argued, has been “able to control the political process.” 

Earlier this month, OpenSecrets investigated which 2020 candidates received the most money from health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. In These Times also teamed up with researchers from The People’s Lobby’sFair Elections Task Force, a community organization fighting for campaign finance reform in Chicago, to gather more specific data on individual contributions. For now, health insurance and pharmaceutical PACs have steered clear of the 2020 Democratic field, but many of the industry’s high-ranking employees have already begun to chip in. According to OpenSecrets’ research, the leading candidates who oppose eliminating private insurance have received larger contributions from health insurance and pharmaceutical executives than the candidates who fully support single-payer healthcare. 

OpenSecrets’ research shows that of the candidates polling in the top five (Biden, Sanders, Warren, Harris, and Buttigieg), Biden has received the most money from health insurance and pharma employees, and Sanders has received the least. At $97,453, Joe Biden accepted almost three times more money than Bernie Sanders ($36,728). Pete Buttigieg, a close runner-up, received $93,954. Harris took home around 1.5 times more money than Sanders, at $55,359. Warren accepted $43,680, less than 1.2 times more than Sanders.

Though she is not quite a leading candidate, polling between 1% and 2%, Amy Klobuchar notably accepted $65,304 from health insurance and pharmaceutical employees, making her the third-largest recipient overall (after Biden and Buttigieg). In These Times found that she received the maximum donation of $2,800 from Kara J. Walter, a UnitedHealth executive, and $1,000 from David Abelman, Executive VP of DentaQuest. Klobuchar is skeptical of Medicare for All, which in last month’s debate she claimed would kick “half of Americans off their health insurance.”

Kirsten Gillibrand is another favorite of the healthcare industry—at $39,546, she is the sixth-largest recipient of money from health insurance and pharma employees, above Sanders. Pfizer Executive Vice President Sally Susman, who donated the maximum $2,800 to her campaign according to In These Times’s research, hosted a fundraiser for Gillibrand earlier this year, which Gillibrand defended by claiming that Susman is “a friend” and that she “supports LGBTQ equality.” Perhaps Gillibrand’s relationship to the healthcare industry factored into her choice not to raise her hand in the June debates, and to argue instead that Medicare for All should not touch private insurance companies because competition will drive them out naturally.

It is no surprise that Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg are the healthcare industry’s top picks. Biden recently denounced a potential switch to single-payer healthcare as “a sin,” and has made absurd claims that Medicare for All would mean existing Medicare “goes away as you know it.” According to In These Times’ research, his contributions include $2,800 from Independence Blue Cross CEO Daniel Hilferty, and $2,800 from Steven Collis, CEO of AmerisourceBergen. Buttigieg, meanwhile, has managed to appeal to both progressive Democrats and healthcare executives with his “Medicare for All Who Want It” proposal. In These Times found that his top donors include Wade Rakes, a Centene vice president who donated $4,300, and Joshua Smiley, CFO of Eli Lilly, who gave $2,800.

According to In These Times, Kamala Harris’s donations from high-ranking executives include $2,800 from Danielle C. Gray, Senior Vice President of Blue Cross NC, and $2,700 from Osi Esue, Marketing Director of Abbvie Pharmalytics. Like Buttigieg, she has attempted to play both sides of the debate around single-payer healthcare. On Monday, a month after walking back her support for eliminating private insurance at the June debates, she finally released a healthcare proposal dubiously titled “My Plan for Medicare for All.” Her plan would take ten years to phase in and would allow private insurance companies to compete with Medicare. “You can’t call this Medicare for All,” said Sanders’ campaign manager in a statement about Harris’s plan.

For his part, before Bernie Sanders announced his pledge to reject health insurance and pharma donations over $200, he accepted donations that would have broken it. For instance, In These Times found that he took at least $920 from Lynn McRoy, a medical director at Pfizer who may or may not count as a “high-ranking executive.” OpenSecrets also reported that he took home $2,000 from the CEO of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals. Bernie’s campaign has announced that it will return all previously accepted donations that violate the new pledge. 

Like Sanders, Warren received a relatively small amount of money from the healthcare industry. In These Times found few high-ranking executives on her list of contributors, though she did accept some significant contributions, such as $1,010 from Robert Cuddihy, Amgen’s Vice President of U.S. Medical Affairs. Before the June debate, she was criticized for her silence on Medicare for All, but she has since come out in full support of single-payer healthcare, including for undocumented immigrants. 

While all but two of the leading 2020 Democrats equivocate on single-payer healthcare, organizers around the country continue to fight for Medicare for All and for the campaign finance reform that may be necessary to make progressive policies like single-payer a reality. For these organizers, contributions from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries are more than just numbers. 

Morgan Oliver, an organizer from the Fair Elections Task Force, believes that without big money in politics, a universal healthcare system would be far more politically possible. “People’s constituents want that,” she added. “We see how many people have struggled with the health insurance industry in many different ways, even people in very conservative communities.” This struggle is personal for Oliver as well—she told In These Times that even with private insurance, she has struggled to afford a medication that she needs because it cost nearly $4,000.

Oliver is working to pass a Fair Elections Ordinance in Chicago that would create a donor match program for small individual contributions. She believes that fighting for campaign finance reform locally is a crucial step to winning it nationally. She envisions a federal public campaign financing law that would restrict big money in politics while boosting the power of small donations through vouchers or donor matching.  

Sheilah Garland, a political organizer with National Nurses United, which has long fought for Medical for All and endorsed Sanders in 2016, says that nurses around the country viscerally understand the necessity of divorcing healthcare from profit. She cited the Partnership for America’s Healthcare Future as a major obstacle in the union’s fight for single-payer healthcare, alongside general lobbying and contributions from health insurers and Big Pharma. 

Garland says her experience working with nurses has demonstrated the importance of eliminating private insurance through Medicare for All. Almost every nurse in the country, she says, has watched a patient struggle to access a life-saving treatment that isn’t covered by their insurance company’s policy. 

“When you’ve spent time with [a patient],” Garland said, “you know their story. You see them, you see their family, you see their struggle to regain their health … and to see all of that literally washed away because of some sort of policy … it’s absolutely devastating.”

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The post Trump’s Pick for Top Intelligence Job Bragged of Experience as Terror Prosecutor — But He Doesn’t Have Any appeared first on The Intercept.

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The post 19 Questions They Should Ask Democrats at the Second Presidential Debate appeared first on The Intercept.

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It Could Happen Here!

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Once Upon a Time in Parallel America

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Starvation #deaths of 200 #reindeer in #Arctic caused by #ClimateChange, say researchers | World news | The Guardian

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What’s In Your Wallet?

Another day, another massive data hack: Capital One, the Virginia-based bank with a popular credit card business, announced Monday that a hacker had accessed about 100 million credit card applications, and investigators say thousands of Social Security and bank account numbers were also taken….The hack appears to be one of the largest data breaches ever […]

The Global Crackdown On BDS Is Not About Solidarity with Jews

Israeli politics have moved into uncharted territory over the past several months, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu found himself unable to form a coalition large enough to claim victory in last spring’s elections. However, even as the Israeli state enters into political turmoil at home, it is becoming increasingly immune to criticism from the international community abroad. 

In May, Germany’s government passed an anti-BDS resolution condemning the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, a nonviolent campaign to protest Israel’s military occupation of Palestine, as anti-Semitic, and vowed that the country would not participate in any boycotts of Israeli products. The law is similar to an anti-BDS resolution that was just passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, and to several even more severe laws previously passed by U.S. states. 

More broadly, measures like these protect the Israeli government from facing any economic consequences for isolating and discriminating against its Palestinian population. And the German measure shows that the campaign to ensure this impunity is going global, particularly as Israel makes common cause with far-right governments around the world (even, in some cases, those with well documented anti-Semitic sympathies).

Netanyahu, who is facing charges of corruption, has been prime minister for the past 10 years. During his tenure, he has moved Israel increasingly to the right politically, with severe consequences for Palestinian rights. Under his leadership, the expansion of Israeli settlements has led to what many have called the death of a two-state solution. Meanwhile, his government has instituted policies that legalize discrimination against non-Jews and strengthen Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

I, for one, am scared of a world where the Israeli government can continue to advance these discriminatory policies — especially as it goes unquestioned by the international powers that provide it with ongoing financial and ideological support. And as a Jew dedicated to fighting for Palestinian rights, I’m scared of a world where dissenting movements are silenced, and accusations of anti-Semitism overwhelm critiques of a powerful government. 

Finally, I’m scared of a world where the attitudes of a United States headed by Donald Trump can worm their way into the international community — and I’m scared to watch as the uncritical U.S. support for Israel is exported to Germany, the rest of Europe, and around the world.

In reality, supporters of Israel and anti-BDS legislation are often those who do the least to advocate for Jewish safety. In a striking example, white nationalist Richard Spencer has self-identified as a “white Zionist.” Steve Bannon’s appearance at a Zionist Organization of America event seems out of place as well, given that his tenure as an editor at the alt-right Breitbart News was marked by the use of anti-Semitic language. Most recently, President Trump justified his racist attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) with his support for Israel. However, his 2016 campaign was also marked by the use of anti-Semitic rhetoric, from campaign ads referencing “global special interests” to the invocation of stereotypes that portray Jews as greedy and money-obsessed. In Europe, Hungary’s right-wing government has undergone scrutiny for the seeming contradiction between its close relationship with Israel and its denial of Hungary’s role in the Holocaust. 

Instances like these make it clear that the voices most ardently in favor of Israel are often the same voices that make their careers preaching hate against Jews and people of color. We should all be concerned when the U.S. government aligns itself with authoritarian or fascist ideologues on any issue — and Israel is no exception.

Germany’s anti-BDS legislation offers yet another example of seemingly incongruous support of Israel from notorious anti-Semites. The far-right party Alternative for Germany, whose sympathy for the Nazi party has led to its denunciation by German Jewish leaders, proposed the strictest version of the bill— a total ban on BDS-related actions within Germany. Contradictions like these make it clear that, unlike far-right politicians would have you believe, support for Israel has no connection to solidarity with Jewish people.

Instead of a genuine rejection of anti-Semitism, the right’s championing of Israel stems from its love of nationalist rhetoric. To these figures, support for Israel acts as a convenient pass to continue espousing hate. Instead of defending the Jewish people, members of the right are embracing something altogether different: ethno-nationalism, whether it involves the removal of immigrants at America’s southern border or the colonization of Palestinians in Israel.

The question then becomes whether we, as Jewish communities, want to align ourselves with these ideologies — ideologies held by people who have open disgust for our beliefs and our humanity, not to mention the humanity of Muslims, immigrants and people of color around the world.

Meanwhile, the BDS movement, which was launched in 2005 by a coalition of 170 organizations representing Palestinian civil society, has never advocated for anti-Semitism. Instead, it is brave enough to call the Israeli state what it is: a perpetuation of apartheid in a country that has a segregated road system to facilitate the separation of Israelis and Palestinians. Instead of opposing BDS, Jewish leaders and their allies should be focusing on the real threat to Jewish communities: white nationalism in all its forms.

If the international community wants to advocate for Jewish safety, the solution does not lie in wholesale support of the Israeli state. In fact, the violent actions of Israel make us all less safe.

It’s time for the United States to acknowledge the global consequences of our uncritical endorsement of the Israeli state, which includes everything from unchecked violence against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to anti-BDS laws like Germany’s. And it’s time for Germany to hold itself accountable for the white supremacy still present within its political landscape, rather than leveling vitriol at human rights campaigns like BDS. 

And it’s time for everyone, from the U.S. to Germany to members of Israel’s own government, to stand against injustice in Palestine wherever and whenever it occurs.

This article was produced in partnership with Foreign Policy In Focus.

Who dominates the discourse of the past?

Male academics, who comprise less than 10% of North American archaeologists, write the vast majority of the field's high impact, peer-reviewed literature.

TESS discovers three new planets nearby, including temperate 'sub-Neptune'

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What you need to know about today's #EarthOvershootDay via @ScienceAlert@twitter.com ➡️ 'We just used up all of Earth's resources for the year, and it's only July' ➡️ https://bit.ly/312PIDi

We're looking for Minetest-related educational projects and resources to feature on the official website. Please point us to them! They don't have to be in the English language

#minetest #edutech #freesoftware #opensource

Lagwagon announce new album “Railer”, release new single and announce tour dates

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The post Lagwagon announce new album “Railer”, release new single and announce tour dates appeared first on Dying Scene.

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We are proud to unveil the final hardware specifications for the Librem 5 smartphone, set to begin shipping in Q3 of 2019.

https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-smartphone-final-specs-announced/

Compound found in red wine opens door for new treatments for depression, anxiety

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