[rad-green] Leaked document foretold secret corporate campaign to derail Medicare for All

*https://peoplesworld.org/article/leaked-document-foretold-secret-corporate-campaign-to-derail-medicare-for-all/
<https://peoplesworld.org/article/leaked-document-foretold-secret-corporate-campaign-to-derail-medicare-for-all/>People's
World          February 19, 2020*



*Leaked document foretold secret corporate campaign to derail Medicare for
AllBY JOHN WOJCIK AND MARK GRUENBERG*


   - [image: Leaked document foretold secret corporate campaign to derail
   Medicare for All]

National Nurses United rally for Medicare for All | NNU.org

OAKLAND, Calif.—A document leaked two years ago by someone in a corporate
front group described a secret campaign, which continues today, to derail
national support for Medicare for All.

The insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, and the American
Hospital Association, in 2018, teamed up to form the Partnership for
America’s Health Care Future, a fake “grassroots” lobby whose purpose was
to derail what had become nationwide majority support
<https://theintercept.com/2018/11/20/medicare-for-all-healthcare-industry/>,
even among Republicans, for Medicare for All.

That support was so broad that in the early stages of the current campaign
for the Democratic presidential nomination support for Medicare for All
included not just Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, but also several of
the so-called “moderate” candidates like Kamala Harris. Since then, by
backing off that position, most of the Democratic candidates are at least
questioning the feasibility of the Medicare-for-All program, if not saying
it will take healthcare away from many who have it or even outright
opposing it – both goals of the corporate lobbying group. A glance at the
group’s website shows how the health industry is making good on its plans
to bash Medicare for All.

The corporate “partnership” is about a lot more than just talking points,
however. The “partners” dumped half a billion dollars into the 2018
congressional campaign on behalf of candidates who either opposed or had
“concerns” about Medicare for All. Many of the Democrats swept into office
in 2018 nevertheless supported Medicare for All, causing the “partnership”
to step up its efforts for 2020. They are pouring dollars into campaigns on
every level this cycle.

The original leaked document, as well as the group’s website today, clearly
shows the two main goals of the so-called partnership: “to change the
national conversation around Medicare for All by raising doubts about it”
and “to make sure it isn’t in the platform of a major national party.”

The leaked memo details specific tactics the corporations are using
including crafting op-eds for its allies to place in newspapers and other
media, developing anti-Medicare for All talking points that can be used by
lawmakers and others, and, of course, dumping millions of dollars into
election campaigns.

Undeterred by all of this, Medicare for All supporters are taking the memo
with them on a newly announced national campaign to battle the corporate
health care industry. They have rolled out a new petition drive with two
goals. One is to push federal, state and local officials to back the law
and to swear off campaign contributions from its corporate foes. The other
is to expose those foes and reduce their clout on Capitol Hill, through a
mass movement against them.

The drive, led by National Nurses United, will culminate in the week of
April 6-10, when Congress, home for its Easter-Passover recess, will find
campaigners armed with thousands of names on petitions, on their office
doorsteps. NNU also launched a website for the drive,
www.patientsoverprofits.org.

The point of the petitions will be to get the lawmakers and candidates, as
well as mayors, city councilors, and county officials to both back Medicare
For All and to sign a pledge to refuse campaign contributions from Big
Pharma, the health insurers, the hospital lobby and other sectors of the
medical-industrial complex.

And petitioners will also spend their time exposing the medical-industrial
complex’s fake “grassroots” lobby and its corporate backers who scheme to
kill Medicare For All.

NNU and at least a dozen other unions, along with community groups and
other progressive organizations, have pushed Medicare For All for years.
But they only gained congressional traction for that positive goal when
their campaigning helped pro-worker Democrats flip the U.S. House in 2018.

It’s gone nowhere in the Senate, however, even though lead sponsor Sen.
Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., now has 16 Democratic co-sponsors and even though
his advocacy on the campaign trail makes Medicare For All a top topic of
the Democratic presidential primaries – and a “litmus test” of sorts for
all the hopefuls.

Since the start of 2019, four House committees held hearings on Medicare
For All and other alternatives to the nation’s expensive, ineffective and
wasteful health care non-system, but took no further action. That’s by
House leadership design.

That’s even though health care costs eat up one of every six dollars of
U.S. national output, while the insurers and the drug companies make
billions in profits and funnel the money into executives’ high pay and
fancy yachts, drive organizers said.

Besides Sanders and his 16 senatorial allies, a majority of House Democrats
co-sponsor Medicare For All. So do the Justice Democrats, a campaign
finance committee dedicated to electing progressives to Congress, even over
Democratic Party opposition. Their top success is a key Medicare For All
advocate, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who ousted a pro-business
Democrat in 2018.

And in a break with the rest of the medical-industrial complex, Medicare
For All gained support from the American College of Physicians, the group’s
government affairs director, Brian Doherty, told *The Hill.* Doherty said
the doctors, many of them primary care physicians, are increasingly
frustrated by the insurers’ refusal to pay for basic services. The docs say
even patients with insurance can’t shoulder the bills.

That’s one key point the petition drive pushes, the organizers said.
Another is reminding state and local officials medical costs crowd other
priorities out of their budgets. Some unions are receptive because their
members must give up pay hikes to keep health care costs within bounds –
and those costs are skyrocketing anyway. And businesses are getting
squeezed by insurers’ high bills.

The petitioners will make all those points from now through early April.
They’ll also point out that while government spending will rise for
Medicare For All, families and individuals will win because they’ll save a
lot more through eliminating the insurers, their high copays and premiums
and denial of care will save each U.S. family and resident thousands of
dollars as they fan out over the country.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is cool to Medicare For All.
Under pressure from NNU, Ocasio-Cortez and their allies – including another
backer, the Sunrise Coalition, which has Medicare For All as part of its
Green New Deal – Pelosi permitted the House panel hearings. They were
jammed with Medicare For All backers.

But she also made sure the most-important hearing was by the House Energy
and Commerce Committee, headed by Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., a top
recipient of pharmaceutical industry campaign contributions and a Medicare
For All foe. Pallone’s opposition has prompted AFSCME member Russ
Cirincione, a county attorney in Pallone’s district, to launch an uphill
primary challenge to Pallone this year.

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