Explaining Medicare For All-- Mark Gamba In A Blueberry Patch And Bernie In The Den Of The Beast

You like Bernie's progressive agenda? Elizabeth Warren's progressive agenda? Even if America elects one of them-- or, hopefully, both of them-- to run the executive branch, without a more progressive legislative branch, much of that agenda will be stymied. As we saw Thursday, Medicare had been blocked since 1915 by a coalition of conservative Democrats and Republicans until a Democratic landslide in 1964, a landslide that made the GOP irrelevant and took power away from the Southern Democrats (the garbage members called Blue Dogs and New Dems today). We simply must replace Blue Dogs, New Dems and Republicans with progressives in Congress. It is urgent for anyone who, for example, wants to see Medicare-For-All and the Green New Deal become realities.

Mark Gamba, the mayor of Milwaukie, Oregon, is running for the congressional seat help by one of the most reactionary and destructive Blue Dogs in Congress, Kurt Schrader. OR-05 is a district where Bernie swamped Hillary Clinton and, on primary day, beat Trump as well. Kurt Schrader-- an implacable Medicare-for-All and Green New Deal foe-- is out of step with voters in his own district.

No one who doesn't understand Medicare-- and neither of these galoots do-- can ever understand Medicare-For-All

Back in May, Lee Fang, reporting for The Intercept, wrote that the Blue Dog PAC, Center Forward, hosted a bunch of anti-healthcare lobbyists and congressional staffers at a luxury resort to plot how to kill Medicare for All, exactly the way conservative Democrats and Republicans used to plot how to kill Medicare itself between 1915 and 1965. "Center Forward’s big idea on Medicare Part D, for instance," wrote Fang, "is to maintain lobbyist-authored provisions of the law that bar the government from bargaining for lower prices for medicine. [At this point, the Blue Dogs are literally to the right of Trump!!] Such restrictions cost taxpayers and patients as much as $73 billion a year while boosting the profits of drugmakers. Center Forward endorses the idea with a testimonial from Mary Grealy, a lobbyist for a trade group that represents pharmaceutical companies.

The schedule shows that the health care discussion was led by Center Forward board member Liz Greer, a lobbyist at Forbes Tate; the firm manages the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future coalition designed to undermine Medicare-for-All. Paul Kidwell, a lobbyist from the Federation of American Hospitals, and Larry Levitt, from the Kaiser Family Foundation, also spoke. No proponents of Medicare-for-All were included. Kidwell’s trade association is part of the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future group opposing single payer.

The ethics disclosure shows a large number of senior aides attended the event.

Several aides to Democratic leadership filed disclosures showing that they received paid travel to attend the Center Forward retreat, including chiefs of staff to Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC, and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD). The retreat included chiefs of staff to leading centrist [still using the wrong word-- "centrist"-- to describe raging conservatives] Democrats, including Reps. Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR), Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL) and Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM). Officials from the Blue Dogs, Problem Solvers Caucus, and the New Democrats were also in attendance.

Unlike the previous branding of Blue Dogs, who were once billed a “big tent” designed to bring conservative ideas into the Democratic Party, the centrist push now explicitly includes Republicans. Senior aides to Reps. Sean Duffy (R-WI), Rodney Davis (R-IL) and Will Hurd (R-TX) attended the retreat as well.

The Ethics Committee rules bar registered lobbyists from arranging luxury travel for Congress. Although Center Forward’s board is made up almost entirely of registered corporate lobbyists, the event forms were signed by the group’s executive director, Cori Kramer, who is not a registered lobbyist-- a technicality that helped elide the prohibition on lobbyist-funded travel. The forms show the group spent as much as $560 per congressional aide for transportation, food, and lodging.

Please consider contributing to the campaigns of the vetted progressives, like Mark Gamba's, running robust primaries against reactionary Blue Dogs this cycle by clicking on the thermometer above.

With most of the MSNBC hosts and commentators swinging so far away from anything remotely progressive-- just think of Claire McCaskill as their mascot-- I was shocked yesterday to see Bernie on Morning Joe and Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle way ahead of, say, Rachel Maddow, when it comes to understanding the progressive agenda and to grokking what Bernie (and Elizabeth) are trying to do for America. Listen tp Mike Barnicle expressing an understanding of Medicare that is lightyears ahead of what Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan even comes close to. Watch how Bernie responds to questions from the Morning Joe panelists, some of whom are very conservative and were quite hostile to his programs: