Gilead Demands $2,340 Per Medicare Patient's Life; Patients Og Private Insurance Will Pay Much More-- Why Hasn't The Company Been Nationalized Yet?

Let me make a 9-part Wendell Potter Twitter thread into a couple of narrative paragraphs. It starts with the whistleblower and former VP of Cigna wanting to puke:

I honestly wanted to vomit when I read this press release from UnitedHealth disclosing how huge its windfall profits over the last 3 months have been, while millions of Americans lost their jobs & health insurance & over 100k lost their lives. You have to wade through 2 paragraphs of complete BS about how “compassionate” UnitedHealth’s employees are, before getting to the real purpose of the release: telling shareholders just how richer they are now.

But there’s a problem for UnitedHealth here... When I was at Cigna, I'd help write quarterly earnings releases. I know the tricks corporate flacks use to try to soften bad news. In UnitedHealth’s case, the bad news was an incredible embarrassment of riches!

That won’t look good to the rest of the country. What to do? Their flacks knew people would be outraged by their profiting off of the pandemic, so they began the release with self-congratulatory nonsense about how the company had “expanded its #COVID19 response efforts” to “address the urgent needs of underserved communities.” You have to wade through that crap before finding that the company had its most profitable quarter EVER, making over $6.6 BILLION in profits, as thousands of other companies had to shut their doors & lay off millions.

Even that $6.6 billion number obscures just how much the company made. They took in $9.2 billion in profits from its operations, nearly 2x what it made over the same 3 months last year. The net profit margin of its insurance business nearly tripled, from 5.4% to 14.3%. Get this-- its “medical loss ratio” (how much it actually pays in medical claims for every dollar it collects in premiums) dropped like a rock, from 83.1% to 70.2%. In other words, during a pandemic, the company paid far less than usual to help people with medical issues! These numbers should make your blood boil & remind you that insurers are unnecessary middlemen. UnitedHealth made all this $ while the number of people “served” by them fell by more than 1.1 million. This game will continue as #COVID19 slams big states like Florida & Texas. I knew insurers would thrive during #COVID19, as elective procedures were cancelled. But the size of UnitedHealth’s windfall shocked even me. It says all you need to know about our health care: During a crisis, millions are suffering, but insurance companies are booming.

This kind of thing makes most of my twitter followers do more than just want to vomit. A little poll I put up yesterday:

There is a growing consensus that Gillead Science's remdesivir seems to cut the risk of death in some patients with severe COVID-19. Gilead has kept the supply low and the prices high and is certainly profiteering gigantically now charging $390 per vial.

In a statement, Gilead Sciences chairman and CEO Daniel O’Day said the company has set a price for governments of developed countries of $390 per vial. Based on current treatment patterns, the vast majority of patients are expected to receive a 5-day treatment coursing using 6 vials of remdesivir, which equates to $2,340 per patient.

In the US, the same government price of $390 per vial will apply. Because of the way the U.S. system is set up and the discounts that government healthcare programs expect, the price for U.S. private insurance companies, will be $520 per vial.

Gilead has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) whereby HHS and states will continue to manage allocation to hospitals until the end of September. After this period, once supplies are less constrained, HHS will no longer manage allocation.

“In the developing world, where healthcare resources, infrastructure, and economics are so different, we have entered into agreements with generic manufacturers to deliver treatment at a substantially lower cost. These alternative solutions are designed to ensure that all countries in the world can provide access to treatment,” O’Day added.

U.S. taxpayers underwrote the cost of developing remdesivir. Because of a nightmare, corrupt neo-liberal president from Arkansas, Gilead was set free to rip off those same American taxpayers. Daniel O'Day should be tried and thrown in prison with his board of directors. Trump will never do that; neither will Biden. Gilead is licensing the drug to pharmaceutical companies in India, Egypt and Pakistan. "These licensing allow the companies to gain the technology used for remdesivr from Gilead and manufacture them at their own scale for faster availability to the public. Additionally, the agreement lets these companies set their own prices for the generic product they produce. The licenses are royalty-free until the World Health Organization declares the end of the Public Health Emergency of International Concern regarding COVID-19, or until a pharmaceutical product other than remdesivir or a vaccine is approved to treat or prevent COVID-19, whichever is earlier, Gilead said." Generous of the American taxpayer, isn't it? Watch this, especially if you were brainless enough to have not voted for Bernie:





So where does Trump come in? Because you know if there's some dirty money to be made by ripping people off, he's there, right? Yesterday, CNBC reported that Bernie and Elizabeth Warren slammed the Trumpist regime for giving the Gilead crooks a "windfall" deal. They-- and allied senators-- said "the deal will give Gilead up to $500 million in revenue borne almost entirely by American taxpayers, 'in whole or in part' through higher insurance premiums. 

“Outside analysts have concluded that ‘The deal is amazingly good for Gilead’s executives and shareholders and amazingly bad for everyone else-- bad for taxpayers, terrible for public health, and unethical,’” the lawmakers wrote in the later dated Thursday. “We are therefore requesting information from the Department to help us better understand why President Trump-- or whichever Administration officials were responsible-- would strike such an expensive deal, and what steps the Administration is taking to ensure sufficient supply of the drug.”

...The deal gives the U.S. more than 500,000 treatment courses of the antiviral drug for U.S. hospitals through September, the Department of Health and Human Services announced June 29. That represents 100% of Gilead’s projected production for July and 90% of production for August and September, according to the agency. Gilead said it would sell remdesivir for $520 per vial in the U.S. to patients with private insurance and $390 per vial to federal insurance programs like Medicare as well as foreign countries. The majority of patients treated with remdesivir receive a five-day treatment course using six vials of remdesivir, the company said. That would bring the cost to $2,340 for foreign and U.S. Medicare patients and $3,120 for U.S. patients with private health coverage.

That means Gilead is charging “American health insurers the highest prices in the world,” the senators wrote.

“In other words, America’s private health insurers-- and, ultimately, all families and businesses that pay for these costs via health insurance premiums-- will be paying $860 more than governments in other countries will pay,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter.

There are no Food and Drug Administration-approved treatments for Covid-19, which which has infected more than 13 million people worldwide and killed at least 584,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Remdesivir, which was being developed as early as 2009, was granted an emergency use authorization by the FDA in May after the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases released preliminary results from a study that showed Covid-19 patients who took the drug usually recovered after 11 days, four days faster than those who didn’t take it.

When Azar announced the agreement last month, he called it “an amazing deal to ensure Americans have access to the first authorized therapeutic for COVID-19. To the extent possible, we want to ensure that any American patient who needs remdesivir can get it.

Two Blue America Candidates Speak Out On Healthcare: Dana Balter And Tom Guild

The pandemic has forced progressive candidates to change their means of reaching voters. David Wasserman, writing yesterday for the Cook Report, noted "As the COVID-19 outbreak forces more states to delay spring primary and runoff dates, it's had another, more subtle effect: it's all but frozen the House recruitment process in place and curtailed fundraising, benefiting incumbents and candidates who had already built large war chests and disadvantaging recent entrants." It's especially helpful to conservatives-- on both sides of the aisle. Dana Balter is battling Trump boot-licker John Katko, who had already raised $1,545,336 by the December 31 FEC reporting deadline. Balter's haul-- before the pandemic struck-- was $519,225. Similarly, Oklahoma City Blue Dog Kendra Horn-- a conservative who votes with Trump more than nearly any Democrat in Congress-- had raised $2,277,970 both the end of the quarter and before her progressive primary challenger, Tom Guild jumped into the race.

This week, both Balter and Guild worked to get their core messages on healthcare out. Guild sent an e-mail to Oklahoma City voters. "In this time of national crisis," be began, "we must achieve a degree of isolation, interrupted by an occasional trip to the grocery store, to the pharmacy, and to fill up our vehicles with gas. We do our best to care for others at a distance by contributing to charities and via social media. During this stark and sober time let us reflect on how to improve America as we eventually resume some semblance of normalcy. This emergency is partially a result of a health care system, that really isn’t an integrated system, but a patchwork of institutions and industries focused on maximizing profits. As we transition to universal healthcare in America via Medicare for All, we will put in place an integrated system that is not profit-driven but focused on the health and wellbeing of every American. Deductibles and co-pays will be phased out and the per capita spending for healthcare will very likely be reduced." He continued:

“A government-run, single-payer system may be run with just enough resources for normal times... but unlike the patchwork, for-profit ‘system’ we have, a publicly run system can be ramped up much more quickly to meet crises such as this one.” (Paul Crist)

We face the current crisis woefully unprepared to meet the tremendous challenge before us. We can learn from this experience and redouble our efforts to not be placed in this situation again. As the only candidate for Congress in Oklahoma’s Fifth Congressional District embracing universal health care coverage by adopting MFA, it makes a difference which candidate we nominate and that we elect to represent our district.

Stay safe. Keep your distance. Keep the faith. Take care of yourself and others.

If you would like to financially support our effort to achieve systemic and meaningful change for the future you can do that [by clicking on the Medicare-For-All thermometer on the right].


Vote like your life and health and that of your fellow Americans is at stake.

Yours in the cause,

Tom Guild

Balter was more fortunate, as the Syracuse Post Standard decided to publish her commentary with its message to NY-24 voters and it was able to reach far more voters and potential contributors.

We’re experiencing a crisis unlike anything in our living memory; the toll on our health, lives, and economy will be immense. We all need to do our part to keep our communities safe and we need our leaders to step up and take action to limit the pandemic’s impact.

I have talked with countless people across central and western New York whose lives are being turned upside down. There was the friend who found an elderly couple in their car in the grocery store parking lot, crying because they needed food but terrified to go inside and be exposed to COVID-19. Then there was the owner of a 45-year-old family business who’s afraid it might not open again. Then there was the man recently diagnosed with stage 4 kidney cancer for whom the world is now unimaginably dangerous. These heartbreaking stories make clear that we must do everything we can to curb the effects of this crisis.

As individuals, we need to take social distancing seriously and closely follow expert guidelines from the CDC. Thankfully, as New Yorkers we have Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s steady leadership. His navigation of this near-impossible situation is extraordinary and will save lives and livelihoods. He exemplifies what we need from our leaders in this moment: calm, confidence and competence.

The governor’s example is made all the more remarkable by a complete absence of leadership from President Donald Trump. His failure to lead us through this crisis is staggering. At every stage, his response has made the situation far worse than it needs to be.

Trump ignored early warnings from his own intelligence agencies that the COVID-19 pandemic was coming. Despite knowing how bad this situation would get, for months he minimized the threat to the public and refused to take necessary action to prepare for the impending danger. The president has continued to downplay the seriousness of this crisis, last Tuesday suggesting that things will be back to normal in a matter of a couple of weeks while health experts have agreed that this will take months to address. Most disturbing is that he actively spreads misinformation about COVID-19, which is incredibly dangerous.

The idea that this is the leadership this country needs is not only absurd, it’s dangerous. And yet, this is the man Rep. John Katko endorses. This is the man John Katko insists has made us better off. This is the man John Katko tells us is the leader we need for another four years.

Trump’s calling himself a wartime president. Would a wartime president leave generals without stocked bases? While Trump dithers, hospital administrators and doctors, left without ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE), are facing unimaginable ethical decisions about whom they should save and whom they should let die. Absurd. Would a wartime president send soldiers into battle without helmets and body armor? While Trump dithers, we are leaving our front-line healthcare workers unprotected without PPE. So we are sewing face masks at home to donate to hospitals and clinics and nurses are wearing garbage bags because “it’s better than nothing.” Dangerous.

Government must prioritize the health and safety of our people. The president should immediately use the Defense Production Act to direct companies to manufacture ventilators and PPE and distribute that equipment. This is necessary to address two dire circumstances: 1. there isn’t an adequate supply of this vital equipment, and 2. currently states are competing with each other for access to the scarce supplies available.

Thankfully, Congress has turned its attention to addressing the economic fallout of this public health crisis. The response must include substantial cash assistance to individuals and families. We have to ensure speedy arrival of funds and recognize that a one-time payment is unlikely to be enough. We should institute a freeze on all mortgage payments, rent, debt collection, and student loan payments without interest or penalty. We must give massive support to small businesses to help them survive the weeks and months ahead. We do not need to bail out giant corporations; they have huge profits and bankruptcy protections that will see them through. Any assistance that is given to corporations must be contingent on: no bonuses or dividends for the duration of the loan; no stock buybacks; no lay-offs; honoring of collective bargaining agreements, a $15 minimum wage.

We’re dealing with the biggest public health crisis we’ve seen in a century and the resulting economic crisis. Both have been made worse by a stunning failure of leadership by the president, whom John Katko endorses. We have to rise above that failure in leadership. And we can. We have a long way to go but if we come together, we will get through this crisis. We all know that we are better than Donald Trump and now is the time to prove it.

Wendell Potter, was formerly vice-president for corporate communications at Cigna, a crooked insurance outfit. Today he's president of Business for Medicare for All. Yesterday The Guardian published a chilling piece he wrote, Millions of Americans are about to lose their health insurance in a pandemic. "The tragic effects of our battle with the novel coronavirus are seemingly endless. But arguably the most mind-blowing is this: the very pandemic that threatens to infect and kill millions is simultaneously causing many to also lose their health coverage at their gravest time of need." And he explained how and why:

Here’s how: the virus has caused a public health crisis so severe that people have been forced to stay home, causing businesses to shutter and lay off workers. And with roughly half of Americans getting their health insurance from their employer, these layoffs mean not only losing their income but also their medical coverage. In other words, just as our need for medical care skyrockets in the face of a global pandemic, fewer will have health insurance or be able to afford it. According to one recent report, the cost of treatment for Covid-19 can run around $35,000. As the patient in the report exclaimed: “I was pretty sticker-shocked. I personally don’t know anybody who has that kind of money.”

So, how did we get to such a dire place? Many will sadly lose their jobs over the coming weeks-- with one estimate projecting as many as 30%. And as they do, Americans are about to learn something horrifying: how irrational and irresponsible it is for so many to be dependent on employers for health insurance. Take it from me. I’m a former health insurance executive who once profited from this system. It’s time for it to stop.

America needs to finally get out of the business of linking health coverage to job status. Even in better times, this arrangement was a bad idea from a health perspective. Most Americans whose families depend on their employers for coverage are just a layoff away from being uninsured. And now, when many businesses are shutting down and considering layoffs, it’s a public health disaster. Across the country we’re seeing reports of layoffs in almost all industries. As we approach a global recession, some analysts suggest that a million or more US workers will lose their jobs in April alone. Consider what this means for health care in this country.

We’ve seen this before. During the last big recession, researchers at Cornell University found that 9.3 million Americans lost their health insurance between 2007 and 2009. Why? As people lost work, their employer-provided insurance went away. During this time, roughly six in 10 Americans who lost their jobs became uninsured. And this problem compounds itself. If the reason you lost your health insurance is that you no longer have steady employment, how are you now going to be able to afford monthly premiums for some other private health care plan? This problem becomes particularly acute when you consider that premiums for health plans sold on exchanges are projected to soar, as well, due to “unexpected Covid-19 costs.”

It’s worth noting that even in good times, the employer-based model fails to cover enough of us, with the number of Americans covered through an employer steadily dropping in general. Since 1999, the percentage of those with job-based coverage has declined by nine points. And it most certainly will drop like a rock in the coming weeks and months.

It’s now clear that this system cannot handle our current reality. With so many Americans sadly on the verge of unemployment, the number that will lose health coverage will be crushing. As we rebuild our country’s economic base and reimagine the roles various industries play in our new future, we must also begin a difficult conversation about health care. If we’re dependent on jobs in order to have it, a lot of us will be left out in the cold. And at a time in our nation’s history where more will need quality care than ever before, the human cost will simply be too much to bear.

Reminder: the men and women you'll find by clicking on the ActBlue thermometer above will take you to a list of candidates-- including but not limited to Tom Guild and Dana Balter-- campaigning on Medicare-for-All.

Dana Balter and Tom Guild

The Establishment's Stop Bernie Movement Isn't Resonating With Democratic Voters

Reminder-- and this isn't just about Republicans vs Democrats

Bernie's political revolution IS resonating. Economic royalism isn't. Even the Washington Post, economic royalism's biggest cheerleader among newspapers, was forced to admit after the way Bernie's revolution crushed the status quo conservatives in Nevada yesterday that Bernie won "in nearly every demographic group, allowing him to set down a marker in the first state with a significant share of nonwhite voters. Sanders expanded the electorate by attracting relatively large numbers of first-time caucus-goers, providing momentum as the race shifts into a critical stretch over the next 10 days. He prevailed among those with college degrees and those without; those living in union and nonunion households; and in every age group except those over 65. He won more than half of Hispanic caucus-goers-- almost four times as much support as his nearest rival, former vice president Joe Biden-- and even narrowly prevailed among those who identified as moderate or conservative. Despite attacks on his health proposal by the powerful Culinary Union, he won in caucus sites filled with union members."

It's almost like Democratic grassroots voters are abandoning their tainted and corrupt leadership. About time! Early this morning the the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Elections Research Center released a new poll showing Bernie winning in Michigan primary (just as he had in 2016), the Pennsylvania primary and the Wisconsin primary.

Remember, Biden pretends delegate-rich Pennsylvania is his home state instead of tiny Delaware where he lived and based his entire career. Bernie is even beating him there! The primary is April 28.

• Bernie- 25%
• Status Quo Joe- 20%
• Bloomberg- 19%
• Mayo Pete- 12%
• Elizabeth- 9%
• Klobuchar- 5%

Wisconsin is Bernie country again, of course. It was a big state for him in 2016 and looks like it will be an even bigger state for him in 2020. The primary is April 7.

• Bernie- 30%
• Status Quo Joe- 13%
• Bloomberg- 13%
• Elizabeth- 12%
• Mayo Pete- 12%
• Klobuchar- 9%

By the way, that poll also shows Bernie beating Trump in head-to-head match-ups in each of the crucial battleground states that Hillary and the Democratic establishment managed to lose in 2016:

• Michigan- 48 to 41%
• Pennsylvania- 47 to 45%
• Wisconsin- 46 to 44%

Ryan Lizza, writing for Politico this morning, was definitive: Sanders eviscerates the conventional wisdom about why he can't win. Lizza is no revolutionary but even he had to admit that Nevada exposed the opposition to Bernie "as weak, divided, and grasping at increasingly tenuous arguments about their viability." But his main point-- and his most important one-- is that Bernie "laid waste not just to his five main rivals but also to every shard of conventional wisdom about the Democratic presidential primaries." And it wasn't just the anti-working class media establishment that fell; it was also the anti-working class Democratic establishment that got flushed down the toilet. The leaders of powerful Culinary Union, went to war against Bernie over Medicare for All and were tasked by state party boss and anti-Bernie fanatic Harry Reid and by the DNC with weakening him. But the union's grassroots went with Bernie not their overseers. He won 34% of caucus-goers from union households, beating pretend union-supporter Status Quo Joe and all of his other rivals.

Lizza explained how Bernie's campaign "exploded a lot of myths," basically the bullshit the anti-working class pundits and Democratic establishment has been floating about his campaign to derail it. If you watch MSNBC, you can probably repeat all of them with ease.

He was said to have a ceiling of 30% or so. Remarkably, against a much larger field of candidates Sanders is poised to come close to the same level of support as he did in 2016 in a one-on-one race against Hillary Clinton, to whom he lost 47%-53%. (He was at 46% with a quarter of precincts reporting as of this writing.) He was said to be unable to attract anyone outside his core base. But he held his own with moderate voters (22%) and won across every issue area except voters who cared most about foreign policy, who went with Biden.

All of this makes the results of the Nevada caucuses, which in the past have not been treated with the same importance as the contests in the three other early states-- Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina-- matter more this year. They have helped settle lingering questions about Sanders' appeal.

Pete 3 by Nancy Ohanian

The momentum of Buttigieg, who was Sanders' strongest opponent in Iowa and New Hampshire, stalled out in Nevada. He slipped into third place, well behind Biden. Long-shot candidacies need to continue to surge forward with unexpected results to overcome doubts. But Buttigieg’s success in Iowa and New Hampshire was not enough to change the minds of enough people in Nevada. A victory here for him would have been catalytic, but the Sanders blowout has halted his rise. (He is still likely to be second behind Sanders in the delegate race, but the early states are all about momentum, not delegates.)

Let's wrap this up with two narrative versions of relevant Twitter threads from this morning, one from former insurance industry executive Wendell Potter and one from The Times' Paul Krugman. Potter first:

Tonight’s results in Nevada confirm something momentous that would have shocked me when I worked as a health insurance executive: Medicare for All is hugely popular & the winning position for Democrats. Between Iowa, New Hampshire and now Nevada, this is a fact. Here’s why:

Entrance polls out of Nevada show 6 in 10 want a single-payer system. Entrance and exit polls from Iowa & New Hampshire found 6 in 10 voters in both states support Medicare for All. All this after millions were spent by my old industry trying to scare voters away from it.

In Nevada, two top candidates, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, both put deceptive ads on the air attacking Medicare for All. They campaigned explicitly against Medicare for All. And they lost by 30 points.

With these three state results in, we now see that Medicare for All is popular in the Midwest, Northeast, and the West, all with different, diverse populations. Medicare for All can win anywhere-- as the primary's front-running campaign demonstrates.

We know the health insurance industry and its lobbyists won’t quit trying to scare the public. But politicians who parrot their talking points do so at their own peril. It's now clear: Medicare For All is the winning position in the 2020 Democratic primary. And opposing it is not.

And Krugman, the NY Times centrist economist who has been an opponent to much of Bernie's platform for years and who still opposes him but is willing to make the case for Bernie in the general election against Trump, unlike many of our MSNBC "friends," who-- largely to protect their tax breaks-- prefer Trump over Bernie:

Well, Bernie Sanders is now the clear favorite for the Democratic nomination. Lots of things to say about that, but the most important is that he is NOT a left-leaning version of Trump. Even if you disagree with his ideas, he's not a wannabe authoritarian ruler.

America under a Sanders presidency would still be America, both because Sanders is an infinitely better man than Trump and because the Democratic Party wouldn't enable abuse of power the way Republicans have.

And if you're worried about his economic agenda, what's your concern, exactly? That he'll run budget deficits? Trump is doing that already-- and the economic effects have been positive.

I'm more concerned about (a) electability and (b) if he does win, squandering political capital on unwinnable fights like abolishing private health insurance. But if he's the nominee, it's the job of Dems to make him electable if at all possible.

To be honest, a Sanders administration would probably leave center-left policy wonks like me out in the cold, at least initially. But this is no time for self-indulgence and ego trips. Freedom is on the line.

Marianne Williamson has gotten to know-- and generally like-- all the candidates running for president. Once she suspended her campaign, all the remaining candidates have reached out to her for her endorsement. She has a tendency to see what's good about each one-- and she was busy working on helping congressional candidates with platforms akin to her own... but this afternoon, she made her decision. Marianne Williamson is definitely feeling the Bern and has endorsed Bernie's campaign for the presidency!

Will Medicare-for-All Be An Electoral Winner?

This morning, Business Insider reported that "Nearly half of all US health spending is tied to admin management and the cost burdens associated with private insurance are being passed along to US consumers, making treatment an unmanageable expense. Patients are coughing up large portions of their budget on health, with the average non-elderly US family spending $8,200 per year on healthcare — or 11% of their income." That's $817 billion a year completely and utterly wasted-- $2,479 per patient.

And when we consider that 67% of all US bankruptcies are due to exorbitant healthcare costs, according to a 2019 study from the American Journal of Public Health, it's critical to recognize that the admin burden from private insurers-- contributing to a rise in overall healthcare spending by US patients-- is at least partially to blame for why health costs have become so unmanageable for so many people.

And anxieties around the possibility of medically induced poverty are driving poor health habits among US consumers. In a recent Gallup poll, 25% of US consumers said they or a family member had delayed treatment for a serious illness because of the high cost of care.

Such risky behavior could easily result in a negative feedback loop, whereby patients with otherwise treatable conditions develop worse, more complicated ailments simply due to a lack of financial resources.

Virtually all of the candidates congressional candidates on this page agree that adopting a single-payer Medicare For All system would solve the country's unsustainable admin cost crisis. That, basically, is Bernie's program and a big reason why he has been doing so well in the run-up to the primaries. But before we talk about the real winner in Iowa-- hopefully for the last time-- I want to run the final votes by, pending, of course, any corrections after whatever kind of a re-canvas they do, if they do. The first number shows how many votes each candidate got on the first ballot and the second number shows what each candidate got on the final ballot.

• Bernie- 43,671 ---> 45,826
• Mayo Pete- 37,557 ---> 43,195
• Elizabeth- 32,533 ---> 34,771
• Status Quo Joe- 26,384 ---> 23,691
• Klobuchar- 22,469 ---> 21,181
• Yang- 8,821---> 1,780
• Steyer- 3,083 ---> 413
• Bloomberg- 217 ---> 20
• Tulsi- 334 ---> 17
• Bennet- 164 ---> 4
• Deval Patrick- 50 ---> 0

The DNC and their establishment allies can spin it any way they want, but 45,826 votes is more than 43,195 votes, and this, according to Matt Taibbi "after four years of being shat upon by party officials and media allies alike (CNN and MSNBC are seen in Sanders crowds as Goebbelsian arms of the Democratic National Committee), Vermont’s anti-corporate crusader has defied odds and soared... After a vote in Iowa that reeked of third-world treachery-- from monolithic TV propaganda against the challenger to rumors of foreign intrusion to, finally, a 'botched' vote count that felt as legitimate as a Supreme Soviet election-- the Democrats have become the reactionaries they once replaced... DNC chair Tom Perez-- a triple-talking neurotic who is fast becoming the poster child for everything progressives hate about modern Dems-- called for an 'immediate recanvass.' He changed his mind after ten hours and said he only wanted 'surgical' reanalysis of problematic districts." On Saturday, Taibbi also summarized the 10 things that went wrong in Iowa from Deval Patrick Sweeps Des Moines! to Impossible Math.

So... the winner is... Medicare-for-All.





Iowa voters were bombarded by ads from candidates-- but also by the Sickness-Industrial Complex relentlessly pushing an anti-Medicare-for-All message. The transpartisan anti-healthcare coalition spent significantly over a million dollars on TV ads alone and over the summer, their shady PAC was on the air as much as all the candidates combined.

The pro- and anti-healthcare debate is playing out not just in Iowa and not just in the presidential race, but all over the country and in the congressional races as well. Medicare-for-All proponents, like Mike Siegel in Texas, are asking the voters to compare and contrast what the various candidates are offering. Mike is up against two anti-Medicare-for-All candidates in theTX-10 primary next week. He's asking voters to look at this:

I asked some of the other congressional candidates how Medicare-for-All is looking as an issue in their campaigns. Eva Putzova is running for Congress in a huge Arizona district that is currently represented by a very conservative "ex"-Republican, Tom O'Halleran, who now calls himself a Blue Dog. He opposes public healthcare in general and Medicare-for-All in particular. "Medicare for All," Eva told us, "is popular in my district and here is why: I was told by a mother that she can't afford insulin for her child because their insurance plan doesn't cover it. One person I know took an uber to the hospital instead of an ambulance, to avoid paying an exorbitant bill. Another told me that he can't afford to go to the doctor because he is in between jobs and has no insurance at all. This is the disgraceful private healthcare system we currently have in place which my opponent, the incumbent, seems to think is just fine and can be improved with a few tweaks. We need to completely overhaul this heartless system, eliminate the private insurance industry, strictly regulate the pharmaceutical industry and enact Medicare for All. This is what I will fight for when I am elected to Congress."

Cenk Uygur is running for Congress in the very northern tip of Los Angeles County (CA-25) and his top four jungle primary rivals are bought and paid for anti-healthcare reactionaries, Steve Knight (R), Christy Smith (D), Mike Garcia (R) and George Papadopolous (R). "Once I explain that Medicare for All is the only proposal that is universal healthcare 100% of Democratic voters are on my side," he told me this morning. "Once I explain that all other proposals, like the public option, maintain a system where you still have co-pays, premiums and deductibles 100% of Democratic voters are on my side. All of the media propaganda did was create a need to add a one sentence explanation. Now in politics that could be a significant handicap but even so, our ideas are wildly popular even with people lying about them and universally accepted when they know the truth."

Liam O'Mara is the progressive Democrat, campaigning strongly on single payer Medicare-for-All, taking on Trumpist Republican Ken Calvert in Riverside County. He told us that "Last week Ken Calvert sent a mailer to the entire district, Democratic as well as Republican households. In it he listed three policies-- impeachment, Medicare for all, and the Green New Deal. There was a green column under my name and 'supports' in each box, and a red column under his name with 'opposes' in each box. Quite a few people hopped onto my social media after that and said they were happy Calvert had introduced them to me, and many of those who knew me already thought it was my mailer. Republicans continue to run on having no ideas and simply opposing improvements in our quality of life. And in the end, how long will voters tolerate the negative-nancy routine? I, for one, look forward to the opportunity he has given me to make my pitch to his voters-- namely, that Medicare will lower their effective taxation, and let them keep much more of their own money."

Nabilah Islam is running for the open congressional seat in the suburbs north of Atlanta (GA-07) and is likely to face off against an anti-healthcare conservative extolling Austerity. She has a clear vision of what the problem is and told me that "40 million Americans don't have healthcare, an estimated 87 million Americans are underinsured and 135,000 people in my district alone don't have healthcare. Mothers are sitting in the parking lots of Emergency rooms hoping their children's fevers don't spike while others are rationing their insulin supplies and other life-saving drugs. Why? Because for-profit healthcare systems don't work. There isn't a single instance around the world of it working. That's why almost three-quarters of Georgia Democrats support Medicare for All. I believe healthcare is a fundamental human right and while I sit in a field of Democrats who disagree, It matters not to me because I will always fight for regular people. For everyday Americans, for the 67% percent of people who are forced into bankruptcy because of medical bills."

Briana Wu, on the other side of the country, in Boston, is as dedicated to Medicare-for-All as Liam is. "For some time now," she said, "Democrats across the country have been calling for Medicare For All. Studies have been released showing the growing cost of health care for all age groups and demographics. On the campaign trail, health care is consistently one of the top issues I hear about from voters. It’s clear to me that Medicare For All is the solution we need to provide universal coverage and keep costs down for working class Americans. Try telling that to my opponent, Stephen Lynch. He constantly dodges the issue of healthcare because his donors tell him to through their campaign contributions. We need to take back the Senate, win the presidency, and increase our progressive caucus in the House. When we do, we will have the political will to finally get Medicare For All passed and enacted into law."

Marie Newman's race for the Chicagoland seat held by Blue Dog Dan Lipinski is a classic struggle between someone invested in a more equitable economic system and the Blue Dog approach to pay-for-play, where only the donor class gets their interests represented. This morning, Newman told me that her "opponent is so afraid of expanding a tried and true program, like Medicare For All, he calls it 'socialism' and will require our taxes to 'double or triple.' He has not even read the bill. To which I say, debating policy on its content is fine, making up lies about it just tells me, you know it will work and it will affect your ability to get insurance and pharma companies to fund you."

Robin Wilt is running for Congress in a district that is represented by a mediocre, garden variety Democrat who sits up in the back benches and does whatever her's told by the leadership. Robin is anything but that. "Prior to enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)," she told me, "at a health care Town Hall that I helped organize in Rochester, NY in 2008, more than 500 people packed into a crowded auditorium to listen to two sitting members of Congress, a historian and a physician discuss the potential for implementing Medicare for All. As I connect with voters in our community today, access to health care and Medicare for All remain among the issues that most often arise. Despite the Affordable Care Act, nearly one million New Yorkers remains uninsured, and people with ever-more-ubiquitous high-deductible plans are struggling to access care, despite having health insurance. It’s no wonder that support for Medicare for All drove people to the polls in Iowa and continues to fuel an army of voters seeking change. 75% of Democratic voters support Medicare for All, and the New York Assembly has passed a statewide single payer plan four years in a row. Despite the widespread support, my opponent has steadfastly refused to support single payer at either the state or federal level. Medicare for All is at the centerpiece of my platform for people-centered policies for NY’s 25th Congressional District, and from the enthusiasm that I experience as I go door-to-door connecting with voters, it will be a winning issue as voters make their choices in our primaries. If voters in Monroe County want Medicare for All, there is only one choice among candidates, and that’s Robin Wilt."

Rachel Ventura, who is running for a seat mostly in Will County west of Chicago is far more progressive on healthcare-- and everything else, than the New Dem running against her, Bill Foster. "Passing Medicare for All won’t only give individuals healthcare," she told me, "it will also give them so many more freedoms. Freedom to choose their employer or their doctor for example. There are constituents in my district who can’t make above $2,000 a month or they will lose their access to Medicaid which is the only insurance they currently have. They can’t afford to buy insurance from the open market because it’s too expensive even if they’re in a better paying job. Unless the family is making more than $80,000 a year they just can’t afford healthcare if any member of their family is sick. Medicare for all will allow individuals to choose better employment, change employers, and more importantly select doctors that give them the best healthcare. Our healthcare system is not only keeping people sick, but it’s also keeping them broke."

As Daniel Strauss pointed out at Politico this past October, Mayo Pete pledged-- in no uncertain terms-- to support Medicare for All. The Question was "Can you affirmatively say that we need Medicare For All now and that insurance does not belong in healthcare? #SinglePayer" The response was "I, Pete Buttigieg, politician, do henceforth and forthwith declare, most affirmatively and indubitably, unto the ages, that I do favor Medicare for All, as I do favor any measure that would help get all Americans covered." Later, liking the taste of the money the 40 billionaires who are funding his campaign have sent his way, he found a way to worm out of that "unto the ages" pledge. Because he's a scumbag lying piece of shit politician. He calls his sleazy plan to kill Medicare-for-All, "Medicare for All Who Want It," the plan the anti-healthcare forces are pushing. Elizabeth Warren: "Whenever someone hears the term ‘Medicare for All Who Want It,’ understand what that really means. It's Medicare for all who can afford it."

Mayo Pete And Status Quo Joe Are Fighting For Less Choice In Healthcare

The B-Team-- not as bad as Trump

Everyone should know who Wendell Potter is by now. Aside from being a bestselling author and a advocate for health insurance reform, he's an outspoken former health insurance industry executive (CIGNA), who saw how the health insurance industry could easily game Obamacare and became an early advocate of Bernie's Medicare-for-All proposal. I want to put one of Potter's Twitter storms into narrative form here. Without mentioning them by name, it's an attack on the treacherous betrayals of working families by conservative Democrats Mayo Pete, Bloomberg and Status Quo Joe.

Lately I’ve noticed some Democratic politicians defending the current healthcare system by saying it preserves "choice" for Americans. As a former health insurance exec who helped draft this talking point, I need to come clean on its back story, and why it's wrong and a trap.

When I worked in the insurance industry, we were instructed to talk about “choice,” based on focus groups and people like Frank Luntz (who wrote the book on how the GOP should communicate with Americans). I used it all the time as an industry flack. But there was a problem.

As a health insurance PR guy, we knew one of the huge *vulnerabilities* of the current system was LACK of choice. In the current system, you can’t pick your own doc, specialist, or hospital without huge “out of network” bills. So we set out to muddy the issue of "choice."

As industry insiders, we also knew most Americans have very little choice of their plan. Your company chooses an insurance provider and you get to pick from a few different plans offered by that one insurer, usually either a high deductible plan or a higher deductible plan.

Another problem insurers like mine had on the “choice” issue: people with employer-based plans have very little choice to keep it. You can lose it if your company changes it, or you change jobs, or turn 26 or many other ways. This is a problem for defenders of the status quo.

Knowing we were losing the "choice" argument, my pals in the insurance industry spent millions on lobbying, ads and spin doctors-- all designed to gaslight Americans into thinking that reforming the status quo would somehow give them "less choice."

This isn't the only time the industry made "choice" a big talking point in its scheme to fight health reform. Soon after Obamacare was passed, it created a front group called the Choice and Competition Coalition, to scare states away from creating exchanges with better plans.

The difference is, this time Democrats are the ones parroting the misleading "choice" talking point. And they're even using it as a weapon against each other. Back in my insurance PR days, this would have stunned me. I bet my old colleagues are thrilled, and celebrating.

The truth, of course, is you have little "choice" in healthcare now. Most can’t keep their plan as long as they want, or visit any doctor or hospital. Some reforms, like Medicare For All, would let you. In other words, Medicare-for-All actually offers more choice than the status quo.

So if a politician tells you they oppose reforming the current healthcare system because they want to preserve "choice," either they don't know what they're talking about-- or they're willfully ignoring the truth. I assure you, the insurance industry is delighted either way.

Have you actually read Bernie's Medicare for All proposal, the real one, not the version being twisted out of shape by Mayo Pete, Status Quo Joe, the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and their lobbyists, the corrupted Democratic establishment and the Republican Party? These are the key points:

• Create a Medicare for All, single-payer, national health insurance program to provide everyone in America with comprehensive health care coverage, free at the point of service.
• No networks, no premiums, no deductibles, no copays, no surprise bills.
• Medicare coverage will be expanded and improved to include: include dental, hearing, vision, and home- and community-based long-term care, in-patient and out-patient services, mental health and substance abuse treatment, reproductive and maternity care, prescription drugs, and more.
• Stop the pharmaceutical industry from ripping off the American people by making sure that no one in America pays over $200 a year for the medicine they need by capping what Americans pay for prescription drugs under Medicare for All.

"Today," wrote Bernie, "more than 30 million Americans still don’t have health insurance and even more are underinsured. Even for those with insurance, costs are so high that medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States. Incredibly, we spend significantly more of our national GDP on this inadequate health care system-- far more per person than any other major country. And despite doing so, Americans have worse health outcomes and a higher infant mortality rate than countries that spend much less on health care. Our people deserve better. We should be spending money on doctors, nurses, mental health specialists, dentists, and other professionals who provide services to people and improve their lives. We must invest in the development of new drugs and technologies that cure disease and alleviate pain-- not wasting hundreds of billions of dollars a year on profiteering, huge executive compensation packages, and outrageous administrative costs. The giant pharmaceutical and health insurance lobbies have spent billions of dollars over the past decades to ensure that their profits come before the health of the American people. We must defeat them, together. That means joining every other major country on Earth and guaranteeing health care to all people as a right, not a privilege, through a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program."

And we'll end with a look at some new polling (just above) that measured support for Medicare-for-All among registered voters and also just among registered Catholic voters, using two different ways of framing the question. Looks like despite all the millions of dollars that Big PhRMA and the insurance company crooks-- plus the Status Quo Joe and Mayo Pete campaigns-- have spent denigrating it, voters still understand that Medicare-for-All is good for them and for their families.

Medicare-For-All? "Us Not Me" Will Win The Day AND That's Not To Dilute The Importance Of A Key Historical Figure Or Two

Hillary is being left behind by history-- but embraced by Big PhRMA

Last week Alexander Burns wasted a New York Times column on Hillary Clinton's opposition to Medicare-for-All. He caught up with her at the Times's DealBook conference, where she as much as endorsed Status Quo Joe by saying she "hoped for a return to 'boring, normal times' after the 2020 election, voicing skepticism of her party’s populist wing and predicting that Senator Elizabeth Warren’s proposal for single-payer health care would never get enacted." As she knows, the single-payer plan is Bernie's and it nearly kept her from her stolen nomination. She's still bitter and vindictive and said "Democrats should pursue the goal of universal health coverage, but through other means."

She was an activist conservative Republican well into her twenties and Burns, rather than admitting she's nothing but a conservative and neo-lib fronting for the donor class referred to her as "A longtime leader of her party’s moderate wing."

She can't get it through her head that the American people-- and Democrats even more so-- are demanding fairer tax policies that will cut deeply into the wealth of the criminal class the Clintons, Bidens, Bloombergs and Trumps belong to. "Clinton," wrote Burns, "was most blunt about Ms. Warren’s proposal to replace private health insurance with a single-payer system funded largely by taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Asked if she thought that proposal could get passed into law, Mrs. Clinton answered in the negative. 'No, I don’t-- I don’t,' she said. 'But the goal is the right goal.'" From 1905 to 1965 conservative Democrats like Clinton worked with the GOP to prevent Medicare, calling it impossible and a dream and then, when it became inevitable, watering it down so that Bernie's Medicare-for-All plan puts back in place everything the Clinton-types ripped out of it-- from universal coverage to dental care and equitable drug prices.

Speaking on Thursday at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, N.C., Ms. Warren was asked about Mrs. Clinton’s remarks.

"I’m saying, you don’t get what you don’t fight for,” she said in response. “You know, you got to be willing to get out there and fight.”

Mrs. Clinton’s comments suggest she remains skeptical of the populist forces on the rise in Democratic politics. While she did not endorse a candidate, she indicated a clear preference in one of the largest debates raging in the Democratic Party: whether to nominate a candidate who would make sweeping changes to the country’s government and economy, or someone who would restore something like normalcy in Washington.

“I would like us to return to a presidency where we don’t have to wake up every day worried,” Mrs. Clinton said, adding, “I’d like us to get back to sort of boring, normal times.”

Yesterday, bestselling author and a former health insurance industry executive Wendell Potter responded with a Tweet Storm. "Hillary," he began, "is remembering what happened in the 90s, when I worked at Humana and we tanked the nation’s first attempt at single payer since the famed Nixon/Kennedy failure. The industry came out with what are now its greatest hits-- like dubbing what we now call Medicare for All, 'government run health care.' Public opinion that had been rising in support of single payer dropped like a rock. Fast forward 25 years and the industry play now is the same as it was then. Why, then, should Clinton expect to feel any differently about passage of single payer?"

1- A majority of Americans who receive health insurance through their employer now say they support a switch to MedicareForAll.

2- A majority of small business owners support MedicareForAll. (96% of small employers already don’t offer health insurance because it’s too expensive, but this is still important.)

3- The number of Americans receiving health insurance through an employer is falling-- and now close to 50%, down from closer to 70% two decades ago.

4- And those that do get coverage through an employer increasingly find it too expensive. The average family insurance plan now costs more than $20,000 annually.

5- And furthermore, those people find it too expensive to use. Nearly 100 million Americans are now “underinsured”-- meaning their deductibles and copays are so high they can’t afford to go to a doctor or hospital if they need to.

6- A majority of Americans support MedicareForAll even after it has been attacked. Simply remind people they’re out-of-pocket costs, premiums and deductibles will go away-- and they’re all for it.

"Finally, and this is harder to track, we didn’t have politicians like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren ten and 25 years ago with the power those two have now. Their social media followings, their email lists, the media they draw-- it all contributes to getting out the truth about the broken for-profit health insurance system the industry was able to lie about for years. There’s now a chorus of voices, led by Sanders and Warren, that are saying, 'enough!'"

And history will remember Hillary, if at all, as nothing but a First Lady and a GOP victim

Shan Chowdhury is the progressive candidate taking on transactional, crooked conservative New Dem Gregory Meeks in southeast Queens. He's campaigning strongly for Medicare-for-All. This morning he told us that "When Hilary Clinton talks about bringing it back to normal, boring times, I think about how both parties passed the 1994 crime bill or when our military ventured into a series of senseless wars. Brushing aside the reality of what working class families have to go through is unconscionable. It tells the American people we don't deserve to have healthcare because protecting the profits of the healthcare industry is in their best interest."

Kim Williams is another progressive running for a seat occupied by a corrupt conservative Democrat, in her case, Blue Dog Jim Costa. Williams' campaign is premised on issues opposed by Republicans and Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party like Costa, Medicare-for-All being an especially important one. "Clinton," she told me, "stated that she wished we could return to a presidency 'where we don’t have to wake up every day worried.' The problem is that the good people in my district, who breathe the dirtiest air in America and can’t access decent healthcare or good paying jobs, will wake up everyday worried if we don’t bring about real change. This is another example of comfortable millionaires telling those facing medical bankruptcies to quiet down with little regard or understanding for the lived experiences of working class families in America. There’s a reason so many of us have had enough with the status quo, and Medicare for All will absolutely be enacted if we send the right people to represent us."

Saturday progressive Will County Democrat Rachel Ventura co-hosted a Medicare for All event with another Blue America-backed Chicagoland candidate, Robert Emmons, who's running to unseat Bobby Rush. Rachel told us that she and Robert "sat and listened to powerful stories from victims of the for-profit healthcare system. One woman, Wendy Schuster, a resident of Joliet said that she was paying about $20,000 a year in out of pocket healthcare expenses. As a cancer survivor Wendy said that fighting claims was a full-time job even though she had insurance."

Wendy shared a more disturbing, and sad story about her 38-year old cousin who was diagnosed with a hernia. The simple laparoscopic surgery to fix the hernia was not covered by his for-profit insurance company. They denied the claim stating that it was not medically necessary. On October 22nd, her cousin went home sick and started bleeding. He tried controlling the bleeding with towels, but it was not enough. Because his insurance company had denied him the care he needed to repair the hernia, her cousin bled to death, and was discovered 48 hours later.

Every year, over 40,000 Americans die just like Wendy’s cousin because the Hillary Clintons, the Joe Bidens and the Bill Fosters of the world rather fight for the for-profit healthcare industry than fight to fix the broken system.

Another victim of the for-profit insurance industry and resident of Joliet, Janet Diaz, said that she was angry at the healthcare industry. As a Certified Nurses Assistant, Diaz worked at Silver Cross Hospital and had excellent health insurance. She was injured at work and the insurance companies passed the buck back and forth between workers compensation and her Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurance plan. In the end, she got stuck with nearly $250,000 in medical bills. She had to quit-claim deed her home to her parents to protect her home from the for profit healthcare industry. Diaz concluded by saying, “we need our Senators and our Congressmen to have the same insurance that we have, and the same insurance that the homeless guy down the street has, and until that happens, we are not going to get the good healthcare that we need. Medicare for All is the only way to go. Medicare for most does not cut it.”

We also heard from a union electrician from Aurora, Mike O’Connell who described himself as a cancer survivor who had to use his “Cadillac insurance” plan. Even though he had used his insurance, O’Connell did not agree with the AFL-CIO messaging that union members prefer private insurance over Medicare for All. Mike used a slide to show us that over 28% of his paycheck was going to pay for healthcare costs, including $24,000 per year that went to private insurance companies. He showed us that under a Medicare for All plan that he would instead be paying only $8,200 per year. “Medicare for All would let me put $19,097 more in my pocket every year,” said O’Connell. “I support Medicare for All. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

These stories are tragic, and I feel like America is becoming numb to these tragedies and they are becoming the norm. The unwillingness of our political leaders to do anything is barbaric. What is even more tragic is that the solution is right in front of us and it is an easy solution, Improved Medicare for All. We have the money and we can afford to change things. Once again, we see a broken system in America where we allow wealthy donors to dictate the quality of life, or life itself for everyone else.

Robert Emmons and Rachel Ventura 

UPDATE from Columbus, Ohio:

Morgan Harper is the progressive reformer running for Columbus seat occupied by old school, do-nothing Democrat Joyce Beatty. A few minutes ago, Morgan told us that "Almost every single person I meet while door knocking in OH-03 cites health care costs as their main issue. The employer-based system we have is not working. It gives insurance companies all of the power. Medicare for All would ensure that everyone in this country has access to quality health care, and that we are able finally to control the costs of care. I am firmly committed to making this goal a reality when I get to Congress. We have to do better."