 In the same week, not one, but two studies confirmed what we've been saying on this program from the beginning of this program. That Medicare for All, healthcare being free at the point of service, is essential not only because it eliminates this bizarre phenomenon known as medical debt, but because it saves lives. Bernie Sanders has been right from the beginning. And any politician, Democratic or Republican who fear mongers about Medicare for All, calling it either a communist takeover or a threat because he wants to get rid of private insurance is lying to you at the behest of their health industry donors. The reason why we don't have Medicare for All is not because it's too expensive. It's not because we don't know how to implement what every other developed country has been able to implement, but it's because of corruption. The health insurance industry has bought off all of our governments. And because of that, we're stuck with this for-profit system that isn't intended to help cure sick people. It's about profits. And that's exclusively the point of our for-profit healthcare system. Now, in the first peer-reviewed study that I want to talk about published in Proceedings of the National Academy, they find that the number of total lives that could have been saved in 2020 from both COVID and non-COVID related deaths was upwards of 210,000. And over the course of 2021 and through part of 2022, more than 338,000 COVID deaths were specifically attributable to incomplete insurance in the United States. Now, in a summary written by Dylan Scott of Vox, he explains nobody would have lost health insurance as a result of job loss from the pandemic's shock to the economy. The study estimates that 14.5 million Americans lost employer-based coverage in March and April of 2020, though some of those people would end up being covered by Medicaid. Research has repeatedly shown being uninsured leads to patients delaying healthcare and worse health outcomes. More insured people would have meant more cases being diagnosed and getting treated sooner, reducing the likelihood of severe disease or death. Vaccination rates would likely have been higher, and therefore there would have been fewer severe cases and deaths if more Americans had a relationship with a primary care doctor, which one in four people in the U.S. don't. So I feel like this is common sense, but this is just more confirmation that we need to go to a Medicare for All system yesterday, even before the pandemic. A study showed that 68,000 people were dying every single year due to a lack of healthcare. And of course, it makes sense to think that a pandemic is going to exacerbate a problem that already existed within the United States. Now, Joe Biden ran against Medicare for All, but specifically he said that he supports a public option. Have we heard any talks of that? Now, in my opinion, a public option is not a very good idea because the theory is you get these private insurance companies to compete with a government run health insurance program. And that sounds good on paper, but in practice, what's going to happen? Well, health insurance companies like Aetna like Blue Cross Blue Shield will push everyone onto the public plan, market cheaper alternatives to healthier people. And then the public version will be underfunded and overburdened, and then it will fail and when it inevitably fails. Well, Republicans will use that as evidence that government run health insurance doesn't work, which is why there's no reason to go from our system now to a public option to Medicare for All. We need to go straight to Medicare for All because we know that's what works. And I think that saving lives is the most important thing. But even for the people who managed to survive, they are still dealing with the effects of our horrible healthcare system. An article published on June 16th in NPR states that more than 100 million Americans have medical debt. 100 million Americans. That's almost one in three. And in the past five years, more than half of U.S. adults report they've gone into debt because of medical or dental bills. The Kaiser Family Foundation poll found cited in this article, by the way. A quarter of adults with healthcare debt owe more than $5,000 and about one in five with any amount of debt said they don't expect to ever pay it off. About one in seven people with debt said they've been denied access to a hospital, doctor, or other provider because of unpaid bills, according to the poll. And even greater share, about two thirds, have put off care they or their family member need because of cost. Now medical debt disproportionately affects black and brown people and about 63% of debt holders say that they're forced to cut spending on food, take up extra work, and they've even used them most of their savings because of said medical debt. Now even a substantial number of higher income families are affected by medical debt. 45% of people who earn more than $90,000 annually have had medical debt within the last five years. This is insane. This is not a phenomenon in other countries. Canada, for example, they don't know about the concept of medical debt. It's foreign to them quite literally because they've never experienced it. In the UK, they've never had to deal with not getting healthcare because they can't afford it because they don't have enough money saved. That is a foreign concept to them. But in the United States, we pretend as if we're the only country that exists on this planet and we refuse to look to other countries and see what they've done. But in actuality, that's a little bit of a misstatement to say because, again, the studies have been clear for decades now. For decades now, but the reason why we won't move to Medicare for All is because of corruption. We have a late-stage capitalist society and every single aspect of our lives has been commodified. And healthcare has always been a commodity in the United States when that should just be a public service offered by the government and part of the social contract. But it's not. And we allow these private insurance companies to lobby and buy off politicians with legalized bribes in the form of campaign contributions. And that obviously has an impact on them, right? At best, we get a couple of people a handful of true supporters of Medicare for All in Congress. But we also see a lot of people who fake support in order to get the left and healthcare activists off their backs. For example, Tim Ryan, he ran for president in 2020 and previously he co-sponsored Medicare for All. When it was HR 676 at the time, he co-sponsored that legislation. But when he was running for president, started taking money or bribes, I should say, from the health insurance industry, what did he do? Well, he flipped and said, if it came to a floor vote, I would vote against it. I don't support Medicare for All now. So even if you see someone who is ostensibly an ally, they could flip like that. They could be bought off because of how influential the health industry is. So it is truly ridiculous how we have to continue to cite these studies again and again. You know the studies, the statistics, the facts, it's out there. So the answer is obviously to do what is logical and move to a Medicare for All system. But they have every excuse in the book, oh, well, it's too difficult to do that. It costs too much money. Actually, overall healthcare spending in this country decreases. Yes, you increase federal spending, but you reduce spending at the state and local level. There's every excuse in the book and we've talked through them. How are we going to pay for that? We could pay for wars, but how do we pay for this, saving people's lives? It's just, it's infuriating at this point. So I'm with Jen Perlman when she says that if you are against Medicare for All, you are as loony as flat earthers because to see article after article, peer-reviewed study after peer-reviewed study, proving that Medicare for All is a lifesaver and a cost saver and would reduce debt and still reject that, you're literally just rejecting reality at this point. It is the obvious common sense solution. And the reason why we don't have it yet is because our politicians are spineless cowards who refuse to betray the trust of their corporate donors. That's the story. That's why we don't have it. That's why they're letting people die. It's because they take money from their health insurance industry donors and every single politician, Democrat or Republican, who denies Medicare for All, who refuses to support Medicare for All, should be shamed for the rest of their lives because the blood of these deaths are on their hands. Do you enjoy watching independent news shows like The Humanist Report, The Rational National and The Majority Report, but oftentimes YouTube doesn't deliver our videos to your subscription box? Well, I've got a solution for you. It's called the Optout app available right now in the iOS app store coming soon to Android. Optout is an app made by and for progressives where they take all of the most popular independent news shows and they put them in one convenient location. You'll find all your favorites on there like The Humanist Report, The Rational National, The Majority Report and the app is updated multiple times per day so your news feed is constantly up to date. 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