 So a couple of weeks ago on the program, we talked about Elizabeth Warren's financing plan for Medicare for all And I think that you all know by now that I'm not too happy with it I think that her head tax as a means of financing Medicare for all is incredibly regressive I think that the best way to do it is through a 7.5 percent payroll tax because if you're doing Medicare for all Then you have to do it right you have to make sure that it's solvent You have to make sure that we can fully fund it for generations to come because if it's not fully funded then what's gonna happen? Well, you're going to have to strip away benefits There's going to be calls for privatization and there's already going to be calls for privatization So you have to basically construct a Medicare for all system that is fail-proof, right? It can't fail but with Elizabeth Warren's plan I don't think that she's worried so much about creating a robust health care system as she is about appeasing her critics however, I can put that criticism aside and just accept that She still was seemingly at that point in time committed to single-payer Although now she released a Medicare for all transition plan that should once and for all put to rest this notion that she's serious about Medicare for all Because she's not serious about Medicare for all now when I think about a transition plan for Medicare for all I'm thinking about after it's already passed once it's signed into law What the implementation will look like but what she rolls out here essentially is a roadmap as to how she's going to get Medicare for all Past now she tweeted about this saying today. I'm sharing my plan to transition to Medicare for all in my first term We will reverse Trump's sabotage of the ACA Lower drug prices lower the Medicare age to 50 and create a true Medicare for all option and fully transition to Medicare for all As president I'll reverse Donald Trump's efforts to sabotage the affordable care act and will protect people with pre-existing Conditions and in my first 100 days I'll take executive and legislative action to reduce health care costs and improve coverage First I'll act immediately as president to lower the costs of critical drugs Including specific drugs that millions of Americans currently rely on like insulin and EpiPens and I'll crack down on corruption To rein in health insurers and drug companies next in my first 100 days I'll use the same process Mitch McConnell used to try and kill the ACA to bypass the filibuster and create a true Medicare for all Option more generous than one proposed by any other campaign to begin the transition to Medicare for all This Medicare for all option will be open to everyone and includes all the healthcare benefits of Medicare for all It will be immediately free for nearly half of all Americans Including all children under 18 and anyone with income at or below 200% of the federal poverty level I'll also let anyone over the age of 50 join the existing Medicare program And I'll improve its benefits and reduce its costs for everyone We will continue to move forward on health care throughout my term Including by investing 100 billion dollars in new breakthrough medical research and by creating a new drug development institute At the NIH and now here's the kicker by the end of my third year I'll fight to pass legislation to complete the transition to Medicare for all once millions have experienced the full benefits of a Medicare for all Option and compared it to the corrupt and wasteful system. We have today. The people will demand it now If this were just one policy proposal where you pass Medicare for all and it starts out with a public option that you Can buy into and then towards the end of the third year Everyone's enrolled in Medicare for all that would be one thing But what she's doing is she's taking the health care battle and she's dividing it She's saying first we are going to prioritize a public option We're going to have a means test the public option Medicare for all who wants it if you will and we're gonna pass that and Once I've finished fighting for that once I spent all my political capital fighting on that After the first midterm of my presidency assuming I'll be able to hold on to the House and the Senate Which Obama and Trump were both not able to do but she's gonna be different Assuming she'll still have the House and Senate in her third year of her first term Well, then that's when we're going to fight for another piece of major health care legislation Medicare for all and I'm gonna get all this accomplished While not having a real grassroots movement behind me fighting with me for this This should tell you that she's not serious about Medicare for all her priorities are laid out right here She's prioritizing a public option and Medicare for all. She's not prioritizing that She's willing to wait until the third year of her presidency when she probably will lose popularity like most presidents do and not have Congress behind her and That's when she's going to fight for Medicare for all so that way when it inevitably fails She can throw her hands up and say well look I tried she is not serious about Medicare for all Now the thing that irritates me I think the most is that actual well-meaning people proponents of Medicare for all like Pramila Jayapal and Adi Barkin They're touting this as a brilliant move by Elizabeth Warren to get Medicare for all passed But this is not Elizabeth Warren playing 40 chess This is Elizabeth Warren Communicating to you in a pseudo wonkish Unnecessarily convoluted way that she in fact is not serious about Medicare for all and what she's trying to do is appease progressives and centrists at the same time by adopting both of their plans and really if you think about it She's adopting one plan a public option because if you are prioritizing one plan over the other Then you're not serious about the other plan, right? Because if you want Medicare for all we all know there's no reason to disaggregate this fight to divide up health care reform You just pass Medicare for all with all the issues that we have to address Climate change campaign finance reform student loan debt cancellation. Why on earth would you choose? To create another obstacle for yourself when you already know that This is going to be a massive battle a public option will be a gigantic battle But now she's saying I don't want to just wage that massive battle. I want a second massive battle to deal with I Mean look she's not serious about Medicare for all now I think that Carl Beiger of Jacobin Perfectly illustrated how this is actually going to play out during the first legislative push Republicans would argue that Warren's first bill is a radical communist government power grab doomed to dysfunction and failure and Single-payer activists would be backed into either abandoning the project or insisting that yes The public-private plan is actually quite reasonable and good This would one split the movement along entirely predictable lines that are completely familiar to left organizers Let's work with Democrats versus we must hold the line to undermine the commitment and investment of Activists who have reluctantly decided to support a bill that is at odds with what they think really needs to happen with healthcare in the u.s Three center warrants first plan as the reasonable compromise and the second plan as an unnecessarily radical instance of Democrats pressing their advantage and for exhaust everyone before picking the second fight There is no way the fight for single-payer would survive warrants plan It is practically tailor-made to divide depress Marginalize and exhaust any political will for single-payer before we've even begun the final fight That is exactly how this will play out now the crux of warrants argument Is that the reason why it's going to be easier to pass Medicare for all in year three once? We already established a public option is because once people get a taste of a government run healthcare plan Well, they're going to demand it, but what do you think is the more likely scenario? Let's assume she's successful and she passes a public option in year one Do you think that Americans will just become complacent and Want to move on to the next issue or do you think they'll still be energized to fight for Medicare for all? There's a lot of issues healthcare isn't the only thing people want her to focus on I think that people would probably just settle for a public option and be temporarily satisfied with it and think look We got the public option. Let's move on to something else We don't need to wage this Medicare for all battle right now Although 10 years later, you know once she fails to deliver Medicare for all after getting a public option While the public option will inevitably fail because it will become overburdened and underfunded and when we start talking about healthcare reform again centrists and Republicans will point to Elizabeth Warren's public option as proof that government run healthcare just doesn't work and then actually Codifying Medicare for all into law will be that much more difficult to achieve So what she's trying to do cleverly? So I think is she's hiding the fact that she's triangulating by cloaking her plan and Technocratic language, but when you remove all the fluff away What remains is the fact that she's not prioritizing Medicare for all she's prioritizing a public option She's telling you Medicare for all is not a priority for me a public option is Now the real tell is what Wall Street thinks about this plan and as Doug Henwood of Jack been explains Wall Street doesn't believe Elizabeth Warren is serious about Medicare for all and he asks is Elizabeth Warren's Medicare for all phase-in plan a shrewd realistic tactical move to win a public health system or a Baton switch to play to Medicare for all's popularity without actually fighting for it Wall Street things It's the latter now he goes on to explain how a report from Barclays analyst Stephen Valiquette Views her plan as a significant change in tone and he writes Healthcare stocks rallied on the release of warrants plan meaning that Wall Street, which isn't always right But does have some skill in decoding political bullshit sees her plan as Political bullshit Additionally Barclays estimates a Warren style buy-in would boost humanity's earnings per share EPS by 50 cents That's not a massive windfall given current EPS of just under $19 But it is a step in the wrong direction since companies like Humana need to be put out of business as a serious Medicare for all plan Would do so Wall Street who has the most lose from a single-payer system Isn't worried about Elizabeth Warren That should tell you a lot that should tell you everything you need to know because candidates who support a public option They're doing it because they want to make sure that we can Keep that a private insurance system intact Which means that you don't believe that health care should be about the delivery of health care You think that there should be a profit motive which means that you're not serious about the decommodification of health care Now I want to share another argument This is from Ryan Cooper of the week who explains how it's really important to not compromise before Negotiations even begin he writes instead of worrying about the McKinsey mayor more not to worry more about alienating Sanders supporters and dedicated health care activists who have sunk enormous political capital into Medicare for all as a rallying point And I've been repeatedly betrayed by the Democratic establishment It may be necessary to accept half a loaf in the negotiation stage But only then and only because moderates wouldn't accept anything better Retreat and hesitation before a single primary election has been held signals a lack of commitment Warren should have stuck to her guns, but she didn't She didn't stick to her guns But someone who is going to stick to their guns is Bernie Sanders who tweeted this out after she released her so-called Transition plan to Medicare for all in my first week as president. We will introduce Medicare for all Legislation and there you have it if you support Medicare for all then you pass Medicare for all You don't pass a public option first you pass Medicare for all There's no path to Medicare for all other than passing it and signing it into law Bernie Sanders stands alone here in being the only candidate who actually wants to fully Decommodify health care in the United States of America So the false equivalencies between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders need to stop He's the one candidate who is serious about Medicare for all she can support it in a rhetoric She can be a phenomenal ally on the debate stage when she's teaming up with Bernie Sanders to argue about single-payer versus You know a multi-payer system with centrists But let's be real Elizabeth Warren is not serious about Medicare for all and in the event. She becomes president I don't believe we are going to get Medicare for all I would be surprised if she even fought for Medicare for all Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who's proposing a true single-payer system that I know will fight for it Other people are not serious about it. You can get Tulsi Gabbard's single-payer plus I guess the plus signifies plus private which means it's multi-payer Where she's basically Creating a plan that sounds like a two-tiered system, which is garbage You need to take the profit motive out or Elizabeth Warren who will pay you lip service and say she supports Medicare for all But she's not going to prioritize it I mean look if you truly believe in Medicare for all if you want people to stop dying and going bankrupt if you want a Healthcare system that strips out that profit motive and gets rid of private insurance. There's one candidate who has made it crystal clear They're going to fight for it. It's Bernie Sanders And if you're not going to prioritize that on day one, then you're going to put it on the back burner And it's not going to pass so Elizabeth Warren is no Bernie Sanders And I think to call Elizabeth Warren diet Bernie Sanders. I think that's giving her too much credit as well She's not even diet Bernie Sanders, right? She is a fairly left-leaning Democrat in the Senate comparatively, but she's nowhere near Bernie Sanders domestically and on foreign affairs on domestic policy She doesn't believe in 100% student loan debt cancellation. She doesn't believe in medical debt cancellation on foreign policy She's atrocious. It's Bernie Sanders rally behind Bernie Sanders if you actually want someone who will bring about Structural change in this country because Elizabeth Warren Isn't going to do it and I think she's made that clear throughout the course of this primary You could support the humanist report at patreon.com Slashed humanist report But trust me, I'd have way more supporters at patreon if that was my podcast said