 I want to take some time to talk about Dr. Dean Waldman. Now, you may not know who this individual is, but he is a medical doctor, he's a professor, and he is also a published author who has written extensively about the U.S. healthcare system. So just by telling you that, you might think, wow, this sounds like someone who's really informed. He must be an expert. And he certainly thinks that he's an expert and he thought that it was really important that he share his expertise with all of us. So he penned an op-ed for The Hill and it'll kind of tell you the extent of his knowledge. I'm just gonna read you the title. You ready? Quote, prepare for buyer's remorse when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris nationalize healthcare. A so-called expert thinks that Joe Biden is going to nationalize healthcare in the United States. I'm not kidding when I say there's a greater likelihood that Trump will nationalize healthcare before he leaves office. To think that Joe Biden is going to nationalize healthcare, that's not just laughable, that's delusional. Like you're in the same delusional territory as the MAGA chuds who think that Donald Trump actually won the selection. Like that's a joke, it's laughable. Joe Biden is literally the candidate that the health insurance industry bet on during the Democratic Party primaries to save them from the popularity of Medicare for All. So I mean, this really goes to show you how delusional right-wingers are and we don't have to be more charitable here. We don't even have to go beyond the headline because I think it speaks for itself. Nonetheless, we're gonna be kind and let's just hear him out. He writes, nationalization of healthcare will involve some combination of the Biden healthcare plan with Bernie Sanders single payer Medicare for All, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris strongly supports Medicare for All as detailed in HR 1384, a February 2019 bill that was never brought to a vote in Congress. While there are some technical differences between the two plans, there are numerous common elements. The overarching theme is the federal choice replacing individual or patient choice. The very first word of the Biden plan sets a tone for Americans dependence on Washington. The federal government quote gives, despite Biden's campaign promise to the contrary, private health insurance policies will cease to be available, I wish. Section 202 of Medicare for All prohibits private insurance by law. The Biden plan would create a public option which is a taxpayer supported government insurance company. By low balling prices, Washington will drive private insurance companies out of the market. Either way, Americans will have only one insurance option what the federal government decides for us. Now the article goes on a little bit longer but he basically just talks about why he believes nationalization is bad. But he kind of has this thinking that he has already established, it as a matter of fact, that Joe Biden is going to nationalize healthcare in the United States, which is why he goes on to explain why that's bad. But that's all the evidence that he presented that Joe Biden is going to nationalize healthcare. That's it. He supports a public option. First of all, we don't even know if Joe Biden is really committed to a public option. Second of all, if Joe Biden actually does go through with a public option and we get a public option, there's no guaranteed that that's going to be a robust public option that actually offers buyers a lot. And if he does offer us a public option, that isn't nationalization. That's an attempt to save our capitalist system as it is. Really what a public option would do in actuality is it would drive the sick, disadvantaged people onto the public option. And a public option would be underfunded and overburdened because private insurance companies would market cheaper plans that are less comprehensive to people who don't need healthcare, people who are younger and healthier. And as a result, the so-called public option will ultimately fail unless it is constantly updated and tweaked. But we know in our late stage capitalist society, Republicans will do everything in their power to strip away benefits from it and it won't last. So the fact that he thinks that a public option will basically act as a gateway to nationalization is a joke. It's a joke, even in the best case scenario for a public option, if it was the best, most comprehensive public option imaginable, immediately when Republicans take power, they're going to chip away at it. So it's a joke. And he really shows you how stupid he is when he speaks about Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All plans as if they're the same. Kamala Harris' plan is not real single pair. It's a fake Medicare for All bill that was created to placate members of the left who she pissed off when she moved away from Medicare for All. But he says that the reason why Bernie and Kamala's plans are the same basically is because the overarching theme is the federal choice replacing individual or patient choice. What does that mean exactly? Choice for what? What choice is being taken away from us because we don't have choice currently? We have a limited array of options if we're lucky enough to even get health insurance and we don't get to choose who our doctors are. That's restricted to whoever is within our network and offered to us. Furthermore, we don't even get the choice of choosing everything that's covered unless we want to pay an arm and a leg. So the choice that he's talking about is really your choice of private insurance but actually what we want in terms of choice in healthcare is to choose our doctor, choose which hospitals and doctors offices we can go to. If everything is comprehensive and covered, that's when our choices as consumers are maximized but this dunce, he doesn't get it. He's supposed to be an expert but the things that he's saying, these are like basic things that he gets wrong. All you have to do is look at any other country with either a national healthcare system like the UK or a single payer system and you'll see that the things that you're saying are not only wrong but they're laughably stupid. Now the last thing that I want to say is that he assumes that in the event that Joe Biden actually did this and we got a nationalized healthcare system, we would have quote buyers remorse. Is that so? Why don't you talk to anyone in the UK? Just pick anyone off the streets and ask them if they have buyers remorse about their national healthcare system. If you try to take away their NHS system, they would riot. So it's not going to be the case that Joe Biden gives us a national healthcare system. I wish that were true. I mean, he would be awesome. I would love Joe Biden if that were the case. But he's just a neoliberal, like any other Republican when it comes to healthcare. I mean, he might not want to take away healthcare as much as Republicans, but he's not for offering comprehensive healthcare. But if you ask someone in the UK or you talk to someone in Canada about their single payer system, there's no buyers remorse there. It's incredibly popular. And this guy is stupid, but he's got to know that that's why he wants to stop it from happening because if it did happen, there would be no buyers remorse. Once you give people healthcare, taking it away from them would be extremely unpopular, which is why there's always backlash whenever we talk about or we hear about cuts to Medicare being talked about. So I don't know how a so-called expert could be this stupid when it comes to basic facts about Joe Biden's position on healthcare and our healthcare system overall, but it's entertaining at least, I guess. You know, you know this, you know this thing. Get nervous, man.