 I want to take some time to talk about health care reform because it is bound to come up within the next four years, most likely two years if it's going to have a chance of passing in whatever form that may be. But before we get started, I do want to take some time to debunk this myth that I've even heard among leftists that Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 Democratic Party primary is somehow evidence that the Democratic Party's base rejected Medicare for All and that voters overall rejected Medicare for All because we all know that voters made a strategic calculation. They chose to support Joe Biden because they believed rightly or wrongly that he was more electable than Bernie Sanders. This is what was burned into their brains by the mainstream media. So it's not, you know, a repudiation of Medicare for All because Bernie Sanders lost. Let's be real about that. Having said that though, Bernie Sanders as his campaign gained momentum, Medicare for All did as well. And the private insurance industry was absolutely shitting themselves as they saw Bernie Sanders rise. In fact, when he reintroduced his Medicare for All plan, health care stocks literally dropped. And as a result, private insurance companies started to actually offer more benefits to the public because they knew they had a PR crisis on their hands. And voters looked like they were going to opt for the candidate that was going to get rid of private insurance. Now, during this time, health insurance companies actually backed Biden because he was the one candidate that they viewed could not only beat Bernie, but save their asses. Now, unfortunately, they got what they wanted. Bernie Sanders was defeated and effectively the threat of Medicare for All has been neutralized, at least for now, in their eyes. But they got more than that. Not only were they saved by Joe Biden's campaign being victorious, basically when it comes to private health insurance companies, they had to stop worrying the minute the Democratic Party primary was over, because regardless if Joe Biden won or Donald Trump was reelected, the status quo would be preserved. Private insurance companies would not be going anywhere. The only time they were fearful was when they believed that Bernie Sanders was going to be the president. But now it's not just that they've been saved. Their lives have been spared. But they're now in the driving seat once again, because according to the Daily Poster, they have basically been able to write Joe Biden's health care proposal, at least when it comes to COVID relief and what he wants to do about the fact that millions of people are losing their employer based health insurance. Now, before we talk about that and read that article, I just got to say that like any folks who ran the Democratic Party and their argument about against Medicare for all, rather, is that people like their employer based health insurance. Let's just remember that all of these people look like dumbasses right now, because during this pandemic, how many people lost their jobs as a result of COVID-19? And as a result, lost the insurance that was connected to their jobs. So that argument has imploded and now none of them are saying anything. Do you hear Amy Klobuchar or Pete Buttigieg or John Delaney trying to come up with some different solution? No. And the issue isn't that they actually believe that this is what they were paid to say. If you take financial contributions from the private insurance industry, from Big Pharma, then you are going to work backwards from the conclusion that private insurance is good and single payer Medicare for all is bad. But in actuality, the opposite is true, because when it comes to Medicare for all studies show not only is it more affordable, but it actually works better. There's a reason why once you adopt a single payer system or a national health care system, you don't go back from that. Like imagine if Canada or the UK converted from a private or from a public system to a private American like system. Any politicians who propose this or advocate for this position are laughed out of the fucking room and even conservatives in Canada and the UK have to at least pretend that they support the public system of health care that they have. Otherwise, you know, citizens would would rage over it. Americans don't know what they got. So if you give it to them, it's going to be a lot harder to take away from them. So look, here's the thing. I'm willing to forgive any politician who was wrong about Medicare for all, but it's now actually revisiting their position during a pandemic, because I think that this proved that they were wrong about Medicare for all. Private insurance is not desirable and it's volatile. We don't need more volatility when it comes to health care. We need stability. So what Bernie Sanders is proposing is absolutely brilliant. And it's the bare minimum that we should expect from government during a pandemic. So as Jacobin reports, Bernie Sanders is pushing a new proposal as part of the stimulus bill that would give everyone free health care during the pandemic. His plan would get us qualitatively closer to Medicare for all. And we should all rally behind it. Now, this makes sense because we're in a pandemic and we don't have time to be playing games and arguing with our private insurance companies if we even have health insurance at this point. But strategically, this is brilliant because what Bernie Sanders is doing is he's basically playing chicken with corporate Democrats. He's saying, look, you all told me and the American people during the primaries that Americans love their employer based health insurance. Well, now they're losing that. So if people will actually hate Medicare for all, as much as you said they would, then prove it. Let's expand Medicare to everyone during the pandemic and we'll test your theory out. Let's put it in practice, but they will not do that because they know that if they actually do what Bernie Sanders is proposing, which is common sense during a pandemic, you're not going to be able to take it away from people. Once you give them health care, it is going to be incredibly difficult to take it away once they realize that they've been missing out this entire time. Once they realize that they're getting a raw deal compared to our neighbors north of the border in Canada and the UK and any developed, reasonable country. So, you know, this is something that I really hope people do rally around because it's not like we're seemingly too unreasonable. We know that Joe Biden doesn't support Medicare for all. So we are responding to that. We're trying to work within those, you know, unique parameters. But we're saying, OK, well, we know that permanently we don't we're not going to get Medicare for all under Joe Biden. So let's just do it for the duration of the pandemic. Yeah, we know what that's going to turn into. So it's really clever on Bernie Sanders' behalf. And look, he may not even be thinking that far ahead. He may not even be playing like 90 chess. But this is what will happen. Like you can't give somebody something and then take it away. It's incredibly unpopular. It's why politicians have failed from both parties to cut social security because they love social security. And whenever they try to cut social security or privatize social security, there's always hell to be paid. So the question is, since Joe Biden is not on board with what I think is reasonable, Medicare for all, at least during the pandemic, what is he actually proposing since people are losing their health insurance and since now the crisis has worsened? Well, as Julia Rock and Andrew Perez of the Daily Post report, President-elect Joe Biden's new covid relief plan does not adopt existing democratic legislation to expand government-sponsored medical coverage, nor does it propose a promised public health insurance option. Instead, it adopts proposals from health insurance lobbying groups recent letter to lawmakers demanding lucrative new subsidies for insurance companies at a moment when those corporations have recorded record profits as millions lose coverage and many face claim denials. Biden's plan would shovel millions of dollars to private health insurers by providing subsidies for Americans to buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, which are far more expensive than government health care programs and have at times been plagued by high rates of claim denials. The plan would also subsidize Cobra continuation coverage through September, allowing workers to keep their employer health insurance plans when they're laid off. Those initiatives, which could further boost insurers' skyrocketing profits, were recently recommended in a letter to lawmakers from America's Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, two insurance lobbying groups in Washington that have opposed the expansion of government-sponsored health care programs. A few days later, after the letter was sent, AHAIP said that health insurance providers are eager to assist the Biden health team. I'm sure they are. Biden's inaugural committee has received donations from at least two major health insurers, Anthem and Centine, which both offer plans on state marketplace exchanges. Centine CEO bundled donations for Biden's presidential campaign and Biden's first major campaign fundraiser was headlined by Independence Blue Cross's CEO. Now, the article states that the public option, at least for now, has basically been sidelined and there are conflicting reports and indications about whether or not Joe Biden has moved away from it altogether. I wouldn't be surprised because we've been here before. We've seen this story. He proposed the public option and then backed away from it during the Obama era. But basically think of how absurd this system is. These private insurance companies are basically writing a letter to the government saying, hey, it'd be a really great idea if you gave us money. Like we already do this. Like we pump millions and millions of dollars into the health care system and into these private plans so that way they'll be cheaper and offer more benefits and it never is a long term solution. Otherwise, the Affordable Care Act would have ended this debate. So only in a capitalist system do you get this kind of ass backwards policy proposal where you have big government funding health insurance companies when they could easily just cut out the middleman like that and save billions of dollars every single fucking year. We know what the solution is. Like the fact that we're still having this debate is insane. As Jen Perlman says it, like anyone in 2020 and 2021, like in modern era American politics that doubts Medicare for all, these folks are so loony that they are comparable to flat earthers. It's not like a matter of disagreement. We know exactly what needs to be done and what will deliver health care to every single American Medicare for all and we don't stop there. After we get Medicare for all, we then work to move towards a national health system like the UK has always expand benefits because we know the minute that we get Medicare for all, it is going to be under attack by capitalist forces. So it's just it's deeply infuriating and frustrating to me that even in a pandemic, it's not common sense to these folks to just opt for Medicare for all at least temporarily, but they know that if they did this, it would be a death sentence for these private insurance companies. Because again, try taking something away from people that they love. It's just not very popular. So overall, I will say that Joe Biden absolutely is a disgusting human being for denying health care to Americans during a pandemic. The fact that he didn't support Medicare for all before make made him morally defective, in my opinion. But the fact that he still denies it during a pandemic shows that as a human being, he is absolutely disgusting, morally bankrupt and borderline psychopathic.