TOP NANCY PELOSI AIDE PRIVATELY TELLS INSURANCE EXECUTIVES NOT TO WORRY ABOUT DEMOCRATS PUSHING “MEDICARE FOR ALL”

I am so incredibly grateful for the integrity and independent investigative journalism of resources like Democracy Now! and The Intercept. I believe that it is deeply important to continue to expose the dark underbelly of all that causes so much suffering and harm — wherever we find it. The radical changes that are needed to transform ourselves, our nation, and our world to one which values and protects life rather than destroys it will not occur as long as so many of us are not engaged in this courageous shadow work, making conscious what is hidden, distorted, denied, minimized, and distracted from. As I continue to look deeply into Pelosi's actual actions - fighting against Medicare for all, fighting against the Green New Deal, fighting against getting Dark Money out of our political system, etc., etc., — I am outraged. And not surprised. After all, this has been her pattern and that of all politicians from both political parties who have sold their souls to their corporate donors. Ultimately, all neoliberal corporate democrats must go! Another world is possible! — Molly

 By Ryan Grim

Less than a month month after Democrats — many of them running on “Medicare for All” — won back control of the House of Representatives in November, the top health policy aide to then-prospective House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Blue Cross Blue Shield executives and assured them that party leadership had strong reservations about single-payer health care and was more focused on lowering drug prices, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

Pelosi adviser Wendell Primus detailed five objections to Medicare for All and said that Democrats would be allies to the insurance industry in the fight against single-payer health care. Primus pitched the insurers on supporting Democrats on efforts to shrink drug prices, specifically by backing a number of measures that the pharmaceutical lobby is opposing.

Primus, in a slide presentation obtained by The Intercept, criticized single payer on the basis of cost (“Monies are needed for other priorities”), opposition (“Stakeholders are against; Creates winners and losers”), and “implementation challenges.” We have recreated the slides for source protection purposes.

Democrats, Primus said, are united around the concept of universal coverage, but see strengthening the Affordable Care Act as the means to that end. He made his presentation to the Blue Cross executives on December 4. “We don’t discuss private meetings, if there was such a meeting,” said a BCBS spokesperson. Primus said that he did not discuss any kind of deal with the insurers. Henry Connelly, a spokesperson for Pelosi, said that the assessment of single payer was not related to any dealmaking with the industry. “We’re not going to barter lower prescription drug costs for inaction in the rest of the health care industry. The presentation was a broad look at the health care environment and some of House Democrats’ legislative priorities over the next two years in a period of GOP control of the Senate and White House,” Connelly said.

The debate over Medicare for All is playing out on a number of different levels, with no clear consensus over how the government-run, single-payer health plan ought to take shape. Presidential candidates are arguing over whose plan is stronger and gets to full Medicare for All faster, with a debate raging over whether private insurance should be banned outright or operate in addition to universal Medicare coverage.   

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