Al Owski’s Reviews > Medicare for All: A Citizen's Guide > Status Update

“Either way, the urgent problem of providing accessible, affordable, dependable, and equitable healthcare to Americans at scale remains. As we hope we've demonstrated, M4A is a viable solution to that problem.”

“However, the public consensus may be shifting again. The Great Recession exposed many Americans to a level of poverty and insecurity that hadn't been seen in America since the Great Depression—which the New Deal was originally created to solve. Rising inequality paralleling the Gilded Age has left a large swath of the country without stable, secure employment or basic access to healthcare.”

“the public conversation about M4A may be about more than just healthcare…Empowered by the idea of promoting "the general welfare," American government as we know it today emerged from a bipartisan consensus around the critical role of government in providing basic public goods that grew out of the Progressive Era in the 1910s and 1920s and took hold during the New Deal in the 1930s and 1940s.”

“And the politics are treacherous. Passing M4A would require standing up to deeply entrenched private interests in order to launch a massive reinvestment in government public goods.”

“M4A could cost the American people less overall by eliminating much of the bloated overhead needed to prop up our current system and by cracking down on the industry's ability to charge high prices for care. By trading insurance premiums for taxes and slashing out-of-pocket costs, M4A has the potential to put more money into the pockets of most American families.”

“But if M4A happens, it will be because the American public decides that we can, in fact, have a more just, equitable, and sustainable system—that we can rise beyond the insecurity that says that the status quo is the best we can have, and choose to engage in the work of creating the system.”

“M4A is possible. But it is not inevitable. If it happens, it will have been because the right policy choices attracted the right coalition, which used the right tactics to elect the right officials in the right moment for change.”

“M4A is premised on the idea that government can take bold action to promote the general welfare. Reforms to our political institutions are of the same spirit, aiming to restore the people's faith in the government that the Constitution erected in their name.”

“Beyond opposition from those who profit from the status quo, a more complete answer requires us to confront the ways in which the views of the people do and do not get transmitted into American government. … in the weeks and months leading up to an election, public opinion can shift based on the messages and arguments to which voters are exposed. Because of…Citizens United…corporations can spend unlimited sums…”

“Let's pause for a moment and zoom out. Having laid out the battle that will ensue between the big organizing of the M4A movement and the big money of its opponents, as well as the treacherous maze that awaits M4A in the legislature, it's worth asking a simple question: if most Americans support M4A, why is it so difficult to pass? ”