episode 38: Medicare Expansion Gains Momentum & Victories!
Last podcast, we discussed expanding and improving Medicare, and since then there are a couple of major updates on the budget moving through Congress, with implications for the M4A movement! We also discuss the history of expanding and improving Medicare (or degrading, in the case of privatization).
Show Notes
Last podcast, we discussed expanding and improving Medicare - way back 2 weeks ago - it was really an uphill fight, with the Biden administration focused only on expanded subsidies for the ACA. Thanks to a lot of grassroots pressure, it’s a whole new world now since even just two weeks ago. Ben and Stephanie update us on how the ground has really shifted, and share a couple of MAJOR updates on the budget moving through Congress, with implications for the M4A movement.
Another thing we started thinking about since the last podcast is - when WAS the last major expansion of Medicare? How would these reforms fit in the history of expanding Medicare since it was passed in 1965? We did a little research on that, learned a lot of interesting things, and so we'll also quickly take a tour of Medicare through the years and try to figure out where this moment is in all that historical context.
The first major development is on the House side: the House Appropriations Committee for the first time in 45 years passed a budget WITHOUT the Hyde Amendment included. It's unlikely to make it through the Senate, but we are getting closer and closer to eliminating the ban on public funding of abortion services.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/7/16/2040229/-House-Democrats-advance-spending-bill-to-overturn-the-Hyde-Amendment
The second major development is on the Senate side: Senate Dems & Biden have agreed to a $3.5 trillion number for the budget, not as much as Senator Sanders had wanted. But Chuck Schumer publicly announced that he will push to include dental, vision, and hearing in traditional Medicare - he’s crediting Bernie Sanders and the M4A movement with the proposal. This wasn't even on the table a couple of weeks ago.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/06/21/schumer-backs-sanders-proposal-include-dental-hearing-and-vision-care-medicare
We don't know the details of how extensive the dental, hearing and vision benefits will be, so we need to keep pushing to make sure the benefits are generous enough to undercut the privatized Medicare Advantage plans. The better the benefits, the fewer reasons there are to buy a private plan, putting more folks in the public pool, increasing efficiencies and lowering costs for patients.
The other thing very likely to be included in the budget is SOME FORM of Medicare negotiation of prescription drugs, but there is a fight shaping up within the Democratic caucus in the Senate about whether Medicare will be given real power to negotiate drug prices. HOW MANY drugs will Medicare be allowed to negotiate prices for? How will Medicare set prices for those drugs - particularly whether Medicare can use what’s called “international reference pricing”? The political barriers to Medicare drug negotiations are actually NOT primarily the centrist Democrats who you’ve been hearing so much about during this budget process - Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ). The real dangers are the Senators who we in the M4A movement call the "Pharma darlings": primarily Bob Menendez (NJ), but we’re also worried about Tom Carper (DE), and Catherine Cortez Masto (NV). We really need activists in those three states to step up their pressure.
(Sidenote to some M4A activists: instead of blasting champions like Rep. Cori Bush and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive women of co...