Want More Proof of Corporate Media's Anti-Bernie Bias? Look at MSNBC's Democratic Debate.
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=38768"><span class="small">Branko Marcetic, In These Times</span></a>
Saturday, 23 November 2019 09:26
Marcetic writes: "Wednesday night's Democratic presidential debate was hosted by MSNBC, and the result could have been expected for anyone who read In These Times' recent two-month study of the network's coverage of the three nationally leading candidates."
Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speak during the second night of the first Democratic presidential debate on June 27, 2019, in Miami, Florida. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Want More Proof of Corporate Media's Anti-Bernie Bias? Look at MSNBC's Democratic Debate.
By Branko Marcetic, In These Times
23 November 19
During the debate and in the spin room, Sanders was treated more like an outsider than a front runner. It’s part of a broader anti-Bernie slant in the “liberal” network’s coverage.
ednesday night’s Democratic presidential debate was hosted by MSNBC, and the result could have been expected for anyone who read In These Times’ recent two-month study of the network’s coverage of the three nationally leading candidates.
In that story (which I authored), In These Times found that the network consistently covers Bernie Sanders the least of the top three candidates, as well as most negatively; that it covers Elizabeth Warren most positively; and that both are dwarfed by the network’s overwhelming focus on Joe Biden, who was often portrayed as the “safest” choice of the field. The network’s political coverage also revolved almost exclusively around fluctuating poll numbers and “electability”—as defined by its hosts and guests.
These features found their way into Wednesday’s debate, which was preceded by a panel discussion devoted, as so much of the network’s 2020 coverage has been, to narrowing the imaginations of its largely older, Democratic-voting viewership. In the wake of two weeks of impeachment hearings, the panelists attempted to frame the debate as a referendum on Trump, with former centrist Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, ousted in 2018 and criticized by local African-American leaders for not doing enough to excite black voters in the state, predicting that “Trump will be front and center in the debate tonight.”
“The party is getting the rap, deservedly so, for becoming this traveling purity test,” said anchor Brian Williams. “Will a day like today force a stage like this one to coalesce around a message of ‘we’ve gotta beat this guy?’”
Chris Matthews, who together with Williams made up MSNBC’s most anti-Sanders contingent of anchors, went on to outline the way the network has allowed its own commercial interests to help shape its news content.
“The Democratic Party right now I believe is an anti-Trump party,” he said. “I can tell from the ratings people would much rather watch the decline and fall of Donald Trump than watch the battle among these people. … Which tells me, they really, really have one passion going into next year’s election: Beat Trump. I think that’s driving everything.”
It was up to Steve Schmidt—longtime Republican, chief strategist for John McCain’s 2008 campaign, and fresh off of advising Starbucks billionaire Howard Schultz’s aborted anti-progressive run—to deliver the left-punching bromides usually taken up by McCaskill.
Warning there was a “danger with some of the ideology that we’ve seen front and center in this field,” Schmidt asserted that “a sociopath will beat a socialist, I think, seven days a week and twice on Sunday,” as the camera cut to Sanders getting ready on stage. Schmidt appeared to forget that his own candidate in 2008 had lost handily after trying to label his Democratic opponent a “socialist.” McCaskill, meanwhile, noted that black women “are overrepresented” in the Democratic primary contest and that candidates should keep in mind “that general election audience in November.”
The dynamics of the debate itself also mirrored In These Times’ recent findings, albeit in subtler ways. Though in the final New York Times tally, Sanders landed fourth in terms of speaking time, he was about a minute behind Joe Biden who sat in third place, and Sanders’ time was in the same vicinity as lower-tier candidates like Cory Booker (barely registering in both early states and nationally), Kamala Harris (polling at single digits), and Amy Klobuchar, another centrist candidate whose “electability” has been talked up by pundits even as she flounders with little support among voters.
Despite the final result, at 40 minutes into the debate, the New York Times clocked Sanders at fourth from the bottom in terms of speaking time, with Booker, Harris, Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg far ahead of him. Thirteen minutes later, he had moved up slightly in the shuffle, with Klobuchar now at the very top. Nine minutes after that, he was again fourth from the bottom, with Klobuchar sitting at third. The moderators threw it to Klobuchar after an answer from billionaire Tom Steyer about special interest money and term limits that name-checked Sanders but didn’t mention her—breaking one of the express rules of the debate format.
Sanders was also notably skipped over on the topics of unaffordable housing (though Tom Steyer, who has no housing plan, spoke on the issue), voting rights (though he made a point about it during an unrelated exchange between Tulsi Gabbard and Buttigieg), and white supremacist terrorism, despite being the only Jewish candidate on stage and having publishing an op-ed about combating antisemitism earlier this month. Sanders was also left out of the discussion about racial justice that followed, which Warren was asked to weigh in on.
Warren wound up markedly ahead of all other candidates in speaking time. This result was similar to the nearly six-minute advantage she held over her closest rival in October’s debate (in which she had a nearly 10-minute lead on Sanders), and her second-place finish in September’s debate, where she held more than a two-minute advantage over Sanders.
This tracks with In These Times’ findings of MSNBC’s coverage over August and September. Warren was not only the most positively covered candidate across the network’s programs—even on shows typically unfriendly to progressivism, such as Matthews’ Hardball—but there was a tangible shift in the way the network covered her candidacy, increasingly elevating Warren explicitly at Sanders’ expense in September, and hyping that month’s debate as a showdown between Warren and Biden, even as Sanders maintained a solid standing in the top three. September’s debate also saw Sanders passed over for a reply to an answer in which he was name-checked, in this case after Klobuchar had explicitly mentioned Sanders in her attack on the Medicare for All bill he authored. The moderator instead chose to seek a reply from Warren.
Though In These Times didn’t analyze coverage of Buttigieg for those months, his candidacy was the wildcard in this debate. Buttigieg’s rise in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire—and only those states, given that the South Bend mayor is enjoying 0% black support in one poll and is a distant fourth nationally—has been a major campaign narrative this month, particularly as enthusiasm for Biden has somewhat dimmed. Buttigieg ended up with the second-most speaking time last night, around the same amount as Biden.
In terms of policy issues, the debate moderators gave short shrift to a number of issues that might have interested Democratic voters. Climate change was discussed, but not in-depth. The coup in Bolivia was ignored. Warren’s new transition plan for Medicare for All—which would delay passing universal healthcare until year three of her presidency, and has been interpreted by Wall Street, the co-founder of centrist Wall Street-funded think tank Third Way, and several media commentators as a sign she’s backing away from Sanders’ policy—went completely unmentioned, even as Matthews had characterized her as “pulling back on Medicare for All” before the debate.
A string of recent controversies around Buttigieg, such as the meager amount of contracts given to minority-owned businesses by his South Bend mayoral office, his claiming of African-American endorsers who had never actually endorsed him, and his campaign’s casting of homophobia as the reason for his non-existent black support, likewise went unmentioned. (The moderators did, however, ask Sanders if he agreed with his supporters chanting “lock him up” at his rallies).
MSNBC’s post-debate discussion returned to business as usual, with commentators once again covering for another poor Biden performance that saw the former vice president claim he had been picked as Obama’s running mate because “I come out of the black community, in terms of my support,” and that he had the endorsement of the “only” black woman senator in history, to which Kamala Harris laughed. (“I thought he did pretty well,” said panelist and Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson).
Matthews joined Klobuchar in decrying the policy of “free everything” (“I know these things sound good on a bumper sticker, and maybe they want to throw in a free car…”). Matthews also castigated Sanders for saying that “our system is corrupt,” warning him to “be careful about that language” because “that’s too strong.” Williams cast the contest as between “the side of purity-testing” and middle-of-the-road “electability.” Schmidt declared that “Mayor Pete had an exceptional night” with a “pretty flawless” performance and attacked Gabbard, who had criticized Buttigieg, as “just awful,” “spectacularly bad,” and “dishonest.” (Biden, meanwhile, had “probably his strongest debate performance,” according to Schmidt).
Still, there were some signs things may be changing at the network. Among the guests asked by Williams to weigh in was Michael Moore, who made a forthright and rare (for the network) case for Sanders’ candidacy. Anchor Lawrence O’Donnell, while generally praising Biden’s performance, harshly criticized the front runner’s onstage erasure of Harris, calling it “as bad a moment as he could have had.”
Perhaps the network is realizing that there’s a limit to the extent it can shape political reality. Or, perhaps, reality is starting to push back.
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=51339"><span class="small">Al Franken, Al Franken's Website</span></a>
Friday, 22 November 2019 14:05
Franken writes: "People ask me all the time if I miss the Senate. I miss getting things done that make a difference in people's lives."
Former Senator Al Franken. (photo: New York Times)
Foster America
By Al Franken, Al Franken's Website
22 November 19
his week’s podcast is about a subject that means a lot to me. Children in foster care. My guest is Sherry Lachman, chief executive of Foster America. She was also my education legislative assistant in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension (HELP) Committee. As a child, Sherry herself had been in the foster care system for several years.
People ask me all the time if I miss the Senate.
I miss getting things done that make a difference in people’s lives. Some are what people consider big things. Like my provision in the ACA which requires health insurance companies to spend at least 80% of their premiums on actual health care and not on marketing, administrative costs, and executive salaries. 85% for large group plans. If the insurance company doesn’t hit the 80 or 85 percent, they send policy holders a check for the difference. This year they’ll be sending out about $1.5 billion.
But I also miss working on legislation that most people think of as “small.” One that I think about all the time is a provision regarding foster children that I put into the education law that replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
It’s not unusual for foster children to have eight, nine, ten sets of foster parents during their childhood. This wreaks havoc on their education. At that time, it was the common practice to yank foster kids out of the school they’re going to if their new parents lived in a different school district.
This was crazy. For foster kids, school is often the one constant in their lives. Maybe they have a teacher they really like. Or maybe an extracurricular activity that means everything to them. Or maybe, maybe they have these things called friends.
Sometimes the kid completely falls between the cracks. Kayla Van Dyke, an impressive high school senior from Minnesota who had been in seven foster homes, testified in a HELP hearing that she had missed fourth grade entirely.
My amendment was simple. It allowed foster kids to choose to stay in their school if they wanted to. That meant that the school districts and local social services would have to find a way to pay for transportation.
Actually, the amendment wasn’t my idea. It was Sherry’s. As I’ve noted above, she herself had also been bounced around for a number of years in the foster care system.
The odd thing about this amendment was how difficult it was to get the votes to pass it in committee. Republicans cried, “It’s an unfunded mandate from the federal government to local school districts!” I pointed out that under No Child left Behind, a school that failed to meet proficiency standards three years in a row would have to replace its principal and half the teachers. That’s a crapload more mandate than getting a kid a ride everyday from the next school district. And most of my Republican colleagues (and many of the Democrats) had been around in 2001 and voted for that.
The first time my amendment came up for a vote in committee, Sherry and I thought we had every Democrat. But for some reason Michael Bennet of Colorado was wavering. He hadn’t voted for NCLB, and, as a former Denver school superintendent, was allergic to mandates.
I lobbied Bennet during the committee’s executive meeting to “mark-up” the bill. As we got closer to the vote on my amendment, I continued to lobby Bennet, and Sherry lobbied his staffer. When the amendment came up for the vote, we still didn’t know if we were getting Bennet’s vote. Even as we were being called on by seniority to vote yay or nay, I watched Sherry jump up and frantically lobby Bennet. A staffer lobbying a member is just not done, let alone jawboning him!
“Bennet?”
“Aye.”
My amendment passed. And we got a vote from Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska! So, Sherry hadn’t needed to risk her job making her case. The amendment passed, but the bill we put together that day never got to the Senate floor for a vote.
My amendment was included in the reform of NCLB that finally passed in the Senate a few years later. By then, it had been accepted as common sense, and was included in the new law, The Every Child Succeeds Act.
I like to think that somewhere there’s a foster child running cross country or developing a passion for history because of a great teacher or doing homework with a good friend, because of the legislation that Sherry and I put our hearts and souls into.
FOCUS: Pete Buttigieg Is the Darling of the Donor Class. The Debate Was a Reminder Why
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=49667"><span class="small">Moira Donegan, Guardian UK</span></a>
Friday, 22 November 2019 12:37
Donegan writes: "The South Bend mayor was in his typical form in the Democratic debate: heavy on rhetoric and light on specifics."
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg reportedly raised .8 million last quarter. (photo: Win McNamee/Getty)
Pete Buttigieg Is the Darling of the Donor Class. The Debate Was a Reminder Why
By Moira Donegan, Guardian UK
22 November 19
The South Bend mayor was in his typical form in the Democratic debate: heavy on rhetoric and light on specifics
n Wednesday afternoon, the Biden campaign made a mistake: it prematurely sent out an email meant for later in the evening, after the Democratic presidential debate. “I’m leaving the fifth Democratic debate now,” the email opened, referring to an event that had not yet begun. “I hope I made you proud.” The email alluded to potential attacks on Warren, with the pointed line: “We need more than plans.”
Those attacks from Biden never materialized. In fact, his performance was clumsy, light on substance, and studded with unforced errors much like that of his campaign’s misspent email. In the most memorable and upsetting moment of the night, Biden responded to a question about the #MeToo movement and male violence against women by saying: “We need to keep punching at it, and punching at it, and punching at it.” The comment embraced the logic of violence as a means of dominance and control while pretending to condemn that same pattern. The audience laughed uncomfortably, and Biden did not seem to understand why. “I’m serious,” he said.
The night may have been the worst in a series of embarrassing debate performances for Biden, and though he remains the frontrunner in many national polls, it is difficult to imagine these moments propelling him to the nomination, let alone the White House. Instead, the surging candidate of the moment is Pete Buttigieg, the young mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a non-committal moderate who has pulled ahead in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Last month, when Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren was newly in the lead, that month’s debate featured strenuous attacks on her from the left and right, and many observers, including me, predicted that Buttigieg would face similar scrutiny this time around. But he did not: the other contenders pulled their punches and for most of the debate made only oblique references to his inexperience and dismal poll performance among the crucial demographic bloc of black voters.
It is not clear why Buttigieg was not subject to the attacks that Warren was, but it is hard not to suspect that the other candidates were more comfortable attacking the progressive and outspoken Warren, a woman who has defined the terms of the ideological debate in the primary thus far and shifted the party decidedly to the left, than they were attacking the soft-spoken male polyglot from South Bend.
For his part, Buttigieg was in his typical form, seeming to adapt to his new role in the top tier of early state candidates as if he has been expecting to be president since childhood. His answer to every question was plotted and delivered in a slow, emotionless recitation, as if he had practiced his sentences before, in a mirror. He was heavy on rhetoric and light on specifics, as befits the darling of the donor class. He pledged to bring the country together but did not explain how. His statements, like his affect, seemed to have been designed by an algorithm to make no commitments and risk no offense.
Buttigieg did, however, manage to punch left, with a strange claim that programs such as Medicare for All, student debt forgiveness and free college are divisive, despite the huge numbers of Americans they would benefit. To bring people together, he reasoned, Democrats need to adopt lesser agendas that would leave many people behind. The left-punching mantle was taken up by his fellow moderate Amy Klobuchar, the senator from Minnesota, who claimed, falsely, that free college proposals like Warren’s have no financing plan. The trend was not new to the debates, but is symptomatic of a broader phenomenon of the Democratic party: the base has made increasingly loud demands that Democratic candidates follow them left, and the progressive wing of the party is following them there, to the establishment’s great chagrin.
But the base was not neglected by everyone on stage. In one of the night’s biggest applause lines from the Atlanta audience, Kamala Harris emphasized the importance of black women to the Democratic electoral strategy, and lamented that these voters have been largely ignored. It was a subtle dig at Buttigieg, who has virtually no black support and who faces bleak electoral prospects in the early, majority-black primary contest in South Carolina. But the statement from Harris was also a moral reminder to Democrats to remember, acknowledge and work for black women, the voting constituency that most consistently drives them into office and is most consistently ignored or taken for granted in their policymaking.
It was one of a few moments of moral reckoning over race and gender injustice on the stage. In a moment enabled by the uncommonly deft and conscientious intervention of the evenings’ four moderators, Warren brought the humanitarian crisis at the border into vivid relief. Klobuchar and Harris made appeals to women, with Klobuchar pointing out the double standards for women’s performance in professional settings and Harris emphasizing the injustice of women’s disproportionate responsibility for childcare and eldercare alike, often without access to any help from the state at all. The candidates were asked about the imperiled state of abortion rights in the country, with Warren emphasizing that abortion rights are human rights and economic rights. A question about #MeToo yielded only that embarrassingly tone-deaf comment from Biden, but the mere fact that it was asked was a reminder that that party’s base is largely female.
It will be women who decide who will become the Democratic nominee, and women who will propel that nominee into the White House.
FOCUS: Republicans Are Excusing a Criminal Conspiracy
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=6853"><span class="small">Frank Rich, New York Magazine</span></a>
Friday, 22 November 2019 11:53
Rich writes: "How damaging is Sondland's testimony for the Republicans' defense of Trump? If the Republicans cared about the facts or the gravity of the crime being investigated, the answer would be apocalyptically damaging."
Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Devin Nunes, and minority counsel Steve Castor confer during the impeachment hearing on November 13, 2019. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty)
Republicans Are Excusing a Criminal Conspiracy
By Frank Rich, New York Magazine
22 November 19
Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. Today, E.U. ambassador Gordon Sondland’s impeachment testimony, last night’s Democratic debate, and Prince Andrew’s disastrous interview.
Had Trump pulled out that (so far) proverbial gun and shot someone on Fifth Avenue, Republicans would trot out the exact same defense they have this week: The shot was fired at 2 a.m. and there were no eyewitnesses. Those nearby who claimed to have heard the shot had actually heard a car backfiring. The closed-circuit video capturing the incident is, as the president says, a hoax concocted by the same Fake News outlets that manufactured the Access Hollywood video. The confession released by the White House was “perfect” evidence of Trump’s innocence. Election records show that the cops who arrived on the scene were registered Democrats and therefore part of a deep-state conspiracy to frame the president for a crime he didn’t commit but that the Democrats did. The victim was not killed and will make a complete recovery, so no crime was committed anyway. And even if Trump had killed the young woman he gunned down, the argument advanced by Trump’s lawyer last month would apply: “The person who serves as president, while in office, enjoys absolute immunity from criminal process of any kind.” Next case!
The crime Trump actually is accused of is far more severe than that imaginary shooting in any event. He and his co-conspirators, including the vice-president and secretary of State, were guilty of aiding Vladimir Putin’s plan to bludgeon Ukraine, an American ally, and, in Fiona Hill’s language, “to weaken our country” as well. That Putin’s foremost goal is to sabotage the electoral process that is the beating heart of our democracy doesn’t seem to matter a whit to Vichy Republicans. If the devastating facts unfurled with great clarity by Adam Schiff’s committee has failed to move them, what would? History — particularly the history of the prominent political figures in England, France, and the United States who appeased and collaborated with Germany during the Nazis rise to power — suggests that they will only be moved to speak up when it’s too late.
One thing we can all agree on is that the Democrats will not win if they bore the electorate to tears. Yes, many voters may be looking to swing the pendulum away from a president whose style is to compulsively provide entertainment (or at least his brand of it) 24/7. But the overall inability of the candidates to engage with each other passionately before a national television audience last night leaves you wondering how much they are engaging even with the core audience tuning into a debate broadcast on MSNBC.
Did anyone learn anything new last night? Bernie Sanders continues to bounce back impressively from his heart attack. The debate did not illuminate where Elizabeth Warren’s Medicare for All plan stands after the seeming hedging of recent days. Joe Biden still cannot get through an unrehearsed answer without slipping into incoherence, irrelevance, or both. Amy Klochubar still can’t quit making scripted quips that she delivers as if to emphasize how canned they are (last night’s: “I raised $17,000 from ex-boyfriends”). While Cory Booker declared that he is not looking for “a kumbaya moment” as president, he still conveys the sunny, broad good will of kumbaya more successfully than any compelling policy ideas. Kamala Harris’s tough prosecutorial intelligence continues to lack a third dimension onstage. The best to be said about Tom Steyer is that he’s not Howard Schultz. In the novelty spot, Andrew Yang is not nearly as fascinating as Marianne Williamson.
Even though Michael Bloomberg has scant chance of winning the Democratic nomination, he couldn’t jump in soon enough. He’s a billionaire who has actually done things in public life — good, bad, and indifferent. His long record and his money will shake things up. The Democratic field needs a jolt. To use a Biden metaphor from a previous debate, watching this one was like listening to a record player when the needle is stuck.
A British friend of mine observes that Prince Andrew’s BBC interview has united her country for the first time since Brexit. No one believed him, and no viewer was left unappalled. I don’t know what “further repercussions” could befall him even if there was evidence that he raped a girl in Epstein’s Manhattan mansion. I’m no lawyer, but wouldn’t this require the Palace to allow his extradition to the United States? In any case, as a public figure, the prince is done, except as a possible role for Ricky Gervais in season five of The Crown.
I’m much more interested in the repercussions for the various see-no-evil, hear-no-evil American Establishment figures who hung out with Epstein, in some cases took his money and favors or gave him money and favors, and are skating away (or trying to): Alan Dershowitz, Leslie Wexner, and Leon Black most of all in terms of documented interaction with Epstein, but also such hangers-on as Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, not to mention the Harvard retinue led by Larry Summers and Steven Pinker. Go to YouTube, watch the roughly 50-minute Prince Andrew interview in its entirety, and imagine all these American Establishment men being subjected to a similarly rigorous inquiry. It will chill the blood.
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=51635"><span class="small">Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog</span></a>
Friday, 22 November 2019 09:32
Reich writes: "Republicans and even some Democrats are out to scare you about Medicare for All. They say it's going to dismantle health care as we know it and it will cost way too much. Rubbish."
Robert Reich. (photo: Getty)
The Real Deal With Medicare for All
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
22 November 19
epublicans and even some Democrats are out to scare you about Medicare for All. They say it’s going to dismantle health care as we know it and it will cost way too much.
Rubbish.
The typical American family now spends $6,000 on health insurance premiums each year. Add in the co-payments and deductibles that doctors, hospitals, and drug companies also charge you — plus typical out-of-pocket expenses for pharmaceuticals – and that typical family’s health bill is $6,800.
But that’s not all, because some of the taxes you now pay are for health insurance, too — for Medicare and Medicaid and for the Affordable Care Act. So let’s add them in, again for the typical American household. That comes to a whopping $8,975 a year. Oh, and this number is expected to rise in the coming years.
Not a pretty picture. If you’re a typical American, you’re already paying far more for health insurance than people in any other advanced country.
And you’re not getting your money’s worth. The United States ranks near the bottom for life span and infant mortality. Or maybe you’re one of the 30 million Americans who don’t have any health insurance coverage at all.
You see, a big reason we pay so much for health insurance is the administrative costs involved in private for-profit insurance. About a third of what you pay goes to the people who oversee billing and collections. And then of course there are the marketing and advertising expenses, and the profits that go to shareholders or private-equity managers.
What happens if we have Medicare for All?
Let’s first consider a limited version that keeps private insurance — as proposed by candidates including Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Kamala Harris. The insurance costs remain the same because it’s the same private insurers and the same co-payments and deductibles. The only difference is more of this would be paid through your taxes, rather than by you directly, because the government would reimburse the insurance companies.
This could help bring down costs by giving the government more bargaining leverage to get better prices. But we don’t know yet how much.
Now, let’s talk about a different version of Medicare for All that replaces private for-profit health insurance, as proposed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. In this version, total costs — including a possible combination of premiums, co-payments, deductibles, or taxes — are even lower. This option is far cheaper because it doesn’t have all those administrative expenses. It’s public insurance that reimburses hospitals, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies directly and eliminates the bloat of private insurance companies.
Economists at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst say Medicare for All that replaces private for-profit insurance would reduce costs by about 10 percent, mostly from lower administrative and drug costs. The Urban Institute estimates that households and businesses would save about $21.9 trillion over ten years, and state and local governments would save $4.1 trillion.
You’d pay for it through a combination of premiums, fees, and taxes, but your overall costs would go way down. So you’d come out ahead. And everyone would be covered.
You’d keep your same doctor or other health-care provider. And you could still buy private insurance to supplement Medicare for All, just like some people currently buy private insurance to supplement Medicare and Social Security. The only thing that’s changed is you no longer pay the private for-profit corporate insurers.
Any Medicare for All is better than our present system, but this second version is far better because — like Medicare and Social Security — it’s based on the simple and proven idea that we shouldn’t be paying private for-profit corporate insurers boatloads of money to get the insurance we need.
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ednesday night’s Democratic presidential debate was hosted by MSNBC, and the result could have been expected for anyone who read In These Times’ recent 
his week’s podcast is about a subject that means a lot to me. Children in foster care. My guest is 
n Wednesday afternoon, the Biden campaign made a mistake: it prematurely sent out an email meant for later in the evening, after the Democratic presidential debate. “I’m leaving the fifth Democratic debate now,” the email opened, referring to an event that had not yet begun. “I hope I made you proud.” The email alluded to potential attacks on Warren, with the pointed line: “We need more than plans.”
n yesterday’s impeachment testimony, Ambassador Gordon Sondland revised his earlier statements, saying that 
epublicans and even some Democrats are out to scare you about Medicare for All. They say it’s going to dismantle health care as we know it and it will cost way too much. 
