Friday, April 3, 2020

Coronavirus - Medicare for All #2

On March 27 I wrote about an article using the coronavirus pandemic to make propaganda favoring Medicare for All. I was unaware of the website before then, and I guess it has a small audience. Only three days later comes more propaganda rationalized on the pandemic, this time from The New Yorker with many readers and the presumptive title "Reality Has Endorsed Bernie Sanders."

The author writes: "In the last Democratic debate, former Vice-President Joe Biden insisted that the U.S. doesn’t need single-payer health care because the severity of the coronavirus outbreak in Italy proved that it doesn’t work." She quickly moves on, ignoring Biden's statement as not worth considering.

Fittingly on April Fools Day, the site of the first propaganda follows with this story. Engaging in fantasy, it is oblivious to the toll of the pandemic in Italy and Spain, the countries with health care systems most like Medicare for All.

The Hollywood Reporter gives Bernie Sanders another opportunity to air his propaganda amid the pandemic. BS asks how is it that in the USA, with the highest per capita spending on healthcare in the world, there are shortages of protective equipment and ventilators. He names his usual scapegoats --  for-profit insurance companies and drug companies. He fails to address why there are even greater shortages of beds in hospitals and ventilators in Italy and Spain, the countries with healthcare systems most like Medicare for All. BS's mindset has no use for such a reality check.

Bernie wants the USA to guarantee healthcare to all its people. "Guarantee" is hyperbole. A government can promise all it wants. Delivery is what matters. Like Italy and Spain demonstrate, promises can be broken. No bed in a hospital and no ventilator for a horde of seniors.

A Washington Examiner article is far more objective. It isn't based on fantasy and does a reality-check. The reality is Italy and Spain, the countries with healthcare systems most like Medicare for All. Comparing them to Switzerland -- with nothing like Medicare, less tragic, and much less governmental interference -- would have been a plus. The article is still excellent. 


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