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Comment by joe_the_user | Hacker News Reader

Public support isn't the question. The public does support Medicare For All[1] but that doesn't matter given the election and decision making process of congress - essentially that it's controlled by forces that profit from the present system.

https://morningconsult.com/2021/03/24/medicare-for-all-publi...

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This 100%. You have to flush out the reps who won’t vote for it regardless of constituent support and desire. Determine how many you need to replace, identify the weakest incumbents/most likely races to win, select challengers, fund them, and you hopefully unfuck US healthcare in the end. Maybe you need a few candidates to pull a “reverse Sinema”; run as a Republican, win, and then turncoat and vote for Medicare for All (with the understanding you’re probably only serving one term, but who cares if you get the policy done, 1.8 million voters over the age of 55 die every year, you’re just pulling progress forward with some political sacrifice versus waiting for cohort succession). Politics hacking and social engineering at its core.

If you’re not one to wait, the only other option is moving to a better country.

Sadly politics today is endless arguments about minutiae rather than actually solving problems. The culture wars exist for a reason. The longer we are at each other’s throats the longer the wealthy can reap the rewards of rent seeking behavior.

Public support for Medicare for All is going to look much more interesting in a few years when the Medicare trust funds are running out and they have to cut costs by 15% or more, and it’s clear there’s actually a price tag on the proposal.

And then we'll see the corner we've truly painted ourselves into.

I could imagine a scenario where an angry public demands the government take control of hospital finances.

Not that it's necessarily a good thing, but I could see it panning out that way.

Acting like social security or Medicare funding levels are fact of nature rather than a political football is parroting right wing talking points. The social security trust fund has been raided by congress multiple times and if it or the Medicare gets low, they can put that money back.

More broadly, by having a single payer, a reasonable Medicare For All program would in total save Americans vast amounts of money though of course as a program it would have a cost.

Politicans hiding the cost of things is the fact of nature. No proposal for Medicare for All that has ever been floated has ever seen a realistic price tag attached. The trust fund's depletion is no fact of nature, it is merely an occasion when this will become a little clearer to the public.

When this happens, voters will not like what they are being offered quite as much as they do now, when the costs are some distant abstraction; there will be a whole lot more hesitation and skepticism. And if pointing this out is a "right wing talking point" then go ahead and call me Margaret Thatcher.

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