WASHINGTON — Vying to become House speaker in a few months, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries outlined four items on the agenda that he said would enjoy “uniform Democratic support” and advance the party’s goal of “making life more affordable.”
The first two were about healthcare, and all four set a direct contrast with President Donald Trump.
“We have to reverse the Medicaid cuts. We should extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Monday in response to a question from NBC News. “We should restore congressional authority as it relates to tariffs, because the Trump tariffs are making life more expensive for the American people. And we should end, decisively, if it’s still going on, Donald Trump’s reckless and costly war of choice in the Middle East.”
While there’s agreement on restoring the Medicaid and ACA funds that were undone by Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress, there are divisions inside the Democratic Party about what its own healthcare agenda should be.
Ocasio-Cortez is part of a large and influential faction on the left that wants to pursue a “Medicare for All” system that would diminish — if not abolish — private insurance and give the government power to negotiate prices of medication and services downward. Many moderate Democrats have rejected that idea in favor of less disruptive changes, although the center-left hasn’t coalesced around a preferred vision. One outside center-left group floated “free primary care for all” as a way to break the stalemate between supporters of a single-payer Medicare for All system and of focusing on building on the current ACA.
So, the party establishment is behind proping up their donors? The entire developed world has universal health-insurance. Even Mexico has it. But not the people in the US? That is one thing that would drastically improve the lives of the American people. Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year.
Our government hates us. This is the s#it that lead up to DJT in the first place. Going back to half measures like this is a recipe for:
Especially since the AI job losses.
Jeffries is such garbage, I wish someone would primary his ass already.
Adopting right wing framing on M4A is so typical of an empty suit like him. Yes, abolish private insurance, that’s the idea dipshit - and replace it with the objectively better Medicare insurance to make doctor’s lives easier and help patients get desperately needed care.
It blows my mind how many people are necessary in a modern family-practice office.
It also blows my mind that my insurance company:
Would really like to understand how oral semalglutode contains something like 70x the active ingredient of subQ semalglutode, yet the oral is cheaper.
Don't even get me started on the bullshit of HSA or especially FSA reimbursements.
Injectables cost way more than oral drugs because of sterility requirements. You literally almost have to build a new building and have the FDA watch it.
There is a pill now
Then why is online compounded semalglutide so much cheaper?
And how are the overseas generic manufacturers able to sell so cheaply?
They literally have a cure for the biggest chronic condition, responsible for a huge array of comorbidities, brought on entirely by their friends in the food industry selling addictive, nutritionally void food cheaper and more shippable than anything actually good for you...and they lock it up right behind steep profits.
Those cheap void foods that are making us all fat are largely cheap due to farm subsidies, too, so we're paying for that too.
It's bullshit and anti-human. Not as vulgar as when they do it to insulin, but still evil.
Remember that documentary...Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead? With that guy who sold juicers? Yeah he was a fucking kook. But I definitely think he's right about pharma and food working in lockstep to keep us fat and sick.
Not to defend the drug price bullshit in any way, everything is more expensive than it should be across the board... but if those price differences are a pill versus a prefilled autoinjector, that's a big difference in material and manufacturing cost per dose.