John Nichols at The Nation vigorously backs them as House Progressives Go Big on Medicare for All:
The way to beat Donald Trump and the mess he has made of an already off-the-rails Republican Party is not by promising a kinder, gentler alternative to utter chaos. The way for Democrats to return from the political wilderness to which the party was consigned in the 2014 and 2016 elections is with bigger and bolder ideas. And the idea to start with is a single-payer, Medicare-for-All reform of America’s broken health-care system.
Senator Bernie Sanders keeps making the point that there is a growing popular demand for “a plan that responds to the needs of the great majority of the America people,” and adds, “That’s what single payer does.”
Sanders and other progressives recognize the importance of defending what’s good about the Affordable Care Act in the face of constant threats from the Trump administration and its congressional allies, as Democrats have over the past year and a half. But going forward, the party that seeks to replace Trumpism must get to the heart of the matter with proposals for replacing private profiteering with a system that truly recognizes health care as a right.
Democrats have to get a lot more comfortable speaking the language that Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) employed Thursday when she said, “Health care cannot be a luxury that’s only available for the wealthy and well-connected—it is a human right.”
Jayapal used those words to announce the formation of the House Medicare for All Caucus. Chaired by Representatives Jayapal, Debbie Dingell (D-MI) and Keith Ellison (D-MN), and strongly supported by key figures such as Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and Mark Pocan (D-WI), the caucus will take the lead in arguing for HR 676, a Medicare for All measure sponsored by Ellison.
Ellison’s bill has already attracted 122 House co-sponsors—two-thirds of House Democrats—and the caucus will seek to expand those numbers. But it will do a lot more than that. The development of the caucus raises the profile of the fight for health-care reform not just in Congress but nationally. [...]
TOP COMMENTS • HIGH IMPACT STORIES
QUOTATION
“America must deal once and for all with an utterly irrational health care financing system that allows private interests to make billions in profits from the pain and suffering of their fellow citizens. America is the only country in the industrialized world that does not provide tax-supported universal health care coverage in some form.”
~~Suzanne Gordon, Life Support: Three Nurses on the Front Lines (1997)
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2007—Huzzah for Harry Reid:
The Brown Derby closed several years ago, but if I could lay my hands on that house-sized hat, I'd give it a tip for Harry Reid.
Let me start with the confessions. First, I have not always held tight to my pom-poms. More than once in the last six months, I've said some... not all that supportive things about Senator Reid and his ability to move things through the "collegial" axle grease of the Senate. A big part of this was frustration at seeing all that "first hundred hours" legislation come rocketing through the House, only to enter a Senatorial time warp. A bigger part of that was the failure to keep popping that same vetoed Iraq bill back onto Bush's desk until either sweet reason prevailed or Bush's fingers got too tired to scrawl his 'X.' The biggest reason of all was a deep personal need to see Mitch McConnell face down in the mud while Senator Reid does a Riverdance clog on his back (Oh, and Bill O? That there is one of them met-a-phors).
Forget that. My past criticisms arguably makes me little more than a fair weather friend, but I see a lot of blue skies today, and I see one tough senator standing out in the sunshine. I'm damned impressed with Senator Reid.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Greg Dworkin assures us that although electoral effects move at glacial pace, they do move. Today's hot items: NYT says Trump knew the whole time. The Russian who catfished the NRA gets busted, somehow ensnaring the National Prayer Breakfast.