At the same time, many argue that “this is one issue where Obama nostalgia may fall short with the voters Biden needs to reach. For many Democrats, ObamaCare was a good first step, establishing the idea that the federal government has an important role to play in ensuring Americans have access to adequate insurance and care. But they also considered the law flawed — too reliant on profit-seeking private insurance companies, too derivative of Republican approaches to the issue, too much the result of the political compromises it took to get passed. For such activists, ObamaCare is the clunker they drive to work; Medicare-for-all — or something like it — is the shiny, sleek sports car they want to own someday.”
Joel Mathis, The Week

“Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) said, let’s ‘keep what’s working’ in our current system. What does that mean? Today, millions of Americans remain uninsured or underinsured — with exorbitant deductibles and out-of-pocket costs on top of their ever-rising insurance premiums. Medical bankruptcy is common, even among the insured… And people with employer-sponsored private insurance? They lack health-care security. If they lose their job, they lose their insurance. If ‘working’ means decent and reliable coverage, private health insurance is definitely not cutting it…

“Beto O’Rourke said ‘Choice is fundamental’ as an argument to retain commercial insurance. Yet it is our choice of doctor (not insurance company) that is fundamental to our care and that’s exactly the freedom that commercial insurance denies us — for profit.”
Dr. James G. Kahn and Elliot Marseille, The Hill

While “[public] support drops dramatically… once you explain that [Medicare for All] would force them to swap their current insurance for a public plan… It is not entirely clear why this is the case, since few people really seem to be in love with their insurance company. Some surveys have found that enthusiasm for Medicare for All bounces back up if pollsters explain that, while private carriers would disappear, people would still be able to keep their doctors. That suggests some Americans are actually worried about losing their favorite physician, not their Cigna card.”
Jordan Weissman, Slate

“More than 100 rural hospitals across the nation have closed in recent years, leaving many poor communities bereft of access to even basic health-care services. From 2004 to 2014, some 650,000 women of childbearing age in rural counties lost all access to obstetric services… Meanwhile, even as some hospitals close, others are seeing rising profits, or embarking on aggressive capital expansions and acquisitions, propelled by fierce competition. Fancy new towers rise as rural hospitals fall, yet both have a common cause. The poverty of some of our hospitals and the rich fortunes of others are but two manifestations of a single pathology: a dysfunctional, profit-oriented system of hospital payment…

“How would things be different with Medicare for All? Well… there [would be] no hospital profits, and so profitability ceases to be the criterion that dictates which hospitals open or close, and which expand and beautify. It would remove the incentive for hospitals to chase lucrative service lines, like spinal surgery, at the expense of unprofitable ones, like mental health. And it would ensure that we have hospitals, obstetric units, and mental health wards in the communities that need them—not just where firms think that they will be profitable.”
Adam Gaffney, The Nation

Regarding the Cadillac tax, “high-premium employer-based plans raise the cost of health care for everyone by encouraging the overconsumption of expensive services. This means that even Medicare and Medicaid face higher prices. Quite aside from its benefits for the health-care market, the Cadillac tax would also have the effect of expanding the tax base and making the tax code more efficient. It would raise revenues by about $15 billion a year… Rather than killing or delaying the Cadillac tax, Democrats should be trying to make it operational. The tax would raise revenue, lower costs, increase the efficiency of the tax code and give the Obamacare individual market its best chance at success.”
Karl W. Smith, Bloomberg