Health Care Promises versus Real Proposals

When running for president, Trump claimed he already had plans in the works for fixing the healthcare mess this country has suffered for 70 years.  Candidate Trump promised “We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” in an interview with The Washington Post. “There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us” he continued. On another occasion he claimed "​I am going to take care of everybody. I don't care if it costs me votes or not, the government's gonna pay for it." Not only have those promises not been kept; there has been no actual plan proposed by the Trump administration that would even attempt to fulfill them.

Democrats in congress have already filed legislation that would address all those issues, it’s called Medicare for All and our congressman, Vicente Gonzalez, is a sponsor of the bill. There’s a reason that the “market” can’t provide health care for all at reasonable costs. Health care isn’t like a commodity or even most services.

When you need it you don’t have time to shop around, sometimes you need it regardless of the cost so rising prices don’t substantially affect demand as they would for most commodities and for the most part there is no substitute or alternative. If the price of potatoes goes up people eat more rice or bread. As the price of beef has risen people switch to chicken. When you’ve got an infection that’s gone septic your alternatives are strong antibiotics with hospital care or surgery to remove the affected limb or death. I know because my wife spent three months in the hospital and various rehabilitation facilities after coming close to death.

Another claim was “I firmly believe that nobody will be worse off financially in the process that we’re going through.” I got a raise in February and in March my insurance premium went up almost exactly the same amount. While not every reader may have experienced it I’ll bet most of you have found that your insurance premiums have risen yet again.

A recent study by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University projects that if Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” bill were to pass overall health costs would go down, and wages would go up. Had the study been done by some group at the University of California at Berkeley I’d expect a lot of complaints of liberal bias, in this case the Mercatus Center is backed by wealthy Libertarian Koch brothers. So if even the far right can see the benefits of the Democrats bill we should all be confident it’s the real deal.

Early in his campaign, candidate Trump claimed on Twitter, “I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid”. In October 2015, he tweeted, "I am going to save Medicare and Medicaid, …”. So far there’s  been no indication that he’s actually working to avoid cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and since the Republican controlled congress is working on legislation to slash both programs in the name of deficit reduction he’d better get a move on or he’ll fail to fulfill yet another campaign promise.

In November if we elect a Democratic governor, state senate and state house they could then pass the  Healthy Texas Act which would provide similar coverage to Medicare for All but just in Texas. If you believe that everyone deserves health care get out and vote for Democrats in November.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 3, 2018