BenefitsAll

We Must Fight Against The Health Care Status Quo's Propaganda War on Medicare For All

March 04, 2019


No one could read the statistics about our broken health care system and walk away thinking it just needs a few tweaks. But that's exactly what the marketing and public relations arms of the health care industry status quo wants us to think. The campaign to push back on Medicare For All (M4A), Medicare Buy-In, and any kind of universal health care program that competes with the for-profit health care system is in full swing. What these ads lack in originality they make up for in gall. But if history is any guide, millions of health care consumers will fall for the health care status quo's economic propaganda.

Health Care Industry Anti-Medicare For All Ads Are Pathetic

Social and other media outlets are currently awash in anti-Medicare For All ads, funded by health care organizations and other businesses.

The Partnership for America's Health Care Future (P4AHCF), recently sent out a tweet warning of a future of high prices, low quality, and fewer health plan choices under Medicare For All. (Someone should tell them that the future is now.)


And there's more. The P4HCF's web site has this to say about our current health care system.

"While our current system is not perfect - we know there are many parts of it that are working well for patients across the country. And thanks to ongoing progress, we can continue to build upon and protect the parts of this system that work well - while improving up the parts that do not."

Aside from the strange "improving up the parts" wording, The Partnership's using the tried and tested tactic of holding up the employer-sponsored health insurance market as a model of success. It's not, and it deserves an honest response.

Employer provided health insurance is not a success, it is not a part of the system that works well, and it is not relatively inexpensive as some may think. Employment-based plans receive favorable tax treatment that limit what employees pay, as well as subsidies from the employer. That $1,200 annual premium that the employee pays may receive a subsidy of over $4,800 from these two sources, leaving the employee with the false belief that their health plan is inexpensive. Health care spending in America consumes over 18% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). It is not inexpensive.

More Misleading Health Care Ads

Another health care industry player that uses scare tactics to protect their monumentally successful business model is the pharmaceutical industry (aka, Big Pharma).
Big Pharma's preferred marketing scare tactic is to lie about the impact of prescription drug price reform or regulation on drug innovation. This excellent article by Jay Hancock in Kaiser Health News details pharmaceutical companies' long history of using innovation as the primary excuse for its mind-boggling high drug prices. Spoiler: innovation was not the reason drug prices were so high 60 years ago and it's not the reason why they are so high now. Prices are high because prices are high.

And when the innovation argument is not enough to please politicians and other powerful critics, pharmaceutical companies place the blame for high out-of-pocket consumer drug costs on health insurance companies. It's a case of don't-blame-us-blame-them for not covering the full price of the drug. That may sound like a lame argument from Big Pharma, but if an $80,000 per lifetime drug can cure a disease or illness, doesn't it make sense for health insurers to cover the full cost of the cure in lieu of covering the cost to treat the symptoms of the disease? Maybe, but we should scrutinize the cost of the drug as well?

Combating The Health Care Status Quo’s Lies

The health care industry wants us to believe that they are working to improve the complex health insurance and health care system they created. Meanwhile, they are spending tens of millions of dollars to scare people away from pursuing an alternative to what they have to offer—a system that forces people to beg strangers for money to pay for needed medical care.

The industry wants us to overlook the tens of millions of dollars it gives its executives, and its high-price insurance and medical care. Prices that, according to a recent study by the Pioneer Institute, are based on "market power" and not costs or "quality of care."

For profit health care is accountable to its shareholders above all else. Consequently, they feel no pressure to justify prices; just profits. Medicare For All must be accountable to everyone, and as such it must project its cost, procure its financing, and communicate these components to critics and the public. It's a difficult task under the best of circumstances, and a near impossible task when the health care industry is constantly making false statements about what Medicare For All will mean and how much it will cost.

Fortunately, Medicare For All supporters have a response to the cost and pay for questions adversaries throw their way. In a conversation with Vox Media, Medicare For All advocate, Matt Bruenig, offers a host of suggestions for making Medicare For All affordable, including redirecting current health insurance payments to private insurers to the new program. Anti-health care reform propagandists will never mention this M4A funding plan because they want people to believe that Medicare For All requires all new taxes on top of what they are already paying for health insurance.

Conclusion

The most expensive health care system in the world with the worst health outcomes is not something anyone should defend, rationalize, or work to maintain. Yet, here we are, after one serious push for Medicare For All, in an all out public relations and propaganda war with the for profit health care status quo. May Medicare For All win.

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