May, 17 2023, 02:59pm EDT
Sanders, Jayapal, Dingell More Than 120 Colleaguesin House and SenateReintroduce Medicare for All
Studies estimate Medicare for All would save $650 billion and 68,000 lives per year; 69% of the U.S. supported providing Medicare to every American
At a time when more than 1 million people in the United States have lost their lives to the coronavirus pandemic—at least one third of which have been linked to lack of health insurance—and 15 million Americans are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) today came together with 14 of their colleagues in the Senate and more than 110 in the House of Representatives to reintroduce the Medicare for All Act, historic legislation that would guarantee health care as a fundamental human right to all people in the U.S. regardless of income or background.
Sanders, Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and Jayapal are joined on the 2023 legislation by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
"The American people understand, as I do, that health care is a human right, not a privilege," said Sanders. "It is not acceptable to me, nor to the American people, that over 85 million people today are either uninsured or underinsured. As we speak, there are millions of people who would like to go to a doctor but cannot afford to do so. That is an outrage. In America, your health and your longevity should not be dependent on your bank account or your stock portfolio. After all the lives that we lost to this terrible pandemic, it is clearer now, perhaps more than it has ever been before, that we must act to end the international embarrassment of the United States being the only major country on earth to not guarantee health care to all."
"We live in a country where millions of people ration lifesaving medication or skip necessary trips to the doctor because of cost," said Jayapal. "Sadly, the number of people struggling to afford care continues to skyrocket as millions of people lose their current health insurance as pandemic-era programs end. Breaking a bone or getting sick shouldn't be a reason that people in the richest country in the world go broke. There is a solution to this health crisis — a popular one that guarantees health care to every person as a human right and finally puts people over profits and care over corporations. That solution is Medicare for All — everyone in, nobody out. I'm so proud to fight for this legislation to finally ensure that all people can get the care they need and the care they deserve."
"Every American has the right to health care, period. If you're sick, you should be able to go to the doctor without being worried about the cost of treatment or prescription medicine. The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn't guarantee all its citizens access to health care," said Dingell. "The COVID-19 pandemic didn't create the flaws in our health care system, but it brought to light many of the shortcomings that have caused unnecessary and preventable hardship for countless American families for decades. We've been fighting this fight since the 1940s, when my father-in-law helped author the first universal health care bill. It's time to get this done."
"Health care should be a right for all, not a luxury for some," said Blumenthal. "In the United States of America, millions of Americans go to sleep at night worried about a procedure they can't access or a treatment their family can't afford. Our status quo is unacceptable. Regardless of age, income, or zip-code, access to quality, timely medical care should be guaranteed for all who need it. I'm proud to join my colleagues in introducing this landmark legislation."
"Despite the progress we've made in the past decade, millions of Americans still struggle to afford the quality health care they deserve," said Booker. "Health care is a human right, and it is unacceptable that the wealthiest nation on the planet lags behind other countries in guaranteeing access to quality and affordable care for all its citizens. It's time to put an end to the medical bankruptcies and exorbitant health care costs that burden families across the nation and work toward Medicare for All. I am proud to join in reintroducing this bill that will build a health care system that ensures that no one is left behind."
"The American health care system leaves millions of individuals without coverage and it needs fundamental change. In the richest country in history, your health should not be determined by your income or zip code," said Gillibrand. "I am proud to join my colleagues in the fight for Medicare for All, which would guarantee high-quality health care for every American and enshrine into law that health care is a right, not a privilege."
"New Mexicans should never have to choose between putting food on their table and accessing health care," said Heinrich. "That's why I am proud to cosponsor the Medicare for All Act to expand health care coverage and provide access to hospital services, emergency services, prescription drugs, oral health, vision, and audiology services to all Americans."
"Everyone should be able to get the health care they need, regardless of their income or insurance status," said Hirono. "As we continue to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, adopting Medicare for All is an important thing we can do to help expand access to comprehensive health care for all communities. I am proud to support this bill and other legislation to help people across the country access quality, affordable health care."
"Health care should be a right for every single American, not a privilege reserved for the healthy and the wealthy," said Merkley. "Our current health care system is incredibly complex, fragmented, and expensive, and Americans could have so much more peace of mind if we had a simple, seamless system where, solely by virtue of living in America, you know that you will get the care you need. It's time to simplify health care and lower patients' costs, and embrace Medicare for All."
"Health care is a basic human right—no one should ever go broke because of a medical bill or have to ration life-saving medications to make ends meet," said Warren. "Medicare for All works to guarantee that every American will be able to afford and access the health care that every person deserves."
"Medicare for All will help every Vermonter access essential health care, regardless of means. That's worth fighting for, and I'm proud to join Sen Sanders to reintroduce this essential and lifesaving legislation," said Welch. "No person should ever have to worry that they can't afford the medical care they need — period."
Today in the U.S., 68,000 Americans die each year because they cannot afford the health care they desperately need, millions more suffer unnecessarily because of delayed treatment, and more than 85 million Americans are uninsured or under-insured because of high deductibles and premiums. In addition, health care spending in the U.S. constitutes over 18 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Yet health outcomes, life expectancy, and infant mortality rates in the U.S. remain much worse than many other major countries. The U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate of almost any other major country on earth.
While estimates show 44 percent of the adult population, some 112 million Americans, are struggling to pay for the medical care they need, the seven major health insurance companies in America made over $69 billion in profits last year—up 287 percent since 2012. As millions of American families face bankruptcy and financial ruin because of the outrageously high cost of health care, the CEOs of 300 major health care companies collectively made $4.5 billion in total compensation in 2021. While one out of four Americans cannot afford the life-saving medicine their doctors prescribe, last year ten of the top pharmaceutical companies in the United States made over $112 billion in profits, and the top 50 executives in these companies made a combined $1.5 billion in total compensation.
Implemented over four years, the Medicare for All Act would provide comprehensive health care coverage to all with no out-of-pocket expenses, insurance premiums, deductibles, or co-payments. This includes coverage for primary care, vision, dental, prescription drugs, mental health, substance use disorder, long-term services and supports, reproductive health care, and more. The legislation would create a more streamlined and cost-effective system, allow patients not to worry if their doctor is "in-network," and substantially reduce the cost of prescription drugs by allowing the federal government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, Medicare for All would save the American people and the entire health care system $650 billion each year. A study by Yale epidemiologists, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet, estimates that Medicare for All would save some 68,000 lives per year simply by guaranteeing health care to all as a right. A study by RAND found that moving to a Medicare-for-all system would save a family with an income of less than $185,000 about $3,000 a year, on average.
In 2020, 69 percent of the American people supported providing Medicare to every American.
Nearly 200 national, state, and local organizations endorsed the Medicare For All legislation, including: National Nurses United, American Medical Student Association, People's Action, Public Citizen, Social Security Works, National Organization of Women, SEIU, AFA—CWA, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE), United Mine Workers of America, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division, Center for Popular Democracy, and National Domestic Workers Alliance.
Read the bill summary, here.
Read the bill fact sheet, here.
Read the list of organizational support, here.
Read the bill text, here.
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Senate Hearing Exposes Big Oil's 'Campaign of Deception and Distraction'
"Company officials will admit the terrifying reality of their business model behind closed doors but say something entirely different, false, and soothing to the public," Rep. Jamie Raskin said.
May 01, 2024
The U.S. Senate Budget Committee held a hearing Wednesday morning on the ongoing efforts of major fossil fuel companies and trade groups to delay climate action while deceptively painting themselves as part of the solution.
The hearing was based on an investigation launched by the House Oversight Committee in 2021 into the activities and communications of Exxon, BP, Shell, Chevron, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Chamber of Commerce. Both committees released the resulting report, Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak: Big Oil's Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change, on Tuesday.
"Our investigation uncovered compelling evidence of aggressive industry deceit which continues to this day," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said in his Senate testimony Wednesday. "The joint report and documents we discovered show how, time and again, the biggest oil and gas corporations say one thing for the purposes of public consumption but do something completely different to protect their profits. Company officials will admit the terrifying reality of their business model behind closed doors but say something entirely different, false, and soothing to the public."
"Policymakers and prosecutors must act swiftly to hold this rogue industry accountable for the climate chaos it has knowingly caused and bring its days of drill, deny, and delay to an end."
Raskin detailed key findings of the House investigation. The companies and trade groups:
- Made public pledges to abide by the Paris agreement that they internally acknowledged were impossible;
- Shifted from denying climate science to boosting natural gas and lying about being part of the solution;
- Publicized investments in low-carbon technologies that they internally admitted were unlikely to work;
- Depended on trade associations to promote their climate deceptions and lobby against effective climate action; and
- Used partnerships with academic institutes to greenwash their image while also influencing research and gaining access to politicians.
"Big Oil's corruption is even more far-reaching than we feared," Cassidy DiPaola, spokesperson for the Make Polluters Pay campaign, told Common Dreams in response to the hearing. "This investigation exposes how these companies have not only lied to the public for decades, but infiltrated the halls of academia to peddle their climate disinformation."
Raskin gave several notable examples of corporate malfeasance from the House investigation. For example, while BP promotes its commitment to the Paris agreement on its website, it admitted in an email that "no one is committed to anything, other than to stay in the game." He also noted that ExxonMobil spent almost 50% of the amount it used for researching and developing algae as a biofuel between 2009 and 2023 on advertising its efforts.
Further, the companies did not cooperate with the investigation: They had to be subpoenaed to provide meaningful information, and they buried substantial documents in a "paper blizzard" of useless files like mass emails.
"If the companies had fully complied in good faith, who knows what else we might have uncovered?" Raskin asked.
In addition to Raskin, the Senate committee also heard testimony from Sharon Eubanks, the former director of the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Tobacco Litigation Team; Geoffrey Supran, an associate professor of environmental science and policy and the director of the University of Miami's Climate Accountability Lab; Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and managing director of the Energy, Growth, and Security Program at the International Tax Investment Center; and Michael Ratner, a specialist in energy policy at the Congressional Research Service.
"As a scholar of disinformation, I do not use the word 'lie' lightly," Supran said during his testimony. "But no other word adequately describes the oil industry's brazen efforts to mislead the public about its history of misleading the public."
Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media said the hearing was a "huge deal, not just because of what it's revealing about Big Oil's history of climate deception, but because it's laying the groundwork for Congress to finally hold the industry accountable and make polluters pay."
Both speakers at the hearing and senators outlined various ways the industry might be held accountable. Raskin highlighted the similarities between Big Oil's lies about its products' impact on climate and the tobacco industry's lies about its products' impact on human health.
"More than 20 years ago, the Department of Justice brought a precedent-setting case against the cigarette companies," Raskin said. "That case liberated our minds from the tyranny of Big Tobacco and reverberated across America and the world. As a result, the public learned about the massive disinformation campaign waged by the tobacco industry; the companies were ordered to cease and desist their propaganda and to start telling the truth to the public; and governments and people around the world used the facts uncovered to battle the tobacco industry effectively for financial restitution and defense of the public health."
The possibility that the DOJ could bring a similar case against oil companies was reinforced by Eubanks, who told the Senate: "There exists solid evidentiary basis to move forward with a request to the Department of Justice to investigate the actions of the fossil fuel industry. Just as the Department of Justice investigated the tobacco industry and ultimately filed a civil racketeering complaint against the industry, given the similarities of the fraudulent acts, and the government's successful case against tobacco, there is adequate foundation for building a case."
In response, Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, said, "It is time for the Department of Justice to step in and defeat Big Oil's efforts to withhold the truth from the American people."
Another avenue for accountability was laid out by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who spoke up in favor of his Polluters Pay Climate Fund Act, which would use science attributing carbon dioxide and methane emissions to specific companies to then charge those companies for their climate pollution, putting the funds to work for a just transition to renewable energy.
"The idea is simple: The companies who pollute the most, should pay the most," Van Hollen said.
Climate and good governance groups supported the move toward accountability.
"Policymakers and prosecutors must act swiftly to hold this rogue industry accountable for the climate chaos it has knowingly caused and bring its days of drill, deny, and delay to an end," DiPaola told Common Dreams.
David Arkush, director of Public Citizen's Climate Program, said of fossil fuel deception, "It's criminal conduct, and our leaders and legal system should treat it as such."
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) pointed out that it is now possible to attribute rising temperatures, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and more frequent and extreme wildfires to the extraction and burning of oil, gas, and coal.
"This joint congressional investigation is an important step toward ending the fossil fuel industry's lies and obstruction of critical climate action," Kathy Mulvey, the accountability campaign director in UCS' Climate and Energy Program, said. "The internal industry documents released to the public and the testimony at this hearing add to the already considerable mountain of evidence illustrating misconduct by fossil fuel corporations and their surrogates. We urge policymakers and public prosecutors to move expeditiously to pursue accountability through every means at their disposal."
"We're getting to the point where it may be politically possible to actually take on the bad guys."
Reflecting on the hearing on his Substack, Bill McKibbenpointed to another important development it represented: a shift in the attitude of senior Democrats toward fossil gas, which both Raskin and Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) noted was not as clean as the industry pretended. In the past, Democratic leaders including former President Barack Obama had promoted the idea that gas could be a bridge fuel because it emits less carbon dioxide than coal when burned. But new evidence revealing how much methane its production leaks belies this claim.
"The fossil fuel industry desperately wants to lock in more dependence on fracked gas while they still can—that's why they reacted with such white-hot anger to the Biden administration's pause on permits for new [liquefied natural gas] export facilities earlier this year," McKibben wrote. "But the hope raised by today's hearing is that—if [President Joe] Biden wins reelection—that pause may become permanent, and the expansion of natural gas will finally be halted, recognized for the deep peril that it is."
While the Biden administration has so far focused on promoting renewable energy rather than reducing fossil fuel production, with measures such as the Inflation Reduction Act, the hearing showed that "we're getting to the point where it may be politically possible to actually take on the bad guys," McKibben said.
Indeed, Raskin did not mince works as he concluded his testimony. He referenced Jared Diamond's book Collapse and its assertion that one contribution to a civilization's demise is "the capture of political and social power by a narrow subset of society, which is committed to its own profit and power rather than the common good of the whole society and therefore refuses to take the steps necessary for collective survival."
"Big Oil's campaign of deception and distraction undermines the efforts we need to mobilize our people and government to save our climate, our habitat, and our species," Raskin said. "Unless the deception ends, and until the industry is held accountable, we are unlikely ever to be able to muster the national political will to effectively tackle climate change."
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Dozens of UK Universities Warned of Criminal Liability Over Israeli Weapons Investments
"Aiding, abetting and in any other way assisting in the commission of a war crime including 'providing the means for its commission' is a war crime," said the director of a legal group.
May 01, 2024
As U.S. campus protests and the aggressive police response galvanized a growing number of British students to set up their own encampments at universities across the country on Wednesday, a legal group informed dozens of higher education institutions in the U.K. that their investments in weapons manufacturers could leave them open to criminal liability stemming from human rights violations by Israel.
The International Center of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) warned officers at 82 universities that if they have profited from investments in companies including Elbit Systems, Caterpillar, and BAE Systems, their financial holdings may be linked to weapons used by the Israel Defense Forces in its current escalation against Gaza.
"Aiding, abetting and in any other way assisting in the commission of a war crime including 'providing the means for its commission' is a war crime," said ICJP director Tayab Ali, citing Article 25 of the Rome Statute.
The companies in question also "have a track record of providing equipment that has been used in home demolitions, the illegal Israeli separation wall in the West Bank and around Jerusalem, and other tools of apartheid," said the ICJP, making the universities potentially complicit in Israel's policies in the occupied West Bank.
Dania Abul Haj, senior legal officer for ICJP, said in a statement that "the massive crackdown on civil liberties we are seeing in the U.S. is a huge catalyst" for the group's letter to the universities.
"This money is paid to the universities by the students, and yet their voice is being totally disregarded in how it is being immorally invested," said Abul Haj.
Solidarity encampments were set up at schools including University of Warwick, University of Bristol, and Newcastle University this week.
Students in the U.S., U.K., and other countries have demanded that universities divest from companies in tech, weapons manufacturing, and other industries that contract with Israel.
Student organizers at the University of York celebrated last week as administrators announced it had divested from companies that "primarily make or sell weapons," following mass protests, marches, and rallies held at the school.
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Israeli Finance Minister Denounced for Calling for 'Total Annihilation' of Gaza
"But… did he say it on a college campus? Otherwise, it's just not news. Sorry, them's the rules," said one journalist sardonically.
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In just the latest example of a top Israeli official openly calling for the elimination of Gaza and the 2.3 million Palestinians who live there, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Tuesday demanded the destruction of cities and refugee camps in the blockaded enclave.
"There are no half measures," said Smotrich at a government meeting. "Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat—total annihilation."
"'You will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven,'" he added, quoting the biblical story of the nation of Amalek, whose people God commanded the Israelites to exterminate and which right-wing Israeli leaders have long invoked to justify the killing of Palestinians.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also referenced Amalek in the first weeks of Israel's current escalation against Gaza; Smotrich's comments came as he and other government officials pushed Netanyahu to forge ahead with a planned attack on the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1.5 million people have been displaced as other cities across Gaza have been decimated by Israeli forces.
Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), called on President Joe Biden to stop condemning thousands of U.S. college students who have demanded a cease-fire and an end to military aid for Israel and direct his ire toward the Israeli government, which he has repeatedly insisted is targeting Hamas despite its genocidal statements and indiscriminate attacks.
"In case the Israeli government's genocidal intent in Gaza was unclear to anyone despite its daily war crimes against the Palestinian people, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's words should serve as another wake-up call," said Hooper. "The intent of the Netanyahu government has always been Palestinian land without Palestinians, and violence has always been the route to achieve that heinous goal. Instead of condemning college students, President Biden must condemn Israeli leaders for making and acting on their genocidal threats."
In recent months, Israeli officials have stated that the "migration" of Gaza residents is their ultimate goal in relentlessly attacking the enclave, that all Palestinians in Gaza are "responsible" for a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October and are legitimate targets, that the enclave should be "flattened," and that the Israel Defense Forces is fighting "human animals."
Journalist Mehdi Hasan sardonically suggested that Smotrich's comments will be deemed acceptable by the Biden administration, members of Congress, and the U.S. corporate media because he didn't "say it on a college campus."
"Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a member of the security cabinet, ought to be fired immediately over his latest remarks," read an editorial in Haaretz Tuesday night that was published as police in New York were storming Columbia University to arrest students. "That's how any properly run country would act, and all the more so a country against which the International Court of Justice in The Hague has issued provisional measures requiring it to refrain from genocide, including one requiring it to deal properly with incitement to genocide."
Smotrich and others have objected to what National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on Tuesday called a "reckless" deal that would allow for the release of scores of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners who have long been detained in Israeli jails. The deal would include a 40-day halt in fighting.
CAIR also pointed out Tuesday that five units of Israel's security forces have been accused of committing a "gross violation of human rights," according to a U.S. State Department analysis.
"Our nation's repeated claim that it supports international law and human rights," said national executive director Nihad Awad, "is a cruel illusion."
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