Thread by @VirtualCarole

#VettingBernie

When it comes to Medicare for All,

Bernie Sanders is a fraud. /thread

Bernie's plan thru the '16 election & most of his decades in Congress, wasn't remotely M4A. Like the worst kind of politician, he just called it that.

(Protip: If Republicans call a bill the 'Blue Sky Clean Air Act,' read it. It's prob roll'g back environ. stds to 1960's levels)

Not only was it not M4A, Bernie Sanders plan wasn't even "a" plan so much as "50" plans.

His plan: To require all 50 states to create their own individual plans.

It did not open Medicare to everyone, or expand/build on Medicare's framework at all.

It ended Medicare.

Don't believe me? Here is the STATE-based plan Bernie ran on in 2016

S.1782 American Health Security Act of 2013

"TITLE I—ESTABLISHMENT OF A STATE-BASED AMERICAN HEALTH SECURITY PROGRAM; UNIVERSAL ENTITLEMENT; ENROLLMENT"
congress.gov/bill/113th-con…

But, but, but, that says 2013, didn't he have a different plan when he ran in 2016?

No, no he didn't.

Remember when Chelsea Clinton gave a speech about some major concerns w/Bernie's plan, and Sanders Nation came out and called her a lying liar who lies?

Sanders issued this press release:
web.archive.org/web/2016020421…

With this attachment:
web.archive.org/web/2016020409…

Confirming that bill represents Bernie's plan:

"... the American Health Security Act of 2013 — the most recent bill introduced by Sen. Sanders to implement his health plan..."

(And their spin is absurd, btw. They try to equate an entire state health system to a website.)

And here is the bill Bernie sponsored all the way back in 1991 which is the same kind of state-based 50 plan gobbledygook. He pushed this crap for decades - NOT M4A:
congress.gov/bill/102nd-con…

Once Bernie realized people were misunderstanding his plan, because of the misleading way he referred to it, he simply started calling it a federal plan even though he changed not a single detail and had referred to it as a state-based plan up until that point.

Why does this matter?

-Bernie Sanders isn't consistent and he didn't switch to something like M4A until after the 2016 election. That's why he took so long to come up with a bill, that's why it overpromised, and that's why he didn't have a way to pay for it. He is new to M4A.

-Bernie is dishonest & willing to label stuff M4A that isn't.

-Bernie knew his supporters were confused and just quietly slipped over to M4A hoping no one would notice.

-Bernie gins up his supporters to be M4A or bust when his own plan wasn't even M4A but just a bad UHC plan

Why was his plan bad or different from M4A?

There's too much to list here, but these are some highlights:

-It's unconstitutional. The federal gov't doesn't have the power to require this of states. SCOTUS ruled the federal gov't can't even req states to expand Medicaid, which is a prog they all already belong to.
-It wasn't fully funded via the federal gov't. (Sec 604 b, Sec 604 d 1)

-It wasn't uniform. Each state's plan had to meet the same basic coverage but could do it in different ways and vary wildly after that. With Medicare, grandmas in CA get the same options as grandmas in IA and grandmas everywhere can go anywhere that takes Medicare, but, alas...

no National Medicare card came with Bernie's plan, though, just a state issued card from your one state of residence.

-He expected me and everyone to let the money we've been paying into Medicare this whole time be sent back to the states to admin. No way do I trust the idiots running my state with this money and that's going to be true of people living in at least half the states. (Sec 106 a)

-With few exceptions, like an emergency while travel'g, you could only get care in your own state unless your state neg'd a sep agreement w/a neighboring state - a big prob for people living along borders. States w/Dr. or hosp bed shortages could just not negotiate.
(Sec 104 b)

-It created redundancies which offset the efficiencies of a real single-payer plan. Each state had to create complex bureacracies to approve providers, navigate an annual budget process, pay claims, neg. fee schedules w/providers yearly & more. That's a lot of middlemen x 50.

If Sanders couldn't come up with a better healthcare plan than this over decades in power, how is he trustworthy to lead on that issue now?

If Sanders is willing to confuse people like he did in this op-ed by saying "Medicare should be expanded to cover all Americans," but then pitches this bill - which does not do that - in the same article, how is he trustworthy to lead on this issue now?
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

If Sanders signed-on to the Democrat's M4A plan once, but then AFTER he won election to the Senate, went right back to pushing his same old pass-the-buck-to-the-states plan he's been pitching since '91, how is he trustworthy to lead on this issue now?

The answer is: Bernie Sanders isn't trustworthy. He doesn't bother to develop good solutions, misrepresents his past stances on issues, and works to divide instead of unite people from the same side of the aisle.

#VettingBernie /end