So, Emma Vigeland got to interview Mallory McMcmorrow and MAN that didn't go very well. McMorrow just comes off so bad in practice. Like, she's terrible as a politician. On public option over M4A she went into like incoherent defenses about how republicans in office would F it up, when they F it up anyway and yeah. She just comes off as weak and fake.
With that said, I wanna try to explain how I'd defend a public option. My answers don't translate to McMcmorrow because im not a weak moderate trying to masquerade as a progressive, I am a progressive in my own right, but yeah.
Defending McMorrow's point better than she did
Okay, so this isn't my primary reason to be pro public option, but I'll put it this way. If you go M4A, you put all your eggs in one basket. And it's the government basket, meaning if the government screws up, healthcare struggles for many. Conservatives claim that government healthcare can lead to rationing and death panels. It doesn't have to, but imagine DOGE getting their hands on it and cutting it. They WOULD be the types to just start killing off the old and sick because it's too expensive, while simultaneously claiming that government healthcare cant work. it's bad enough when the GOP guts the ACA or a public option, but imagine if this is our ONLY healthcare option. The whole country is screwed. Currently there are prohibitions on taxpayer funds to be used on things like abortions. Abortions are healthcare. How can we maintain access to reproductive healthcare for women if the government runs the whole system and the right is willing to enforce their twisted ideology through the government? They could effectively just ban abortion on the federal level because the government is the only game in town.
I mean, maybe private options should at least exist. We both want universal healthcare. We just differ in what it looks like. It's fine if we have medicare for all who want it, to use a term some moderate public option supporters have used, but there is still room for private markets in healthcare, and I'm not sure a one size fits all approach works.
Really, that's all that needs to be said. It's that simple. Basically, I argued McMorrow's point better than McMorrow.
Now, to go further:
My own defense of a public option over single payer
Look, I like the idea of single payer, it's a very elegant solution to healthcare, but it's also insanely expensive. It cost $3 trillion in 2020, with $1-1.2 trillion already coming from government give or take. It would take $2 trillion to fund. And Bernie struggled to fund it himself. Last I checked his own plan had a gap of a few hundred billion in practice. Not fatal, but not great. We could work with it, and many who are dead set with it could probably tweak things to make it work...except....
Now it's $5 trillion a year. And we need $3 trillion. And I just can't make the numbers work. Now, again, I could, if this were my only priority, but it's not. I also wanna fund a $4.6 trillion UBI plan that most progressives dont actively advocate for in their campaigns. Seriously, I kind of have different ideas than a lot of progressives. Most model themselves off of Bernie Sanders. My own plans are closer to Yang. Sanders doesn't have UBI as a priority. That's why that lane of progressive can fund it and I cannot. And while you might say, "well, then screw your UBI this is more important." Well....agree to disagree.
The fact is, to make universal healthcare work, I'd have to cut my UBI in half, or move to a negative income tax. Both of which would compromise my UBI. I would rather compromise on healthcare. My own goals are to end poverty and free people from the coercion of employment. UBI is more of a swiss army knife of policies. It's central. Traditional progressives are still jobists. And while medicare for all would unlink healthcare from employment itself (again, it's more elegant), eh...if I'm forced to compromise, it's on healthcare.
I'll defend this. My public option plan is based on medicare extra for all. It's a public option that automatically opts in all uninsured people. It bills them in line with their income. People with no income or, with a UBI, just a basic income, pay nothing. They get free healthcare. Those who work pay a bit of their salaries, like 2-8% based on their income, but here's the thing, if we had a single payer plan, these guys would be paying 4-5% or so anyway under Bernie's plan. And that might end up being higher, like 6% or something to make the numbers actually work. So you're paying either way, it's just a matter of how. You can pay for the public option, or pay for private insurance. THose who are employed probably still get private insurance. They can buy into medicare extra though. Those who are unemployed or underemployed have it worst under the current system. This would ensure everyone has automatic coverage. Currently you have to pay like $400 a month on the private market with a $9200 deductible. That's like $14400 in healthcare costs. Medicare extra would reduce these significantly, with a $5000 deductible max, say, 2% of your income at a low wage job monthly, that's like...$400 a year at $10 an hour. So you're saving $9k already versus the current system. Then my UBI gives you $16000 a year, or say, I did a half UBI at $8000 with medicare for all. Yeah, you can see how my plan very obviously benefits people. Just the UBI alone offsets whatever higher deductibles they'd have under UBI.
EDIT: Was in a hurry earlier, want to correct myself and point out that the deductibles and out of pocket costs likely also scale with income, so low income people pay very little at all, even if they are on the hook for some of it. It's generally people above 400-600% of the federal poverty line who pay full boat under such a plan, and for those people....there's always the private market if they want it cheaper.
Conclusion
With that said....eh, I think a public option is quite defensible here, given my full economic package. Again, if you dont prioritize UBI and want a traditional bernie progressive, that's an ideological disagreement and a disagreement on priorities. We can agree to disagree. But as a UBI stan, I stand by my ideas. And if you dont like my ideas, vote for someone else, what can I say?
And yeah, that's how I defend a public option. I dont expect everyone to agree with me, if anything, I straight up tell people "if you dont like my ideas vote for someone else", but yeah. I feel like this kind of defense is better than mcmorrow stuttering all over and not coherently defending anything. Seriously, why is she so bad at this? This is why I flipped on her so hard. She was originally my preferred candidate in the michigan race but then she crapped the bed so hard that now I'm in the el sayed camp. I really dont want weak liberals susceptible to corporate money here. McMorrow seems too compromised to support tbqh. She's supposed to be the middle ground soft progressive candidate but more and more she just reminds me of Kamala Harris. Bleh. Fauxgressive.
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