(This post was originally posted 9/7/17.)

 

(Author’s note: As we enter the last few weeks of the presidential campaign, there are several campaign issues which have been previously addressed in this blog. These include Medicare for All, single-payer healthcare, socialism, school choice and others. In the next few weeks I will be re-posting many of my previous posts on these issues as a review for voters. For this limited time I will be posting six days a week instead of the usual twice a week. These earlier posts will be intermingled with new posts on current topics.)

 

Not all heroes wear military uniforms. I have the greatest respect for our military and we owe our freedom to the men and women who serve in our defense. But some heroes fight their battles with pen and pencil rather than guns and grenades.

I’m speaking of Eva Moskowitz, a Democratic woman who is a thorn in the side of the Democratic Party, especially those in New York City. Moskowitz has the audacity to care more about the poor, minority children of New York than the politicians and teachers’ unions that are supposed to represent these children in their pursuit of an education.

As anyone who has ever studied the plight of the poor in inner cities knows, the path to escape from a lifetime of dependency is education. Education opens doors – doors of opportunity – to jobs that lead to meaningful work and greater influence and affluence. Housing and Urban Development Secretary and former presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson is the prime example of someone who escaped poverty and obscurity through education.

Moskowitz was exposed to the problem of New York’s failing public schools as a child who grew up in Harlem in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Though she is white, she was forced to endure the same failing education system as her minority friends. Fortunately, she was blessed with parents who were both professors who supplemented her education. She would go on to achieve high academic goals including a Ph.D in history from Johns Hopkins University.

What makes Moskowitz special is she saw a problem that surrounded her and she determined to do something about it. What makes her a hero is she was willing to challenge her own political party and the leaders of minority groups to make education better for the minorities.

The Success Academy

Moskowitz founded The Success Academy, a charter school in Harlem, in 2006. Today there are seven Success Academy schools just in Central Harlem. She wanted a better education for the children of New York City where education was still failing thirty years after her own experience. By giving parents a choice of where to send their children, Moskowitz is giving those children a chance to live a better life.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Moskowitz can now report the latest performance numbers for her school choice movement since the results of the 2017 New York state tests were released. Here are the amazing statistics:

• Almost half of Central Harlem students attend a charter school
• Students meeting rigorous Common Core math standards have more than doubled since 2013 – from 1,690 to 3,703.
• Students attending charter schools account for 96% of that growth.
• Black and Hispanic students from Success Academy schools outperform white students across the city by 33 points in math and 21 points in reading.
• Low-income students outperform the city’s affluent students by 38 points in math and 24 points in reading.

 

Parents are noticing the difference. This year 14,000 Harlem children were entered into a lottery for charter schools but only 3,000 spots were available. Across the city there are 48,000 students on charter school waiting lists.

I’m sure no one would contend that black and Hispanic students are genetically superior to explain these results. So the schools must get the credit. You might expect liberals who claim they are concerned about the poor and minorities would be elated at these results. Sadly, you would be wrong.

The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) recently called for a moratorium on charter schools, claiming they created a system that was “separate and unequal.” Lily Garcia, president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, also opposes charter schools. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten even went so far as to say school-choice and charter schools were the “polite cousins” to Jim Crow segregation. Progressive New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio is also opposed to charter schools.

In other words, when school choice and charter schools benefit blacks and other minorities, the NAACP and the teachers unions call these schools “racist.” When blacks and other minority students succeed, Democratic leaders oppose more of the same school choices.=

If you’re confused you’re not alone. What’s not confusing is the agenda of these organizations that profess to be concerned about the plight of minority children but in fact are only concerned with their own political power and campaign coffers.

My hat’s off to people like Eva Moskowitz and Education Secretary Betsy De Vos who are fighting an uphill battle to improve the education and the lives of thousands of minority children despite the obstruction of those who should be applauding their efforts and supporting their work. They are true heroes.

 

President Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court has brought a new wave of “fake news” and false claims by Democrats. The latest is that her confirmation will destroy healthcare in America.

This latest scare tactic is based on the fact that the Supreme Court will hear arguments in its next session concerning the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). Health insurance industry analyst Robert Laszewski tells everyone to calm down. ObamaCare isn’t going anywhere fast.

Laszewski says this latest appeal to the Supreme Court relates to the repeal of the Individual Mandate, which happened in 2017, as a part of the Tax Reform Act. Since then, a number of Republican state attorneys have sued, arguing the loss of the Individual Mandate nullifies the entire legislation. The appeal to the Supreme Court comes from a decision by a Texas federal judge who determined that the whole law is unconstitutional in the absence of the Individual Mandate.

Laszewski gives several reasons why he doesn’t believe the Supreme Court will toss out ObamaCare:

• Weak legal argument – Many conservative legal scholars have questioned the current challenge on the merits. Jonathan Adler of Case Western University, the architect of the last challenge, filed an amicus brief in which he said the current challenge is, “unmoored from law or contemporary doctrine.”
• Past court decisions – Republican appointed justices are not purely partisan animals marching to the Trump political line. According to the Supreme Court database, from 2000 to 2018, 36% of all decisions were unanimous. Their 7 – 2 or 8-1 decisions made up 15 percent of decisions. The 5-4 decisions, by comparison occurred in only 19 percent of cases. Even in the 2019-2020 term, with new justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, only 21% of decisions were 5-3 or 5-4.
• False claims – Those who are promoting fear of the dissolution of ObamaCare believe the dubious notion that if the Individual Mandate is gone, so will broader parts of the law such as the Medicaid expansion and the individual insurance subsidies. This is highly unlikely.
• Unintended consequences – If the law were deemed entirely unconstitutional, it would eliminate insurance overnight for all those who are covered by ObamaCare policies. It is hard to see how one gets from eliminating the Individual Mandate, which has already been gone three years, to justifying elimination of coverage for millions overnight.

 

The Wall Street Journal editorial board agrees. They believe SCOTUS will preserve ObamaCare even in the absence of the Individual Mandate. “Justices Kavanaugh and Alito joined the Chief in striking down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s for-cause removal provision while upholding the law. So it’s unlikely they will vote to overturn all of ObamaCare, especially since the economic reliance interests have also grown considerably since 2012.”

ObamaCare currently insures only 4% or about 20 million Americans. The rest have private health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, or government-provided insurance for government employees or the military. Yet Democrats have seized upon this issue to spread fear that everyone is about to lose their healthcare insurance if the Senate confirms Judge Barrett.

This is a scare tactic, plain and simple, in the same way that they claim President Trump wants to eliminate coverage of pre-existing conditions. Both are false claims. Ironically, it is the same Democrats who want to eliminate your private health insurance through Medicare for All (Bernie Sanders’ plan) or ObamaCare with a “Public Option” (Joe Biden’s plan). Either way they want you to accept complete government control of your healthcare, sooner or later.

The confirmation of Judge Barrett is anathema to the Democrats, not because they fear the elimination of ObamaCare, but because they fear the loss of their ability to change our laws through activist liberal justices, rather than through the democratic process of change through Congress. The former allows changes never approved by the people, while the latter ensures the people have their constitutionally-guaranteed right to vote. That’s the way democracy is supposed to work.

(This post was originally posted 3/18/19.)

 

(Author’s note: As we enter the last few weeks of the presidential campaign, there are several campaign issues which have been previously addressed in this blog. These include Medicare for All, single-payer healthcare, socialism, school choice and others. In the next few weeks I will be re-posting many of my previous posts on these issues as a review for voters. For this limited time I will be posting six days a week instead of the usual twice a week. These earlier posts will be intermingled with new posts on current topics.)

 

In previous posts of this series, Part I addressed the false claims of supporters of Medicare for All that it would provide universal access to healthcare. In Part II I continued with more discussion on access to healthcare and the claim that this would eliminate approval of medical treatments. Part III addressed the impact on increased taxes and healthcare costs for patients and the government.

In Part IV I talked about the impact Medicare for All will have on the quality of healthcaredelivered in America if this government-controlled system is enacted. Poorer healthcare outcomes can be expected, as experienced in every other country with socialized medicine. In Part V, I will discuss how popular this system will be.

Support Depends Upon Words and Understanding

If you listen to Democratic pundits who support Medicare for All, you’d think the whole country loves this idea. Every declared Democratic candidate for president thus far supports it including Senators Kamala Harris, Corey Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren. Of course Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders originated the idea and may run again for president. It has almost become a litmus test for Democratic presidential candidates. Liberal Democrats Howard Schultz and Michael Bloomberg were both excoriated by Democrats when they expressed opinions Medicare for All is unreasonable and unaffordable.

Supporters point to recent polls like the January Kaiser Family Foundation poll that found 56% of Americans favor “a national health plan, sometimes called Medicare for All, where all Americans would get their insurance from a single government plan.” Only 42% opposed the idea when so worded.

Karl Rove, writing in The Wall Street Journal, says support drops quickly when people hear about its possible effects. Support dropped to 37%, with 60% opposed, when respondents were told it would “eliminate private health insurance companies” or “require most Americans to pay more in taxes.” Support fell to only 32% when respondents were alerted it would “threaten current Medicare.” And it crashed to 26% if those polled heard it would lead to “delays in people getting some medial tests and treatment.” Since all of the above are true, it can be deduced that real support for Medicare for All is only about 26% of the population.

Labeling also matters. In a November 2017 Kaiser poll that did not mention negative effects, “Medicare for All” drew a 62% favorable rating. But labeling the same idea “single-payer health insurance” dropped support to only 48%. Support dropped further if it was labeled “socialized medicine” – 44% favorable and 43% negative.

Supporters of Medicare for All are trying to keep the public in the dark. They know these polling numbers, too, so they prefer to talk about Medicare for All but avoid saying “single-payer healthcare” or “socialized medicine.” They also don’t want to talk about the real cost of this proposal.

Sanders refuses to say how much it will cost. His acolyte, Rep. Alexandria Occasio-Cortez, calls fiscal concerns “puzzling.” She told Jorge Ramos of Univision last November, “You just pay for it. We’re paying more now!” Then she later tweeted that two-thirds of Medicare for All could be paid for by cutting wasteful Pentagon spending. The total Pentagon budget is about $700 Billion – only about 20% of the annual cost of Medicare for All! Clearly, her math falls far short of reality.

These and other supporters of Medicare for All are pushing this idea because they are either ignorant of the truth, unconcerned about real healthcare improvements, or willing to demagogue the issue for political gain. The supporters of this proposal are grossly exaggerating the benefits and grossly underestimating the costs and its impact on taxes and healthcare access.

The American people will not accept this idea when they become fully informed of its repercussions. Since the mainstream media cannot be trusted to inform the people, it is incumbent on Republicans to make this a campaign priority.

November Election Results

In the recent November mid-term elections, Medicare for All was a hot topic. It was a useful idea to support in Democratic primaries where enthusiastic progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley and Kara Eastman beat a centrist Democrat in Nebraska.

But Medicare for All did not fare as well in the general election, according to Sally Pipes, writing in Forbes. She notes 111 Democratic candidates in House races backed Medicare for all but only 19 won their elections. Just eight flipped their districts from red to blue. So Medicare for All supporters won just one in five House seats flipped by Democrats. Five of the eight seat flips were in true-blue California, where only one in four voters is registered Republican. Two seat flips happened in Pennsylvania districts that had been redrawn to make them Democratic strongholds. Presidential candidates might want to review these results more carefully before going too far out on a limb to support Medicare for All.

The Truth About Medicare for All

In summary, the truth about Medicare for All is it will result in:

• Universal healthcare insurance but reduced access to healthcare
• Government control of all healthcare treatment approval
• Government control of all healthcare payments to providers
• Governmentrestrictions on costly new treatments and technology
• Huge tax increasesthat will lower take-home pay for everyone
• Higher healthcare costsfor most patients and the government
• Lower quality healthcare and long waiting timesdue to rationing

 

We have the best quality healthcare in the world. Why would we want to ruin it by implementing Medicare for All? Actually, most Democrats, according to the latest Kaiser poll, would prefer to focus on passing improvements in ObamaCare. Only 38% preferred to focus on passing Medicare for All, while 51% thought it more important to improve and protect ObamaCare.

Improving ObamaCare or replacing it with market-driven reforms that protect treatment of pre-existing conditions while lowering healthcare costs makes much more sense than single-payer healthcare, socialized medicine or Medicare for All. By any name you choose, it represents a disastrous choice for our country!