Questions for All - Medicare for All Primer for Journalists

Now that Kamala Harris, a top-tier Democratic candidate for President has announced her support for Sanders's Medicare for All plan, it's time for journalists to start asking tough, informed question. Because we all know how hard that is for them, here is a primer to get them started. Hopefully, they might use this to actually inform the public unlike what happened with Obamacare, where I defy you to identify a single story in the New York Times or on cable news that included the fact that about 1/3 of the uninsured at the time were illegal immigrants and 1/3 were eligible for Medicaid but had not enrolled. Of the latter group, it is almost certainly the case (but we will never know since the media didn't report on it), that these uninsured were healthy individuals who were reasonably waiting until they needed healthcare before enrolling. If Americans had known this ahead of time, then they wouldn't be surprised to find out that Obamacare has reduced the uninsurance rate by only 40-50%. But of course, that fact is barely mentioned these days either, and if so, it is assuredly blamed on the states that did not expand Medicaid.

Which leads into the first set of questions. First, "What problem(s) is Medicare for All supposed to solve?" For this, I have a suspected answer: to reduce the uninsured rate to zero and lower the costs. Any knowledgeable journalist or citizen should immediately remember that Obamacare was advertised as a solution to both problems. In the run-up to Obamacare's passage, not a single news story caveated that Obamacare would only reduce the uninsurance rate to 5-10%, not a single news story (from traditional sources) warned that Obamacare would not reduce costs, they instead repeated the administration's claims that it would lower costs. Remember, "bend the cost curve down"? The fact that the Democrats now want to fix both of these problems should be a constant reminder that Obamacare failed to solve these problems and not a single serious journalist warned Americans about these predictable shortcomings.

For specific questions, first, I want to congratulate Jake Tapper for asking a terrific question of Harris--is she in favor of completely eliminating private insurance. This is a clear outcome of the Sanders Medicare for All plan, but then, he is an avowed socialist. To which, at the risk of an over-abundance of praise, we should laud Senator Harris for replying that yes, she does want to eliminate private insurance. Her team tried to backtrack, and then later stood by her original statement. It's currently a little unclear as to what she thinks about private insurance, but we can be confident that this issue will come up again. This is the first question that should be asked of every candidate, "Do you want to, as the Sanders plan does, completely eliminate private insurance?"

Some follow up questions:

"Do you know how many people are employed directly or indirectly through the private insurance marketplace? What will happen to them? Does your plan include paying their unemployment and helping them find new jobs?"

"Will your plan do anything to make investors in these companies whole? How much money will investors, pension plans, and retirees lose from your nationalization of insurance?"

The second set of questions involves Medicare Advantage. President Obama and the Democrats tried to mortally wound Medicare Advantage by reducing payments to MA plans through the ACA, but it, to the surprise of everyone, grew after the passage of the ACA. For those who don't know, Medicare Advantage offers Medicare recipients a private option to compete with traditional Medicare. Approximately one third of eligible seniors choose an MA plan in lieu of traditional Medicare. As far as I know, the Medicare for All plans do not mention Medicare Advantage, but I would assume they want to do away with it. 

Questions:

"Will your plan, in addition to eliminating the current plans of the majority of working Americans also eliminate the plans of approximately 1/3 of seniors? If Medicare for All does not pass, do you still favor eliminating Medicare Advantage? Do you believe choice is good for consumers in general? What about the healthcare market makes choice a negative factor?"

These questions should be asked of the candidates, not because they're "gotcha" questions, because they aren't. They are serious and important questions that will matter to people. They impact a lot of people's lives and they show that the candidate has done her homework and is not just promising the moon. If journalists start doing their job and actually providing the public information, Americans can replace the epithets they currently hurl at each other with facts.

Questions the Media should have asked about Buzzfeed Bombshell

For those who don't read or watch the news continuously, there was a 24-hour explosion in the Impeach Trump saga, that started with a bang on Thursday and ended with a whimper on Friday.

It began when BuzzFeed, the vaunted news source that brought us the as yet unverified Trump dossier, published a story, from anonymous sources no less, that Trump directed his lawyer to lie to Congress.

It ended when the Office of the Special Counsel disputed, in general terms, the thrust of the BuzzFeed story.

But this was not before it was reported by everyone CNN,

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/trump-russia-cohen-moscow-tower-mueller-investigation

The core of the story can be summarized by three paragraphs:

"Now the two sources have told BuzzFeed News that Cohen also told the special counsel that after the election, the president personally instructed him to lie — by claiming that negotiations ended months earlier than they actually did — in order to obscure Trump’s involvement.

The special counsel’s office learned about Trump’s directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office."

On Friday evening, before Mueller's team shot back, I started to ask some questions that I realized that the media should have been asking. Namely, 1) What was the motivation for leaking this story and 2) Why BuzzFeed and not the NY Times.

On Question 1, suppose you are on Mueller's team investigating this. You believe that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress and you believe you have the proof to back it up. Since the investigation already has what it needs, and it's still going through the normal investigative process to be followed up by the prosecutorial process, what reason do you have to tell the media? It will be given to the media in due course, as soon as Mueller finishes his report.

The most likely reason I could think of was that the sources must NOT have believed it was going to see the light of day for whatever reason. Most likely because the evidence was too weak. (This turns out to be even more likely considering the Mueller dispute).

The second question I asked was why these sources would talk to BuzzFeed instead of the New York Times or Washington Post, for example. Why not go to a much more credible and established news outlet. This information was absolutely enormous and consequential. If I thought it was important enough to get into the news, I'd go straight to the top, why didn't these sources? Again, the likely answer is that they did not want the scrutiny from those sources or they knew it would be called into question and did not want to sully either of those companies.

I admit that maybe there are good reasons I didn't think of, but my point is that these are important questions that the media should have asked, but they did not. Probably because they prefer to breathlessly report bad news for Trump than to actually do their jobs.

Update: I heard a viable reason to leak the news. The timing of the presidential election and the investigation will make it difficult to complete impeachment proceedings before election day if they wait until the investigation is complete. Leaking gives Congress a reason to begin immediately. This was suggested in the 18 hours between the initial story and the Mueller rebuttal, and so is now moot. Even if true, this shows that the leakers were trying to short-circuit the investigative process and does not explain why Buzzfeed.