Attacks on Medicare for All are coming from all sides. But activists and supporters must not disengage, lest they cede ground to those whose sole interest is easy profits from a patently corrupt healthcare system.

Republicans taught Democrats and progressives an important lesson: Repetition and message discipline is not only important, it is also effective. Most importantly, in a vacuum, in a space where a repeated message remains unchallenged, it is not even necessary that the message is truthful. In fact, the dissemination of disingenuous messaging flourishes in the repetitious environment.

To be clear, math is absolute. It is impossible for (Cost of Healthcare) to be more expensive than (Cost of Healthcare + Cost of Multiple Executives + Cost of Shareholder Profits + Cost of Duplicate Services + Doctor Cost to Interface with Multiple Insurance Companies + more). That is an absolute statement. Those who are opposed to Medicare for All would like you to forget that basic mathematical fact.

No fiscally responsible politician who has the interest of their poor- and middle-class constituents at the forefront could continue to support a model designed solely as a method to enrich a few while providing absolutely no service. In fact, private insurance adds inefficiency to delivering health care.

Private insurance’s fiduciary responsibility is to its shareholders, and to its overpaid executives. That dictates that the insurance industry performs two immoral tasks. The first is to market to the healthy, even as obstacles are erected that leave those with pre-existing conditions without insurance. Secondly, private insurance companies make every attempt to deny service. These two acts maximize profits to shareholders and ensure exorbitant salaries for their executives.

Profits are not a bad thing if one is providing a necessary service in an efficient manner, or one needs to be innovative. Private insurance provides neither. The industry’s ‘innovation’ consists of finding ways to maximize wealth extraction.

Americans are starting to get it, even if some Democrats and Republicans make believe they don’t (wink-wink). Those ‘skeptics’ are wards of the plutocracy.