A Closer Look At The Private Insurance Commercial Sanders Correctly Predicted Would Air During The July Debate

Meet The Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, The Lobby Group Who Wants America’s Healthcare System To Stay Exactly The Same

One viral moment from this week’s debate was when Senator Bernie Sanders told CNN debate moderator Jake Tapper that his question about Medicare for All was a Republican talking point that would later be advertised by the pharmaceutical lobby during a commercial that night. Later that night, the commercial aired.

Now This News breaks down the story very well, with embedded footage of the exchange at the debate as well as the commercial.

If you squint, you’ll see the add was paid for by The Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, or PAHCF. It’s an acronym as meaningless and confusing as their mealy mouthed mission statement, promising to fight to keep healthcare exactly the same as it is now.

“Same Thing” was even the title of the commercial in question they paid for during the debate, currently sitting at a whopping 2000 views on Youtube:

The Commercial PAHCF paid for during the first night of the Second DNC Debate

Who is PAHCF and what do they represent? The Who We Are section of firm’s about page downplays the truth, but does disclose they’re a lobbying group for insurance and pharmaceuticals:

PAHCF claims they represent interests of the average American, but that’s not true. They’re representing the millionaires who sell insurance policies or prescription drugs, like insurance companies, pharamceutical lobbies, hospital networks and special interest groups. This is abundantly clear looking at PACHF’s Donations Page:

Donations from PAHCF’s about page

What do PAHCF do? According to their mission statement, PAHCF advocates for health care policy that absolutely isn’t at all federally regulated, tax funded, universal healthcare.

No Medicare for all, no public plans or subsidies to people using the plans (only subsidies for the companies selling the plans), nothing other than financial markets for health insurance actuaries to speculate on and profit from. Again, read the most relevant sentence of their mission statement:

…whether it’s called Medicare for all, buy-in, or a public option, one-size-fits-all health care will never allow us to achieve those goals.

What goals? Two, profit oriented, goals are foremost at the interests of insurance and pharmaceutical industry, and PAHCF lauds these goals in their public relations with American voters:

Incentivize the insurance industry to create so many plans that the health care industry is impossible for customers and health care providers to navigate so those customers pay more out of pocket for doctors visits and health care providers are reimbursed for fewer services, thereby allowing the insurance companies to pay out less money Incentive the pharmaceutical industry to sell drugs covered by fewer prescription plans, so treatments can be sold at a high markup from the cost it takes produce them, as well as pass that expense off the insurance companies onto the consumer.

PAHCF does not believe health care is a human right. They believe access to healthcare is a human right:

Access, in this case, means an abundance of plans to choose from. You can buy a plan if you can afford it: if you can’t afford it, tough luck.

This is the world we live in, and the world PAHCF wants: you can buy your employer’s provided plan, or you can research and buy your own plan; if your plan doesn’t offer enough coverage, you have the access to buy supplemental plans. Buy as many insurance policies you need to pay for all your healthcare costs after you meet your minimum deductible payments.

In other words, pay every month, always pay the first $1000, and if you get sick or hurt, you‘ll probably be on the hook for thousands in debt.

PAHCF wants to keep everything the same because the system is working as designed for the big-money makers on top.

In our world and PAHCF’s preferred system, people buy healthcare strictly out of fear — fear of using it, fear of not having it, fear of navigating the complicated policies and criteria, fear of quitting their jobs and losing their bad insurance policy they didn’t want to use in the first place.

The private healthcare industry is a racket: they know it, but they’re committed to doing whatever it takes to delude the American people. We pay insurance premiums and insurance companies receive money back from tax payers subsidies. We pay them twice through a monthly bill and a yearly tax filing.

When Sanders said his campaign and its supporters are taking on the pharmaceutical and insurance industry, he meant the entire industry — all 30 billion dollars of their annual marketing spent on confusing the issue.

No one else in Washington or on corporate funded media has the courage to take on these industries because insurance lobbying money pays for entire campaigns; ads for prescription medicine bank roll their entire media networks.

In my next post, I’m going to take a closer look at the groups funding PAHCF and what they have to say about Medicare for All…

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