“Us, Not Me” and the Promises of Bernie Sanders

This is a response I wrote when someone accused Sanders of making big promises on which he won’t deliver. That’s always a possibility, of course, because that’s what politicians frequently do.

But Sanders has three things going for him. (1) He’s been advocating for many social welfare benefits for a long time. He knows they are important to us, so they are important to him. (2) He provides non-overlapping funding mechanisms for his proposals. (3) He’s always said that he can’t enact major legislation without a broad, persistent social movement pressuring Congress and corporations. He literally needs “𝑼𝒔, 𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝑴𝒆” to succeed. So, we’re part of his success or his failure.

Specifics:

First, let’s not mischaracterize Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal. He’s not offering free medical, dental, and eye care; he’s saying that we won’t pay for it at the point of service (i.e., when you go to the doctor, dentist, or hospital). But we will pay premiums on a sliding scale (the more you make, the more you pay, up to a limit) and taxes will increase. In return, everyone will have health care as human right.

This isn’t pie in the sky stuff, because it comes with funding mechanisms. What’s required is an intensive “𝑼𝒔, 𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝑴𝒆” movement to pressure legislators, hospitals, and drug companies for change. Sanders, working alone, will not accomplish any of our goals.

Second, Sanders’ health care plan includes cost reduction proposals, which are crucial. Obamacare fails precisely because it made no attempt to control costs.

Prescription drug costs are an example. Sanders’ has specific benchmarks against which costs are measured, and the government will intervene if they exceed them. Prescription drugs will involve point of service costs for consumers, but the federal government will negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies to reduce drug costs by at least 50 percent.

And don’t think pharmaceutical companies need to charge outrageous prices so they can invest in research for new drugs (they don’t in other countries), because they spend more on publicity and marketing than they do on drug research. And they won’t voluntarily undertake drug development, no matter how critical it might be, if they can’t make a profit, which is why the federal government is paying for coronavirus vaccine development.

Sanders has similar cost benchmarks for hospital stays and most medical procedures. We pay far more than people in other countries pay for medical care, yet we consistently lag in evaluations of the overall accessibility and quality of care (lack of accessibility drives lower quality care numbers).

Sanders’ proposals were recently reviewed by two separate analyst groups. Both groups agreed that Sanders’ cost proposals will fund his health care policy proposals; one found that Sanders’ proposals will increase availability and care quality for less than Americans currently pay.

Can Sanders’ achieve this by waving a magic wand or lecturing lawmakers? No, he can’t. Again, that’s why “𝑼𝒔, 𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝑴𝒆” is important.

Second, Sanders has a specific proposal to fund college for all (which includes trade schools) and the elimination of student loan debt. “It will cost $2.2 trillion to make public colleges, universities and trade schools tuition-free and to cancel all student debt over the next decade. It is fully paid for by a modest tax on Wall Street speculation that will raise an estimated $2.4 trillion over ten years.”

Wall Street, of course, will object, so “𝑼𝒔, 𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝑴𝒆.”

Third, the jobs creation and renewable energy proposals are part of the Green New Deal, which is the largest and most important of Sanders’ proposals ($16.3 trillion). It also has funding mechanisms.

• Raising $3.085 trillion by making the fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution, through litigation, fees, and taxes, and eliminating federal fossil fuel subsidies.
• Generating $6.4 trillion in revenue from the wholesale of energy produced by the regional Power Marketing Administrations. This revenue will be collected from 2023–2035, and after 2035 electricity will be virtually free, aside from operations and maintenance costs.
• Reducing defense spending by $1.215 trillion by scaling back military operations on protecting the global oil supply.
• Collecting $2.3 trillion in new income tax revenue from the 20 million new jobs created by the plan.
• Saving $1.31 trillion by reducing the need for federal and state safety net spending due to the creation of millions of good-paying, unionized jobs.
• Raising $2 trillion in revenue by making large corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
Also:
• By averting climate catastrophe, we will save: $2.9 trillion over 10 years, $21 trillion over 30 years and $70.4 trillion over 80 years.
• If we do not act, the U.S. will lose $34.5 trillion by the end of the century in economic productivity.

But, really, all of this is of secondary importance, because if we don’t act quickly and on a large scale to address climate change, organized human civilization will not endure until the end of the century. The cost of the Green New Deal exceeds WWII and the Marshall Plan-level spending, but those efforts show that we can pivot toward problems and focus resources on their solutions.

Again, “𝑼𝒔, 𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝑴𝒆.”

Note that Sanders also has major proposals for expanding Social Security, housing for all, universal childcare, and eliminating medical debt. Obviously, some priorization is required — battling climate change is priority number one — but each of his proposals has specific funding mechanisms.