Lindsey is a very good and effective representative of the establishment.
Does Lindsey have a concern that we are the only major country on Earth not to
guarantee health care to all people, that some 60,000 people a year die,
because I don't get to a doctor on time.
I didn't hear much about that in an opening statement.
Lindsey care that we have the highest prices in the world for
prescription drugs.
And that the pharmaceutical industry
right now has 1,500 paid lobbyists in Washington DC.
To make sure that in some cases we pay ten times more for the medicine that we need.
>> That was Senator Bernie Sanders debating Senator Lindsey Graham on
the issue of health care.
And that topic is definitely timely considering the fact that a new study
indicates that literally hundreds of thousands of Americans could have been
living today had they had access to universal health care during the pandemic.
This is a study that was just published in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, and here are their findings.
The lead author, Alison Gallivan ease looked into.
I wanna get into their methodology to explain how they found the numbers here.
They looked at the mortality risks of COVID-19 among people with and
without insurance as well as their risks of all other causes of deaths.
The researchers compiled population characteristics of all uninsured Americans
during the pandemic.
Controlling for all sorts of factors including age, life expectancy,
the elevation in mortality, associated with lack of insurance, all of that.
So let's get to the details.
What did they find?
The researchers calculated that 131,438 people in total
could have been saved from dying of COVID in 2020 alone.
And more than 200,000 additional deaths from COVID-19 could have
been averted since then, bringing the total through March 12th 2022,
to more than 338,000 people.
That's how many people could have lived if they had health care
during a deadly pandemic.
Now, it's possible that the study is actually underestimating the number of
lives that could have been saved had we actually had a health
care system in this country that made sense.
Having consistent access to care can prevent chronic disease from occurring and
can ensure that patients who develop chronic disease have it better managed?
I would think that if one took that into account,
the estimates of avoided deaths would be greater than the numbers reported here.
And that's according to an Keller from UC Berkeley,
she's an associate professor of health policy and management.
And the other thing I wanna mention is just how much money having a system
like Medicare for all, for
instance, would actually save our current system is incredibly expensive.
But that is not what Lindsey Graham would have you believe.
In fact, during his debate with Bernie Sanders, he uttered the same Bs lies
that we hear from corporate republicans and corporate democrats.
To be quite honest, let's watch.
>> I'd like to lower healthcare cost, but
I'm not gonna take away your private coverage.
You're gonna take private health care away from 200 million Americans.
Put us all under the government umbrella.
It's gonna cost about $40 trillion dollars in 2034 we'll be spending as
much to maintain Medicare for all as we do for the entire federal government today.
>> Now of course, one of the favorites,
one of the darlings of the private healthcare industry,
especially when it comes to legalized bribes would lie and utter those claims.
But the researchers of this study found that a single payer
healthcare system would actually generate savings in three ways.
More efficient investment in preventative care.
So take care of people before they get super sick, lowered administrative costs
and increased negotiating power for pharmaceuticals, equipment and fees.
This would ultimately produce a net savings.
Let me repeat that.
A net savings of $459 billion 2020 and
438 billion in a non pandemic year according to the authors of this study.
>> Okay, so first thing I wanna emphasize is that these are real scientists.
This is in scientific American.
This is not a political article, in terms of the numbers that you're seeing both in
the death rates and in the amount of money that we save.
So what scientists don't do is just make up stuff.
They study it, they look at all the different factors.
They then take out the different factors that might affect it like age, background.
Did you already have diseases etc.
They did all that.
There's a terrific study and it's no joke guys.
And like we treat it like, it's no big deal or
it's theoretical no 338,000 people died,
because we have a system where we honestly we kill people for profit.
No other developed nation has the system.
They all have single pair.
They all have universal health care coverage for two reasons.
One, it's shown indisputably in every country that's ever done it
that its lower price and better results.
So it's already that debate is already over everything else
you see in America is a lie.
The media is lying to you.
The politicians are lying to you.
That debate worldwide is 100% over.
Everyone needs to be in universal health care just on cost and results alone.
But I've got part two.
>> I just wanna go to graphic six while you're making that point because graphic
six is a graph that shows you how the United States fares compared to all of
these other developed countries,
healthcare system performance compared to spending.
And as you can see all of these other countries actually spend far
less on their health care and provide far better results.
And we've talked about that over and over again.
So I just wanted to provide some evidence to what Jake is saying here.
>> Yeah, and so part of the lies is what Lindsey Graham just did where he said,
well, you're gonna lose your private insurance.
And so look, if the republicans said such a stupid, outrageous lie,
I just say, okay, yeah, they're protecting their donors, etc.
But the media repeats that lie over mainstream media over and over again.
That's Jake tapper's favorite lie.
It's cable news is favorite lie.
So why do I call it a lie?
So I asked one of the biggest opponents of Medicare for all, Michael Bennett,
he's a corporate democrat from Colorado.
He was running for president.
I asked him two different times.
I said, look, you guys keep saying it takes away private insurance,
but it gives you better insurance that covers more coverage.
In fact, it's universal coverage and you can choose any doctor you want.
Isn't that true?
And he said, yeah, that's definitely true.
It's the quote unquote cadillac package.
So what difference does it make if it takes away your private insurance and
replaces it with better insurance?
>> Well, his donors don't like the cadillac package.
>> Yeah, and you get better coverage and any doctor you want,
what Earthly difference?
But they frame it like, as a private insurance is good.
You guys have private insurance, is it good?
Is it like, you get anything you want, you can go to any doctor.
No, you gotta be in network and can't be out of network.
There's lines after lines after.
It's super expensive, premiums deductibles.
They're like, that you could take that away and just give you insurance for free.
Whooh, that covers everything.
Whooh, that sounds so bad.
No, it's a fundamental line.
Lindsey Graham's a liar.
If anybody you see on cable news repeating that they're doing that for
propaganda purposes.
So, and then finally, look, there's the moral argument.
Are we really going to let over 300,000 people die so that corporate executives
and totally needless private insurance companies make billions in profits?
>> Yes, we've already done it.
We've already done it.
>> So and understand that everyone who is opposed to universal health care
coverage or Medicare for all says, yes, we should let them die so
that my donors can make more money.
That's just a fact.
It's an absolute irrefutable fact.