#javery proposal

[mafiasliege]

The Proposal, Part 1

(hey guys! So I randomly had this idea of the JamesonAvery proposal so I thought to share it here. This is my first time writing a fic btw. Let me know how you feel about it. Also, it's in 2 or maybe 3 parts.)

--------------------------------------------------

Present Day

Jameson Hawthorne never gets nervous.

Almost all the time.

Almost.

"What did you do now?" Nash said, walking the line between his usual drawl and slight accusation. Apparently, he was the first one to have gotten Jameson's 911 and come to the tree house.

"What makes you think I did anything?" Jameson replied, but he knew why Nash would say so.

"We know you, and right now you look like you haven't slept in days." Xander said as he climbed in from the window. His brothers knew him too well. Even from behind him, Nash could immediately tell something was going on. Xander too.

"That's because I haven't." It was true. He was too excited in the plane back from Paris to sleep. And scared. The world was changing.

"Did sun rise from the west today?" Grayson said. His carefully calculated mask fell, he seemed too puzzled by Jameson's expression and continued, "you look... nervous." Jameson didn't bother replying. Everyone was here now.

He was going to tell them. Now. It seemed simpler in his mind.

Clearly not.

"Before you say anything, Jamie, this time, whatever you're about to tell us is not something that's going to stay in the tree ho-" Xander came to a halt abruptly when Jameson plunked down a ring box on the wooden table. Simplest way of getting it done was to rip the bandaid.

Either Jameson's brother were too shocked or they'd died standing.

"Is-Is that what I think it is?" Grayson was not-yelling by the difference of a hair. Jameson just nodded.

"Oh my god. Oh my GOD!" Xander tackled Jameson. Soon Nash and Grayson joined. The tackle hugs never got old. And something told Jameson that some things would never change.

Like his brothers.

They'll be here forever.

"You haven't even seen the ring!" Jameson said as Grayson pulled him up. He opened the deep green velvet box. Inside was a beautiful oval-shaped Emerald- a shade of green so captivating, as though it was daring you to try to look away. They couldn't.

It looks like Jamie's eyes, Grayson thought suddenly. Something told him Avery would think so too, afterall she'd probably spent ages looking at his eyes.

"It's gorgeous, Jameson" Nash said. "But you know I have to ask, do you think you're ready to get married? You're 22."

"Who said anything about getting married? Avery and I could stay engaged till we're ready."

He shot back, and realised too late what Nash had meant to ask.

Are you sure she's the one?

But Nash was smiling. They all were, actually. He'd said it so easily. So easily, it was like breathing. That's how certain be was about Avery. Nash had gotten his answer.

"Jamie…" Xander was looking at the ring. The inside of the ring. "It's engraved-"

"I know."

Nash and Grayson moved to Xander's side to see the ring.

SMG • AKG

"Where'd you get the ring?"

--------------------------------------------------

The day before

It was 9 pm. Nine in the cold, cold night of Paris. Jameson had waited seven months for this. Seven months of secretly tracking one small ring- a ring more valuable to his beloved heiress more than almost anything. It was a miracle that he'd been able to hid all of it from Avery. Tracking and finding the ring was hard enough, let alone getting the owner to sell it to him. What if they didn't. Luckily, it had ended up in an auction house.

First it went to Layla's pawn shop in Connecticut, then to a buyer in Washington, whose wife sold the ring during their clearly shitty honeymoon in Italy. From there it moved all across Spain, Scotland and finally, an exclusive auction house in France.

He could still remember their conversation during their second vacation to Tahiti all those months ago, sitting near his heiress on Te Pari, a cliff jumping spot.

She'd told him about what she read in one of her mom's letters, about an emerald ring her mom gave her on her 15th birthday. With their initials engraved. Apparently Toby had given it to Sarah as a gift when Avery was just a baby. He'd asked her to give it to Avery when she was old enough.

Of course, when she was old enough, her mother was dying of a rare disease, one that required very expensive treatment. So, poor 15-year-old Avery had to sell the ring in a pawn shop.

He remembered feeling like someone had stabbed him in the heart with a dagger. Avery could practically bathe in emeralds now, she even owned diamond and emerald mines. But she'd never get that ring back.

That's what she thought.

"Mr. Hawthorne" a very French voice snapped Jameson or of his thoughts.

"Mr. Laurent" Jamie shook the middle-aged, suit-clad Frenchman's hand. He handed Jameson a green velvet box, and Jameson handed him a balck envelope with a cheque.

"I'm surprised you came all the way here to get the ring. We could have brought it to you" Mr Laurent said. But then Avery would've known. He'd told her he was taking her plane to Scotland to check in on the upkeep of Vantage- his paternal family's castle that he'd won. Jamie checked the inside of the ring.

SMG • AKG

Yes. Yes yes YES.

"Worry not. I'm just glad to have it."

And he was. So much, he could only imagine how happy Avery would be.

Now the hard parts.

-------------------------------------------------

Present day

Grayson was the first one to break the silence after Jameson finished telling his story.

"When are you going to do it?"

"The day she came here,"

Jameson shot his brother the most Jameson Winchester Hawthorne smile.

"Tomorrow"

--------------------------------------------------

(Part 2 will come up soon. Hope you enjoyed it! Thanks!! :))

[misssophiachase]

Just curious, is there a ship you hated at first but then learned to love or the other way around?

Mmmm good question anon and sorry I’ve taken so long to answer (it was a tough one). Some couples are quite old mainly because I struggle to last watching a complete show as I have way too short of an attention span. 

I think for me I really loved Brucas (Brooke and Lucas on One Tree Hill) at the time. But when I watched it back I couldn’t believe I liked a ship where he basically treated her like trash and she deserved SO much better. I’m so glad she ended up happy with Julian. 

Also Javery (Avery and Juliette from Nashville) I didn’t like at first because they seemed like such an odd couple but I really learned to love them and the fact he grounded her. 

Monica and Chandler from Friends (HEAR ME OUT FIRST). I love them now, adore them as a couple but I felt that they kept it secret for too long and that really bugged me how drawn out that was (like it just got ridiculous). But once it was all out in the open and she proposed to him I am now a shipper for life.  

I went the usual Angel/Buffy route at first (because let’s face it he was really her only love interest) until Spike came along. And then it was like Angel who? Same with the show Angel, I really came to love him with Cordelia. 

Karev and Izzy (Grey’s Anatomy) I didn’t want at first because he was such a jackass to her. But I really liked how he was there during the Denny heartache and then cared for her when she was sick. It was lovely to see such a different side to him.  

Okay, I’m ashamed to admit it but I was a big Matt/Caroline fan on TVD at the beginning. Obviously when he rejected her after finding out she was a vampire I moved on quickly from that ship and embraced Klaroline : )  

Pretty sure there are so many more but I’ll never get around to answering this if I try and think of them all! 

[myeclecticcollectorblazeus]

(Bloomberg) -- In April, many of the top Democratic presidential candidates eagerly lined up to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill -- a vast restructuring of the U.S. health-care system that would go far beyond Obamacare.Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, along with Representatives Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard, all co-sponsored the bill with an eye toward the upcoming presidential primaries.“It was a recognition that the center of gravity in the party has moved in a much more progressive direction,” said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to the Sanders campaign. “Many candidates wanted to position themselves with the vast majority of Democratic primary voters by supporting real Medicare for All.”But as this week’s Democratic debates in Detroit illustrated, many of those initial co-sponsors, fearful of blowback from voters -- particularly those who have satisfactory private health insurance they’re reluctant to give up for something unknown, as they would have to under Sanders’s plan -- have begun backing away.Sanders’s Medicare For All would expand to all American residents the government-run health insurance program that’s covered senior citizens and certain other people for over 50 years. But as the costs and disruptions of the plan have come into focus, Medicare for All has emerged as the major fault line in the Democratic presidential primary.Top IssueHealth-care coverage consistently ranks as the top issue for Democrats and helped drive the party’s electoral gains in 2018. But polls show that voters harbor deep concerns about the possible disruption from a policy as far-reaching as Sanders has proposed.The two-night gathering in Detroit made clear that the biggest fight in Democratic politics right now is whether the party should press ahead with remaking the health care system, which accounts for 18% of U.S. gross domestic spending, or instead pursue more limited reforms along the lines of front-runner Joe Biden’s proposal to “build on Obamacare,” the signature legislative achievement of President Barack Obama.“At the level of the bumper sticker or talking points, proposals are very popular, but when you start filling in the details and the trade-offs become clear, it becomes more apparent that there are losers as well as winners,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “At the bumper sticker level, it seems that everyone is a winner.”A PBS NewsHour/Marist poll of U.S. adults conducted July 15-17 highlighted the Democrats’ dilemma. It found that while 70% of respondents favor a Medicare for All option, only 41% support doing away with private health insurance. A recent tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed overall favorability for a Medicare for All system dropped to 51% in July from 56% in April. It also found that more Democrats, 55%, prefer to expand coverage by bolstering the Affordable Care Act than the 39% who believe in replacing Obamacare with a Medicare for All system.During the debates, Booker and Gillibrand both dodged questions about the role of private insurance under a Medicare for All regime. Instead, they sought to re-frame the conversation about health care in broader terms, drawing a contrast between Democrats and Republicans.“This pitting progressives against moderates, saying one is unrealistic and the other doesn’t care enough, that to me is dividing our party and demoralizing us in face of the real enemy here,” Booker said. Forest Versus TreesGillibrand said the intra-party squabbling risked “losing the forest through the trees.”Harris, in particular, has struggled to stick to a clear position on Medicare for All. The California senator was the first Democrat to co-sponsor Sanders’ bill and raised her hand when moderators at the June debates asked which candidates would be comfortable abolishing private health insurance. Harris later backtracked, saying she’d misheard the question.“She violated a rule I’ve promulgated in politics: if you’re caught in a bind and can’t think of any way out of it, don’t say something that no one will believe,” said Barney Frank, the former Democratic representative from Massachusetts, who’s not endorsed a presidential candidate for 2020.On July 29 Harris introduced her own, less ambitious Medicare for All plan that also allows private insurance coverage and would be phased in over a decade.Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, assailed it as a “have-it-every-which-way approach” that would raise middle class taxes. Biden amplified that charge during the debate by saying, “You can’t beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan.”Valuable BrandHarris shot back that the Biden campaign was “probably confused because they’ve not read it.”Harris’s plan was also attacked from the left. Weaver said Harris was seeking to co-opt the Medicare for All “brand name” while offering her own, scaled-back plan. “It’s not Medicare for All -- at all,” Weaver said.The most extreme flip-flop belongs to Ryan, who’s still listed as a co-sponsor of Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation in the House but laced into the plan during Tuesday night’s debate. The next day, Ryan continued to warn about the political consequences of eliminating private insurance.“I think we’d lose 48 states, and I’m having a hard time figuring out what the two states are we’re going to win if our lead message is, ‘We’re going to confiscate health care from people,’” he said.Aly Javery, a spokeswoman for Ryan’s campaign, said he remained a cosponsor of Sanders’s plan despite his misgivings because Ryan would like to see the country move toward a Medicare for All system.‘Sucking Value Out’Warren, who hesitated to say she wanted to completely eliminate private insurance in the early months of her campaign, has since leaned into Sanders’ vision of a single-payer Medicare for All system that eliminates private insurance.“Every developed country on earth has moved to a single-payer system because it produces better outcomes at lower cost,” Warren said in a July 17 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. “The markets, they’re sucking value out without delivering the health care we need.”But even Warren has shied away from acknowledging that a Medicare for All system would raise taxes on the middle class, which Sanders admits. Asked twice by debate moderators in Detroit if the plan she’s endorsed would raise middle class taxes, Warren dodged by replying that “total costs will go down” to obtain health coverage.With the presidential field expected to narrow in the coming weeks as low-performing candidates potentially drop out before the September debates, the health-care discussion will come into sharper focus as proponents and critics of Sanders’ Medicare for All plan meet on a single stage.Even as many of the original sponsors back away, Democratic strategists worry how a nominee like Sanders or Warren, who support the most ambitious version of Medicare for All, would fare in the general election.“Medicare for All’s biggest drawback is that it destroys choice and that it takes away private health insurance from people who have it and like it,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who now runs the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California.“You could turn an issue that works for Democrats around into an issue that hurts Democrats by telling tens of millions or 100 million people who may like the insurance they have now that they’re going to go into something unknown.”To contact the reporters on this story: Tyler Pager in Washington at tpager1@bloomberg.net;Joshua Green in Washington at jgreen120@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3368r2y

[45news]

(Bloomberg) -- In April, many of the top Democratic presidential candidates eagerly lined up to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill -- a vast restructuring of the U.S. health-care system that would go far beyond Obamacare.Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, along with Representatives Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard, all co-sponsored the bill with an eye toward the upcoming presidential primaries.“It was a recognition that the center of gravity in the party has moved in a much more progressive direction,” said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to the Sanders campaign. “Many candidates wanted to position themselves with the vast majority of Democratic primary voters by supporting real Medicare for All.”But as this week’s Democratic debates in Detroit illustrated, many of those initial co-sponsors, fearful of blowback from voters -- particularly those who have satisfactory private health insurance they’re reluctant to give up for something unknown, as they would have to under Sanders’s plan -- have begun backing away.Sanders’s Medicare For All would expand to all American residents the government-run health insurance program that’s covered senior citizens and certain other people for over 50 years. But as the costs and disruptions of the plan have come into focus, Medicare for All has emerged as the major fault line in the Democratic presidential primary.Top IssueHealth-care coverage consistently ranks as the top issue for Democrats and helped drive the party’s electoral gains in 2018. But polls show that voters harbor deep concerns about the possible disruption from a policy as far-reaching as Sanders has proposed.The two-night gathering in Detroit made clear that the biggest fight in Democratic politics right now is whether the party should press ahead with remaking the health care system, which accounts for 18% of U.S. gross domestic spending, or instead pursue more limited reforms along the lines of front-runner Joe Biden’s proposal to “build on Obamacare,” the signature legislative achievement of President Barack Obama.“At the level of the bumper sticker or talking points, proposals are very popular, but when you start filling in the details and the trade-offs become clear, it becomes more apparent that there are losers as well as winners,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “At the bumper sticker level, it seems that everyone is a winner.”A PBS NewsHour/Marist poll of U.S. adults conducted July 15-17 highlighted the Democrats’ dilemma. It found that while 70% of respondents favor a Medicare for All option, only 41% support doing away with private health insurance. A recent tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed overall favorability for a Medicare for All system dropped to 51% in July from 56% in April. It also found that more Democrats, 55%, prefer to expand coverage by bolstering the Affordable Care Act than the 39% who believe in replacing Obamacare with a Medicare for All system.During the debates, Booker and Gillibrand both dodged questions about the role of private insurance under a Medicare for All regime. Instead, they sought to re-frame the conversation about health care in broader terms, drawing a contrast between Democrats and Republicans.“This pitting progressives against moderates, saying one is unrealistic and the other doesn’t care enough, that to me is dividing our party and demoralizing us in face of the real enemy here,” Booker said. Forest Versus TreesGillibrand said the intra-party squabbling risked “losing the forest through the trees.”Harris, in particular, has struggled to stick to a clear position on Medicare for All. The California senator was the first Democrat to co-sponsor Sanders’ bill and raised her hand when moderators at the June debates asked which candidates would be comfortable abolishing private health insurance. Harris later backtracked, saying she’d misheard the question.“She violated a rule I’ve promulgated in politics: if you’re caught in a bind and can’t think of any way out of it, don’t say something that no one will believe,” said Barney Frank, the former Democratic representative from Massachusetts, who’s not endorsed a presidential candidate for 2020.On July 29 Harris introduced her own, less ambitious Medicare for All plan that also allows private insurance coverage and would be phased in over a decade.Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, assailed it as a “have-it-every-which-way approach” that would raise middle class taxes. Biden amplified that charge during the debate by saying, “You can’t beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan.”Valuable BrandHarris shot back that the Biden campaign was “probably confused because they’ve not read it.”Harris’s plan was also attacked from the left. Weaver said Harris was seeking to co-opt the Medicare for All “brand name” while offering her own, scaled-back plan. “It’s not Medicare for All -- at all,” Weaver said.The most extreme flip-flop belongs to Ryan, who’s still listed as a co-sponsor of Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation in the House but laced into the plan during Tuesday night’s debate. The next day, Ryan continued to warn about the political consequences of eliminating private insurance.“I think we’d lose 48 states, and I’m having a hard time figuring out what the two states are we’re going to win if our lead message is, ‘We’re going to confiscate health care from people,’” he said.Aly Javery, a spokeswoman for Ryan’s campaign, said he remained a cosponsor of Sanders’s plan despite his misgivings because Ryan would like to see the country move toward a Medicare for All system.‘Sucking Value Out’Warren, who hesitated to say she wanted to completely eliminate private insurance in the early months of her campaign, has since leaned into Sanders’ vision of a single-payer Medicare for All system that eliminates private insurance.“Every developed country on earth has moved to a single-payer system because it produces better outcomes at lower cost,” Warren said in a July 17 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. “The markets, they’re sucking value out without delivering the health care we need.”But even Warren has shied away from acknowledging that a Medicare for All system would raise taxes on the middle class, which Sanders admits. Asked twice by debate moderators in Detroit if the plan she’s endorsed would raise middle class taxes, Warren dodged by replying that “total costs will go down” to obtain health coverage.With the presidential field expected to narrow in the coming weeks as low-performing candidates potentially drop out before the September debates, the health-care discussion will come into sharper focus as proponents and critics of Sanders’ Medicare for All plan meet on a single stage.Even as many of the original sponsors back away, Democratic strategists worry how a nominee like Sanders or Warren, who support the most ambitious version of Medicare for All, would fare in the general election.“Medicare for All’s biggest drawback is that it destroys choice and that it takes away private health insurance from people who have it and like it,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who now runs the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California.“You could turn an issue that works for Democrats around into an issue that hurts Democrats by telling tens of millions or 100 million people who may like the insurance they have now that they’re going to go into something unknown.”To contact the reporters on this story: Tyler Pager in Washington at tpager1@bloomberg.net;Joshua Green in Washington at jgreen120@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3368r2y

[weopenviews]

(Bloomberg) -- In April, many of the top Democratic presidential candidates eagerly lined up to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill -- a vast restructuring of the U.S. health-care system that would go far beyond Obamacare.Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, along with Representatives Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard, all co-sponsored the bill with an eye toward the upcoming presidential primaries.“It was a recognition that the center of gravity in the party has moved in a much more progressive direction,” said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to the Sanders campaign. “Many candidates wanted to position themselves with the vast majority of Democratic primary voters by supporting real Medicare for All.”But as this week’s Democratic debates in Detroit illustrated, many of those initial co-sponsors, fearful of blowback from voters -- particularly those who have satisfactory private health insurance they’re reluctant to give up for something unknown, as they would have to under Sanders’s plan -- have begun backing away.Sanders’s Medicare For All would expand to all American residents the government-run health insurance program that’s covered senior citizens and certain other people for over 50 years. But as the costs and disruptions of the plan have come into focus, Medicare for All has emerged as the major fault line in the Democratic presidential primary.Top IssueHealth-care coverage consistently ranks as the top issue for Democrats and helped drive the party’s electoral gains in 2018. But polls show that voters harbor deep concerns about the possible disruption from a policy as far-reaching as Sanders has proposed.The two-night gathering in Detroit made clear that the biggest fight in Democratic politics right now is whether the party should press ahead with remaking the health care system, which accounts for 18% of U.S. gross domestic spending, or instead pursue more limited reforms along the lines of front-runner Joe Biden’s proposal to “build on Obamacare,” the signature legislative achievement of President Barack Obama.“At the level of the bumper sticker or talking points, proposals are very popular, but when you start filling in the details and the trade-offs become clear, it becomes more apparent that there are losers as well as winners,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “At the bumper sticker level, it seems that everyone is a winner.”A PBS NewsHour/Marist poll of U.S. adults conducted July 15-17 highlighted the Democrats’ dilemma. It found that while 70% of respondents favor a Medicare for All option, only 41% support doing away with private health insurance. A recent tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed overall favorability for a Medicare for All system dropped to 51% in July from 56% in April. It also found that more Democrats, 55%, prefer to expand coverage by bolstering the Affordable Care Act than the 39% who believe in replacing Obamacare with a Medicare for All system.During the debates, Booker and Gillibrand both dodged questions about the role of private insurance under a Medicare for All regime. Instead, they sought to re-frame the conversation about health care in broader terms, drawing a contrast between Democrats and Republicans.“This pitting progressives against moderates, saying one is unrealistic and the other doesn’t care enough, that to me is dividing our party and demoralizing us in face of the real enemy here,” Booker said. Forest Versus TreesGillibrand said the intra-party squabbling risked “losing the forest through the trees.”Harris, in particular, has struggled to stick to a clear position on Medicare for All. The California senator was the first Democrat to co-sponsor Sanders’ bill and raised her hand when moderators at the June debates asked which candidates would be comfortable abolishing private health insurance. Harris later backtracked, saying she’d misheard the question.“She violated a rule I’ve promulgated in politics: if you’re caught in a bind and can’t think of any way out of it, don’t say something that no one will believe,” said Barney Frank, the former Democratic representative from Massachusetts, who’s not endorsed a presidential candidate for 2020.On July 29 Harris introduced her own, less ambitious Medicare for All plan that also allows private insurance coverage and would be phased in over a decade.Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, assailed it as a “have-it-every-which-way approach” that would raise middle class taxes. Biden amplified that charge during the debate by saying, “You can’t beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan.”Valuable BrandHarris shot back that the Biden campaign was “probably confused because they’ve not read it.”Harris’s plan was also attacked from the left. Weaver said Harris was seeking to co-opt the Medicare for All “brand name” while offering her own, scaled-back plan. “It’s not Medicare for All -- at all,” Weaver said.The most extreme flip-flop belongs to Ryan, who’s still listed as a co-sponsor of Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation in the House but laced into the plan during Tuesday night’s debate. The next day, Ryan continued to warn about the political consequences of eliminating private insurance.“I think we’d lose 48 states, and I’m having a hard time figuring out what the two states are we’re going to win if our lead message is, ‘We’re going to confiscate health care from people,’” he said.Aly Javery, a spokeswoman for Ryan’s campaign, said he remained a cosponsor of Sanders’s plan despite his misgivings because Ryan would like to see the country move toward a Medicare for All system.‘Sucking Value Out’Warren, who hesitated to say she wanted to completely eliminate private insurance in the early months of her campaign, has since leaned into Sanders’ vision of a single-payer Medicare for All system that eliminates private insurance.“Every developed country on earth has moved to a single-payer system because it produces better outcomes at lower cost,” Warren said in a July 17 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. “The markets, they’re sucking value out without delivering the health care we need.”But even Warren has shied away from acknowledging that a Medicare for All system would raise taxes on the middle class, which Sanders admits. Asked twice by debate moderators in Detroit if the plan she’s endorsed would raise middle class taxes, Warren dodged by replying that “total costs will go down” to obtain health coverage.With the presidential field expected to narrow in the coming weeks as low-performing candidates potentially drop out before the September debates, the health-care discussion will come into sharper focus as proponents and critics of Sanders’ Medicare for All plan meet on a single stage.Even as many of the original sponsors back away, Democratic strategists worry how a nominee like Sanders or Warren, who support the most ambitious version of Medicare for All, would fare in the general election.“Medicare for All’s biggest drawback is that it destroys choice and that it takes away private health insurance from people who have it and like it,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who now runs the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California.“You could turn an issue that works for Democrats around into an issue that hurts Democrats by telling tens of millions or 100 million people who may like the insurance they have now that they’re going to go into something unknown.”To contact the reporters on this story: Tyler Pager in Washington at tpager1@bloomberg.net;Joshua Green in Washington at jgreen120@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3368r2y

[bloggerofworld]

Democratic 2020 Candidates Inch Away From Medicare for All

(Bloomberg) -- In April, many of the top Democratic presidential candidates eagerly lined up to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill -- a vast restructuring of the U.S. health-care system that would go far beyond Obamacare.Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, along with Representatives Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard, all co-sponsored the bill with an eye toward the upcoming presidential primaries.“It was a recognition that the center of gravity in the party has moved in a much more progressive direction,” said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to the Sanders campaign. “Many candidates wanted to position themselves with the vast majority of Democratic primary voters by supporting real Medicare for All.”But as this week’s Democratic debates in Detroit illustrated, many of those initial co-sponsors, fearful of blowback from voters -- particularly those who have satisfactory private health insurance they’re reluctant to give up for something unknown, as they would have to under Sanders’s plan -- have begun backing away.Sanders’s Medicare For All would expand to all American residents the government-run health insurance program that’s covered senior citizens and certain other people for over 50 years. But as the costs and disruptions of the plan have come into focus, Medicare for All has emerged as the major fault line in the Democratic presidential primary.Top IssueHealth-care coverage consistently ranks as the top issue for Democrats and helped drive the party’s electoral gains in 2018. But polls show that voters harbor deep concerns about the possible disruption from a policy as far-reaching as Sanders has proposed.The two-night gathering in Detroit made clear that the biggest fight in Democratic politics right now is whether the party should press ahead with remaking the health care system, which accounts for 18% of U.S. gross domestic spending, or instead pursue more limited reforms along the lines of front-runner Joe Biden’s proposal to “build on Obamacare,” the signature legislative achievement of President Barack Obama.“At the level of the bumper sticker or talking points, proposals are very popular, but when you start filling in the details and the trade-offs become clear, it becomes more apparent that there are losers as well as winners,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “At the bumper sticker level, it seems that everyone is a winner.”A PBS NewsHour/Marist poll of U.S. adults conducted July 15-17 highlighted the Democrats’ dilemma. It found that while 70% of respondents favor a Medicare for All option, only 41% support doing away with private health insurance. A recent tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed overall favorability for a Medicare for All system dropped to 51% in July from 56% in April. It also found that more Democrats, 55%, prefer to expand coverage by bolstering the Affordable Care Act than the 39% who believe in replacing Obamacare with a Medicare for All system.During the debates, Booker and Gillibrand both dodged questions about the role of private insurance under a Medicare for All regime. Instead, they sought to re-frame the conversation about health care in broader terms, drawing a contrast between Democrats and Republicans.“This pitting progressives against moderates, saying one is unrealistic and the other doesn’t care enough, that to me is dividing our party and demoralizing us in face of the real enemy here,” Booker said. Forest Versus TreesGillibrand said the intra-party squabbling risked “losing the forest through the trees.”Harris, in particular, has struggled to stick to a clear position on Medicare for All. The California senator was the first Democrat to co-sponsor Sanders’ bill and raised her hand when moderators at the June debates asked which candidates would be comfortable abolishing private health insurance. Harris later backtracked, saying she’d misheard the question.“She violated a rule I’ve promulgated in politics: if you’re caught in a bind and can’t think of any way out of it, don’t say something that no one will believe,” said Barney Frank, the former Democratic representative from Massachusetts, who’s not endorsed a presidential candidate for 2020.On July 29 Harris introduced her own, less ambitious Medicare for All plan that also allows private insurance coverage and would be phased in over a decade.Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, assailed it as a “have-it-every-which-way approach” that would raise middle class taxes. Biden amplified that charge during the debate by saying, “You can’t beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan.”Valuable BrandHarris shot back that the Biden campaign was “probably confused because they’ve not read it.”Harris’s plan was also attacked from the left. Weaver said Harris was seeking to co-opt the Medicare for All “brand name” while offering her own, scaled-back plan. “It’s not Medicare for All -- at all,” Weaver said.The most extreme flip-flop belongs to Ryan, who’s still listed as a co-sponsor of Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation in the House but laced into the plan during Tuesday night’s debate. The next day, Ryan continued to warn about the political consequences of eliminating private insurance.“I think we’d lose 48 states, and I’m having a hard time figuring out what the two states are we’re going to win if our lead message is, ‘We’re going to confiscate health care from people,’” he said.Aly Javery, a spokeswoman for Ryan’s campaign, said he remained a cosponsor of Sanders’s plan despite his misgivings because Ryan would like to see the country move toward a Medicare for All system.‘Sucking Value Out’Warren, who hesitated to say she wanted to completely eliminate private insurance in the early months of her campaign, has since leaned into Sanders’ vision of a single-payer Medicare for All system that eliminates private insurance.“Every developed country on earth has moved to a single-payer system because it produces better outcomes at lower cost,” Warren said in a July 17 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. “The markets, they’re sucking value out without delivering the health care we need.”But even Warren has shied away from acknowledging that a Medicare for All system would raise taxes on the middle class, which Sanders admits. Asked twice by debate moderators in Detroit if the plan she’s endorsed would raise middle class taxes, Warren dodged by replying that “total costs will go down” to obtain health coverage.With the presidential field expected to narrow in the coming weeks as low-performing candidates potentially drop out before the September debates, the health-care discussion will come into sharper focus as proponents and critics of Sanders’ Medicare for All plan meet on a single stage.Even as many of the original sponsors back away, Democratic strategists worry how a nominee like Sanders or Warren, who support the most ambitious version of Medicare for All, would fare in the general election.“Medicare for All’s biggest drawback is that it destroys choice and that it takes away private health insurance from people who have it and like it,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who now runs the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California.“You could turn an issue that works for Democrats around into an issue that hurts Democrats by telling tens of millions or 100 million people who may like the insurance they have now that they’re going to go into something unknown.”To contact the reporters on this story: Tyler Pager in Washington at tpager1@bloomberg.net;Joshua Green in Washington at jgreen120@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3368r2y via IFTTT

from Blogger https://ift.tt/338NCn8

[worldnews-blog]

(Bloomberg) -- In April, many of the top Democratic presidential candidates eagerly lined up to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill -- a vast restructuring of the U.S. health-care system that would go far beyond Obamacare.Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, along with Representatives Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard, all co-sponsored the bill with an eye toward the upcoming presidential primaries.“It was a recognition that the center of gravity in the party has moved in a much more progressive direction,” said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to the Sanders campaign. “Many candidates wanted to position themselves with the vast majority of Democratic primary voters by supporting real Medicare for All.”But as this week’s Democratic debates in Detroit illustrated, many of those initial co-sponsors, fearful of blowback from voters -- particularly those who have satisfactory private health insurance they’re reluctant to give up for something unknown, as they would have to under Sanders’s plan -- have begun backing away.Sanders’s Medicare For All would expand to all American residents the government-run health insurance program that’s covered senior citizens and certain other people for over 50 years. But as the costs and disruptions of the plan have come into focus, Medicare for All has emerged as the major fault line in the Democratic presidential primary.Top IssueHealth-care coverage consistently ranks as the top issue for Democrats and helped drive the party’s electoral gains in 2018. But polls show that voters harbor deep concerns about the possible disruption from a policy as far-reaching as Sanders has proposed.The two-night gathering in Detroit made clear that the biggest fight in Democratic politics right now is whether the party should press ahead with remaking the health care system, which accounts for 18% of U.S. gross domestic spending, or instead pursue more limited reforms along the lines of front-runner Joe Biden’s proposal to “build on Obamacare,” the signature legislative achievement of President Barack Obama.“At the level of the bumper sticker or talking points, proposals are very popular, but when you start filling in the details and the trade-offs become clear, it becomes more apparent that there are losers as well as winners,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “At the bumper sticker level, it seems that everyone is a winner.”A PBS NewsHour/Marist poll of U.S. adults conducted July 15-17 highlighted the Democrats’ dilemma. It found that while 70% of respondents favor a Medicare for All option, only 41% support doing away with private health insurance. A recent tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed overall favorability for a Medicare for All system dropped to 51% in July from 56% in April. It also found that more Democrats, 55%, prefer to expand coverage by bolstering the Affordable Care Act than the 39% who believe in replacing Obamacare with a Medicare for All system.During the debates, Booker and Gillibrand both dodged questions about the role of private insurance under a Medicare for All regime. Instead, they sought to re-frame the conversation about health care in broader terms, drawing a contrast between Democrats and Republicans.“This pitting progressives against moderates, saying one is unrealistic and the other doesn’t care enough, that to me is dividing our party and demoralizing us in face of the real enemy here,” Booker said. Forest Versus TreesGillibrand said the intra-party squabbling risked “losing the forest through the trees.”Harris, in particular, has struggled to stick to a clear position on Medicare for All. The California senator was the first Democrat to co-sponsor Sanders’ bill and raised her hand when moderators at the June debates asked which candidates would be comfortable abolishing private health insurance. Harris later backtracked, saying she’d misheard the question.“She violated a rule I’ve promulgated in politics: if you’re caught in a bind and can’t think of any way out of it, don’t say something that no one will believe,” said Barney Frank, the former Democratic representative from Massachusetts, who’s not endorsed a presidential candidate for 2020.On July 29 Harris introduced her own, less ambitious Medicare for All plan that also allows private insurance coverage and would be phased in over a decade.Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, assailed it as a “have-it-every-which-way approach” that would raise middle class taxes. Biden amplified that charge during the debate by saying, “You can’t beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan.”Valuable BrandHarris shot back that the Biden campaign was “probably confused because they’ve not read it.”Harris’s plan was also attacked from the left. Weaver said Harris was seeking to co-opt the Medicare for All “brand name” while offering her own, scaled-back plan. “It’s not Medicare for All -- at all,” Weaver said.The most extreme flip-flop belongs to Ryan, who’s still listed as a co-sponsor of Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation in the House but laced into the plan during Tuesday night’s debate. The next day, Ryan continued to warn about the political consequences of eliminating private insurance.“I think we’d lose 48 states, and I’m having a hard time figuring out what the two states are we’re going to win if our lead message is, ‘We’re going to confiscate health care from people,’” he said.Aly Javery, a spokeswoman for Ryan’s campaign, said he remained a cosponsor of Sanders’s plan despite his misgivings because Ryan would like to see the country move toward a Medicare for All system.‘Sucking Value Out’Warren, who hesitated to say she wanted to completely eliminate private insurance in the early months of her campaign, has since leaned into Sanders’ vision of a single-payer Medicare for All system that eliminates private insurance.“Every developed country on earth has moved to a single-payer system because it produces better outcomes at lower cost,” Warren said in a July 17 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. “The markets, they’re sucking value out without delivering the health care we need.”But even Warren has shied away from acknowledging that a Medicare for All system would raise taxes on the middle class, which Sanders admits. Asked twice by debate moderators in Detroit if the plan she’s endorsed would raise middle class taxes, Warren dodged by replying that “total costs will go down” to obtain health coverage.With the presidential field expected to narrow in the coming weeks as low-performing candidates potentially drop out before the September debates, the health-care discussion will come into sharper focus as proponents and critics of Sanders’ Medicare for All plan meet on a single stage.Even as many of the original sponsors back away, Democratic strategists worry how a nominee like Sanders or Warren, who support the most ambitious version of Medicare for All, would fare in the general election.“Medicare for All’s biggest drawback is that it destroys choice and that it takes away private health insurance from people who have it and like it,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who now runs the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California.“You could turn an issue that works for Democrats around into an issue that hurts Democrats by telling tens of millions or 100 million people who may like the insurance they have now that they’re going to go into something unknown.”To contact the reporters on this story: Tyler Pager in Washington at tpager1@bloomberg.net;Joshua Green in Washington at jgreen120@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3368r2y

[usuallyleftnight]

(Bloomberg) -- In April, many of the top Democratic presidential candidates eagerly lined up to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill -- a vast restructuring of the U.S. health-care system that would go far beyond Obamacare.Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, along with Representatives Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard, all co-sponsored the bill with an eye toward the upcoming presidential primaries.“It was a recognition that the center of gravity in the party has moved in a much more progressive direction,” said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to the Sanders campaign. “Many candidates wanted to position themselves with the vast majority of Democratic primary voters by supporting real Medicare for All.”But as this week’s Democratic debates in Detroit illustrated, many of those initial co-sponsors, fearful of blowback from voters -- particularly those who have satisfactory private health insurance they’re reluctant to give up for something unknown, as they would have to under Sanders’s plan -- have begun backing away.Sanders’s Medicare For All would expand to all American residents the government-run health insurance program that’s covered senior citizens and certain other people for over 50 years. But as the costs and disruptions of the plan have come into focus, Medicare for All has emerged as the major fault line in the Democratic presidential primary.Top IssueHealth-care coverage consistently ranks as the top issue for Democrats and helped drive the party’s electoral gains in 2018. But polls show that voters harbor deep concerns about the possible disruption from a policy as far-reaching as Sanders has proposed.The two-night gathering in Detroit made clear that the biggest fight in Democratic politics right now is whether the party should press ahead with remaking the health care system, which accounts for 18% of U.S. gross domestic spending, or instead pursue more limited reforms along the lines of front-runner Joe Biden’s proposal to “build on Obamacare,” the signature legislative achievement of President Barack Obama.“At the level of the bumper sticker or talking points, proposals are very popular, but when you start filling in the details and the trade-offs become clear, it becomes more apparent that there are losers as well as winners,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “At the bumper sticker level, it seems that everyone is a winner.”A PBS NewsHour/Marist poll of U.S. adults conducted July 15-17 highlighted the Democrats’ dilemma. It found that while 70% of respondents favor a Medicare for All option, only 41% support doing away with private health insurance. A recent tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed overall favorability for a Medicare for All system dropped to 51% in July from 56% in April. It also found that more Democrats, 55%, prefer to expand coverage by bolstering the Affordable Care Act than the 39% who believe in replacing Obamacare with a Medicare for All system.During the debates, Booker and Gillibrand both dodged questions about the role of private insurance under a Medicare for All regime. Instead, they sought to re-frame the conversation about health care in broader terms, drawing a contrast between Democrats and Republicans.“This pitting progressives against moderates, saying one is unrealistic and the other doesn’t care enough, that to me is dividing our party and demoralizing us in face of the real enemy here,” Booker said. Forest Versus TreesGillibrand said the intra-party squabbling risked “losing the forest through the trees.”Harris, in particular, has struggled to stick to a clear position on Medicare for All. The California senator was the first Democrat to co-sponsor Sanders’ bill and raised her hand when moderators at the June debates asked which candidates would be comfortable abolishing private health insurance. Harris later backtracked, saying she’d misheard the question.“She violated a rule I’ve promulgated in politics: if you’re caught in a bind and can’t think of any way out of it, don’t say something that no one will believe,” said Barney Frank, the former Democratic representative from Massachusetts, who’s not endorsed a presidential candidate for 2020.On July 29 Harris introduced her own, less ambitious Medicare for All plan that also allows private insurance coverage and would be phased in over a decade.Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, assailed it as a “have-it-every-which-way approach” that would raise middle class taxes. Biden amplified that charge during the debate by saying, “You can’t beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan.”Valuable BrandHarris shot back that the Biden campaign was “probably confused because they’ve not read it.”Harris’s plan was also attacked from the left. Weaver said Harris was seeking to co-opt the Medicare for All “brand name” while offering her own, scaled-back plan. “It’s not Medicare for All -- at all,” Weaver said.The most extreme flip-flop belongs to Ryan, who’s still listed as a co-sponsor of Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation in the House but laced into the plan during Tuesday night’s debate. The next day, Ryan continued to warn about the political consequences of eliminating private insurance.“I think we’d lose 48 states, and I’m having a hard time figuring out what the two states are we’re going to win if our lead message is, ‘We’re going to confiscate health care from people,’” he said.Aly Javery, a spokeswoman for Ryan’s campaign, said he remained a cosponsor of Sanders’s plan despite his misgivings because Ryan would like to see the country move toward a Medicare for All system.‘Sucking Value Out’Warren, who hesitated to say she wanted to completely eliminate private insurance in the early months of her campaign, has since leaned into Sanders’ vision of a single-payer Medicare for All system that eliminates private insurance.“Every developed country on earth has moved to a single-payer system because it produces better outcomes at lower cost,” Warren said in a July 17 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. “The markets, they’re sucking value out without delivering the health care we need.”But even Warren has shied away from acknowledging that a Medicare for All system would raise taxes on the middle class, which Sanders admits. Asked twice by debate moderators in Detroit if the plan she’s endorsed would raise middle class taxes, Warren dodged by replying that “total costs will go down” to obtain health coverage.With the presidential field expected to narrow in the coming weeks as low-performing candidates potentially drop out before the September debates, the health-care discussion will come into sharper focus as proponents and critics of Sanders’ Medicare for All plan meet on a single stage.Even as many of the original sponsors back away, Democratic strategists worry how a nominee like Sanders or Warren, who support the most ambitious version of Medicare for All, would fare in the general election.“Medicare for All’s biggest drawback is that it destroys choice and that it takes away private health insurance from people who have it and like it,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who now runs the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California.“You could turn an issue that works for Democrats around into an issue that hurts Democrats by telling tens of millions or 100 million people who may like the insurance they have now that they’re going to go into something unknown.”To contact the reporters on this story: Tyler Pager in Washington at tpager1@bloomberg.net;Joshua Green in Washington at jgreen120@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3368r2y

[personaluse290]

(Bloomberg) -- In April, many of the top Democratic presidential candidates eagerly lined up to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill -- a vast restructuring of the U.S. health-care system that would go far beyond Obamacare.Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, along with Representatives Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard, all co-sponsored the bill with an eye toward the upcoming presidential primaries.“It was a recognition that the center of gravity in the party has moved in a much more progressive direction,” said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to the Sanders campaign. “Many candidates wanted to position themselves with the vast majority of Democratic primary voters by supporting real Medicare for All.”But as this week’s Democratic debates in Detroit illustrated, many of those initial co-sponsors, fearful of blowback from voters -- particularly those who have satisfactory private health insurance they’re reluctant to give up for something unknown, as they would have to under Sanders’s plan -- have begun backing away.Sanders’s Medicare For All would expand to all American residents the government-run health insurance program that’s covered senior citizens and certain other people for over 50 years. But as the costs and disruptions of the plan have come into focus, Medicare for All has emerged as the major fault line in the Democratic presidential primary.Top IssueHealth-care coverage consistently ranks as the top issue for Democrats and helped drive the party’s electoral gains in 2018. But polls show that voters harbor deep concerns about the possible disruption from a policy as far-reaching as Sanders has proposed.The two-night gathering in Detroit made clear that the biggest fight in Democratic politics right now is whether the party should press ahead with remaking the health care system, which accounts for 18% of U.S. gross domestic spending, or instead pursue more limited reforms along the lines of front-runner Joe Biden’s proposal to “build on Obamacare,” the signature legislative achievement of President Barack Obama.“At the level of the bumper sticker or talking points, proposals are very popular, but when you start filling in the details and the trade-offs become clear, it becomes more apparent that there are losers as well as winners,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “At the bumper sticker level, it seems that everyone is a winner.”A PBS NewsHour/Marist poll of U.S. adults conducted July 15-17 highlighted the Democrats’ dilemma. It found that while 70% of respondents favor a Medicare for All option, only 41% support doing away with private health insurance. A recent tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed overall favorability for a Medicare for All system dropped to 51% in July from 56% in April. It also found that more Democrats, 55%, prefer to expand coverage by bolstering the Affordable Care Act than the 39% who believe in replacing Obamacare with a Medicare for All system.During the debates, Booker and Gillibrand both dodged questions about the role of private insurance under a Medicare for All regime. Instead, they sought to re-frame the conversation about health care in broader terms, drawing a contrast between Democrats and Republicans.“This pitting progressives against moderates, saying one is unrealistic and the other doesn’t care enough, that to me is dividing our party and demoralizing us in face of the real enemy here,” Booker said. Forest Versus TreesGillibrand said the intra-party squabbling risked “losing the forest through the trees.”Harris, in particular, has struggled to stick to a clear position on Medicare for All. The California senator was the first Democrat to co-sponsor Sanders’ bill and raised her hand when moderators at the June debates asked which candidates would be comfortable abolishing private health insurance. Harris later backtracked, saying she’d misheard the question.“She violated a rule I’ve promulgated in politics: if you’re caught in a bind and can’t think of any way out of it, don’t say something that no one will believe,” said Barney Frank, the former Democratic representative from Massachusetts, who’s not endorsed a presidential candidate for 2020.On July 29 Harris introduced her own, less ambitious Medicare for All plan that also allows private insurance coverage and would be phased in over a decade.Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, assailed it as a “have-it-every-which-way approach” that would raise middle class taxes. Biden amplified that charge during the debate by saying, “You can’t beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan.”Valuable BrandHarris shot back that the Biden campaign was “probably confused because they’ve not read it.”Harris’s plan was also attacked from the left. Weaver said Harris was seeking to co-opt the Medicare for All “brand name” while offering her own, scaled-back plan. “It’s not Medicare for All -- at all,” Weaver said.The most extreme flip-flop belongs to Ryan, who’s still listed as a co-sponsor of Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation in the House but laced into the plan during Tuesday night’s debate. The next day, Ryan continued to warn about the political consequences of eliminating private insurance.“I think we’d lose 48 states, and I’m having a hard time figuring out what the two states are we’re going to win if our lead message is, ‘We’re going to confiscate health care from people,’” he said.Aly Javery, a spokeswoman for Ryan’s campaign, said he remained a cosponsor of Sanders’s plan despite his misgivings because Ryan would like to see the country move toward a Medicare for All system.‘Sucking Value Out’Warren, who hesitated to say she wanted to completely eliminate private insurance in the early months of her campaign, has since leaned into Sanders’ vision of a single-payer Medicare for All system that eliminates private insurance.“Every developed country on earth has moved to a single-payer system because it produces better outcomes at lower cost,” Warren said in a July 17 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. “The markets, they’re sucking value out without delivering the health care we need.”But even Warren has shied away from acknowledging that a Medicare for All system would raise taxes on the middle class, which Sanders admits. Asked twice by debate moderators in Detroit if the plan she’s endorsed would raise middle class taxes, Warren dodged by replying that “total costs will go down” to obtain health coverage.With the presidential field expected to narrow in the coming weeks as low-performing candidates potentially drop out before the September debates, the health-care discussion will come into sharper focus as proponents and critics of Sanders’ Medicare for All plan meet on a single stage.Even as many of the original sponsors back away, Democratic strategists worry how a nominee like Sanders or Warren, who support the most ambitious version of Medicare for All, would fare in the general election.“Medicare for All’s biggest drawback is that it destroys choice and that it takes away private health insurance from people who have it and like it,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who now runs the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California.“You could turn an issue that works for Democrats around into an issue that hurts Democrats by telling tens of millions or 100 million people who may like the insurance they have now that they’re going to go into something unknown.”To contact the reporters on this story: Tyler Pager in Washington at tpager1@bloomberg.net;Joshua Green in Washington at jgreen120@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3368r2y

[mafiasliege]

I dare you to let me go

(this is part 4 of my fic! Enjoy reading!)

Part 3 ↓

JAMESON

October is the best time Jamie had been to Scotland. Over the years, he'd visited vantage many times. It was built on a coastal cliff not too far from a lovely cove. The pleasant sunny days right before winter starts were the best. The beaches were perfectly warm and cliff-jumping into the water was a wonderful activity. At least, those are the inputs the Viscount Branford offered, except the cliff-jumping part, that was all Jameson. Branford had actually advised against it, which Jameson did not heed to, of course.

His relationship with his father may be tragically non-existent now, but his uncle made up for some of it. He'd never admit it, but he would have loved having him in his life growing up.

He'd landed in Scotland two days ago. And on the third, he'd started feeling lonely on his own and decided to dial up a redheaded Viscount who happened to be in Scotland too.

"You outdid yourself today" Jameson said, draining the last of the scotch and gesturing two fingers at the bartender.

"I did. And it looks like you can outdrink me. Tell me, was that your way of indirectly congratulating me for absolutely trouncing you at motocross?"

"In my defence, I may have underestimated you."

"And why is that?" Jameson's uncle raised a brow that reminded him too much of Grayson.

They must be worried, he thought, and then,

Stop it.

"Because you're an old man" he shrugged, to which they both ended up laughing. The drinks might be to blame, too.

7 seconds of silence died when Simon asked, "Why are you here, nephew? Surely it's not only to spend time with "an old man," as you put it."

To that, Jameson said nothing. Until a word stole his attention.

"You show up completely unannounced, and without your beloved heiress in tow, which makes me think there was a squabble, perhaps?"

"It's none of your business" he retorted with controlled fury.

"And yet I am here."

Maybe it was, in fact, the drinks, but Jameson told him everything. His uncle listened patiently. He didn't offer Jameson any advice, and at the moment, that was exactly what he needed.

After Jameson was done talking now than he probably ever did in his life, simon spoke, "are you staying at Vantage tonight as well?"

-------------------------------------------------

Jameson made it back to Vantage sometime around sunset. He always noticed, it looked so beautiful from the castle towers, or the cove. He'd considered proposing to Avery there, but then things had turned out the way they were now. He had left in such a hurry, he wasn't even sure he'd taken the ring with him, or at least hidden it away.

He couldn't hide anything from Avery, if he tried. That wasn't the problem now, though.

Now she just didn't care enough to look.

He parked the convertible in the garage built in the massive yard in front of the castle, alongside several other vintage cars that were too beautiful to be real. He discovered his affinity for vintage cars at an auction, where one of the items open for bidding was the 1962 Corvette Stingray he drove just minutes ago. The garage was huge, and a newer addition. It became a necessity because of the random thunderstorms he'd witnessed there. It was by the seaside, after all. The weather changed by the hour.

"Jameson?"

He could recognise that voice anywhere.

No. That can't be right.

He turned around to see a blur of brown hair and a worried face, and before he knew it, he was enveloped in a hug.

"You're okay" she said, much like she was trying to reassure herself. It felt nice to be hugged by her, but it was overtaken by the feeling that it took him flying off to another country for her to hug him spontaneously. So he pulled away.

He could get a good look at her now. She looked like hell. Disheveled hair, like she'd been running her fingers through it. Movements of her body that screamed exhausted. Puffy eyes from lack of sleep.

Or crying.

Jameson had seen and lived every kind of hell there is, but Avery crying made his heart break a little more every time, even when he thought it was already broken. By her, no less.

Don't fall for it. Resist it.

"Why are you here?"

"You suddenly disappear out of nowhere, you inform no one, fly off to god-knows-where on your plane you told no one you had. I was worried as hell" she fell a little short on breath, which made that last part sound even more distressed than it was. Her voice was rough too, like she had a cold. Or as if she'd been shouting.

His breath stuck at a mental image of a panicked Avery wandering around looking for him. It was so contrary to the distant, disinterested woman he'd sadly gotten used to.

If only she cared so much before.

"When did you come home?" He retorted, pushing away his thoughts, and a crumbling desire to comfort her.

"Jameson-"

"When?" He repeated.

Avery swallowed, "Eleven." He scoffed. Of course she showed up 4 hours after she was supposed to. Again. "I'm sorry, okay? I really am. I got held up by the-"

"See, that's the thing. There's always somewhere that need visiting or something that needs fixing or someone that needs saving. And you've put it above me, above us, every single time."

She seemed taken aback, and a little pale.

"Everything at both the foundations depends on me, Jameson, everything."

"So did I. But not anymore."

Avery looked even more pale now. And scared, more scared than she looked the many times people had tried to kill her. He felt a slight pang of guilt, looking at her scared expression.

You have nothing to feel guilty about.

"What is that supposed to mean?" She whispered, a tear rolling down her cheek. He pushed back the urge to wipe it away. He hated being the reason of her tears, even though she'd been the reason for so many of his. He sucked in a long breath.

"It means we can't be together anymore."

[saadullah-faisal-world]

(Bloomberg) -- In April, many of the top Democratic presidential candidates eagerly lined up to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill -- a vast restructuring of the U.S. health-care system that would go far beyond Obamacare.Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, along with Representatives Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard, all co-sponsored the bill with an eye toward the upcoming presidential primaries.“It was a recognition that the center of gravity in the party has moved in a much more progressive direction,” said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to the Sanders campaign. “Many candidates wanted to position themselves with the vast majority of Democratic primary voters by supporting real Medicare for All.”But as this week’s Democratic debates in Detroit illustrated, many of those initial co-sponsors, fearful of blowback from voters -- particularly those who have satisfactory private health insurance they’re reluctant to give up for something unknown, as they would have to under Sanders’s plan -- have begun backing away.Sanders’s Medicare For All would expand to all American residents the government-run health insurance program that’s covered senior citizens and certain other people for over 50 years. But as the costs and disruptions of the plan have come into focus, Medicare for All has emerged as the major fault line in the Democratic presidential primary.Top IssueHealth-care coverage consistently ranks as the top issue for Democrats and helped drive the party’s electoral gains in 2018. But polls show that voters harbor deep concerns about the possible disruption from a policy as far-reaching as Sanders has proposed.The two-night gathering in Detroit made clear that the biggest fight in Democratic politics right now is whether the party should press ahead with remaking the health care system, which accounts for 18% of U.S. gross domestic spending, or instead pursue more limited reforms along the lines of front-runner Joe Biden’s proposal to “build on Obamacare,” the signature legislative achievement of President Barack Obama.“At the level of the bumper sticker or talking points, proposals are very popular, but when you start filling in the details and the trade-offs become clear, it becomes more apparent that there are losers as well as winners,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “At the bumper sticker level, it seems that everyone is a winner.”A PBS NewsHour/Marist poll of U.S. adults conducted July 15-17 highlighted the Democrats’ dilemma. It found that while 70% of respondents favor a Medicare for All option, only 41% support doing away with private health insurance. A recent tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed overall favorability for a Medicare for All system dropped to 51% in July from 56% in April. It also found that more Democrats, 55%, prefer to expand coverage by bolstering the Affordable Care Act than the 39% who believe in replacing Obamacare with a Medicare for All system.During the debates, Booker and Gillibrand both dodged questions about the role of private insurance under a Medicare for All regime. Instead, they sought to re-frame the conversation about health care in broader terms, drawing a contrast between Democrats and Republicans.“This pitting progressives against moderates, saying one is unrealistic and the other doesn’t care enough, that to me is dividing our party and demoralizing us in face of the real enemy here,” Booker said. Forest Versus TreesGillibrand said the intra-party squabbling risked “losing the forest through the trees.”Harris, in particular, has struggled to stick to a clear position on Medicare for All. The California senator was the first Democrat to co-sponsor Sanders’ bill and raised her hand when moderators at the June debates asked which candidates would be comfortable abolishing private health insurance. Harris later backtracked, saying she’d misheard the question.“She violated a rule I’ve promulgated in politics: if you’re caught in a bind and can’t think of any way out of it, don’t say something that no one will believe,” said Barney Frank, the former Democratic representative from Massachusetts, who’s not endorsed a presidential candidate for 2020.On July 29 Harris introduced her own, less ambitious Medicare for All plan that also allows private insurance coverage and would be phased in over a decade.Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, assailed it as a “have-it-every-which-way approach” that would raise middle class taxes. Biden amplified that charge during the debate by saying, “You can’t beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan.”Valuable BrandHarris shot back that the Biden campaign was “probably confused because they’ve not read it.”Harris’s plan was also attacked from the left. Weaver said Harris was seeking to co-opt the Medicare for All “brand name” while offering her own, scaled-back plan. “It’s not Medicare for All -- at all,” Weaver said.The most extreme flip-flop belongs to Ryan, who’s still listed as a co-sponsor of Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation in the House but laced into the plan during Tuesday night’s debate. The next day, Ryan continued to warn about the political consequences of eliminating private insurance.“I think we’d lose 48 states, and I’m having a hard time figuring out what the two states are we’re going to win if our lead message is, ‘We’re going to confiscate health care from people,’” he said.Aly Javery, a spokeswoman for Ryan’s campaign, said he remained a cosponsor of Sanders’s plan despite his misgivings because Ryan would like to see the country move toward a Medicare for All system.‘Sucking Value Out’Warren, who hesitated to say she wanted to completely eliminate private insurance in the early months of her campaign, has since leaned into Sanders’ vision of a single-payer Medicare for All system that eliminates private insurance.“Every developed country on earth has moved to a single-payer system because it produces better outcomes at lower cost,” Warren said in a July 17 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. “The markets, they’re sucking value out without delivering the health care we need.”But even Warren has shied away from acknowledging that a Medicare for All system would raise taxes on the middle class, which Sanders admits. Asked twice by debate moderators in Detroit if the plan she’s endorsed would raise middle class taxes, Warren dodged by replying that “total costs will go down” to obtain health coverage.With the presidential field expected to narrow in the coming weeks as low-performing candidates potentially drop out before the September debates, the health-care discussion will come into sharper focus as proponents and critics of Sanders’ Medicare for All plan meet on a single stage.Even as many of the original sponsors back away, Democratic strategists worry how a nominee like Sanders or Warren, who support the most ambitious version of Medicare for All, would fare in the general election.“Medicare for All’s biggest drawback is that it destroys choice and that it takes away private health insurance from people who have it and like it,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who now runs the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California.“You could turn an issue that works for Democrats around into an issue that hurts Democrats by telling tens of millions or 100 million people who may like the insurance they have now that they’re going to go into something unknown.”To contact the reporters on this story: Tyler Pager in Washington at tpager1@bloomberg.net;Joshua Green in Washington at jgreen120@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3368r2y

[orendrasingh]

(Bloomberg) -- In April, many of the top Democratic presidential candidates eagerly lined up to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill -- a vast restructuring of the U.S. health-care system that would go far beyond Obamacare.Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, along with Representatives Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard, all co-sponsored the bill with an eye toward the upcoming presidential primaries.“It was a recognition that the center of gravity in the party has moved in a much more progressive direction,” said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to the Sanders campaign. “Many candidates wanted to position themselves with the vast majority of Democratic primary voters by supporting real Medicare for All.”But as this week’s Democratic debates in Detroit illustrated, many of those initial co-sponsors, fearful of blowback from voters -- particularly those who have satisfactory private health insurance they’re reluctant to give up for something unknown, as they would have to under Sanders’s plan -- have begun backing away.Sanders’s Medicare For All would expand to all American residents the government-run health insurance program that’s covered senior citizens and certain other people for over 50 years. But as the costs and disruptions of the plan have come into focus, Medicare for All has emerged as the major fault line in the Democratic presidential primary.Top IssueHealth-care coverage consistently ranks as the top issue for Democrats and helped drive the party’s electoral gains in 2018. But polls show that voters harbor deep concerns about the possible disruption from a policy as far-reaching as Sanders has proposed.The two-night gathering in Detroit made clear that the biggest fight in Democratic politics right now is whether the party should press ahead with remaking the health care system, which accounts for 18% of U.S. gross domestic spending, or instead pursue more limited reforms along the lines of front-runner Joe Biden’s proposal to “build on Obamacare,” the signature legislative achievement of President Barack Obama.“At the level of the bumper sticker or talking points, proposals are very popular, but when you start filling in the details and the trade-offs become clear, it becomes more apparent that there are losers as well as winners,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “At the bumper sticker level, it seems that everyone is a winner.”A PBS NewsHour/Marist poll of U.S. adults conducted July 15-17 highlighted the Democrats’ dilemma. It found that while 70% of respondents favor a Medicare for All option, only 41% support doing away with private health insurance. A recent tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed overall favorability for a Medicare for All system dropped to 51% in July from 56% in April. It also found that more Democrats, 55%, prefer to expand coverage by bolstering the Affordable Care Act than the 39% who believe in replacing Obamacare with a Medicare for All system.During the debates, Booker and Gillibrand both dodged questions about the role of private insurance under a Medicare for All regime. Instead, they sought to re-frame the conversation about health care in broader terms, drawing a contrast between Democrats and Republicans.“This pitting progressives against moderates, saying one is unrealistic and the other doesn’t care enough, that to me is dividing our party and demoralizing us in face of the real enemy here,” Booker said. Forest Versus TreesGillibrand said the intra-party squabbling risked “losing the forest through the trees.”Harris, in particular, has struggled to stick to a clear position on Medicare for All. The California senator was the first Democrat to co-sponsor Sanders’ bill and raised her hand when moderators at the June debates asked which candidates would be comfortable abolishing private health insurance. Harris later backtracked, saying she’d misheard the question.“She violated a rule I’ve promulgated in politics: if you’re caught in a bind and can’t think of any way out of it, don’t say something that no one will believe,” said Barney Frank, the former Democratic representative from Massachusetts, who’s not endorsed a presidential candidate for 2020.On July 29 Harris introduced her own, less ambitious Medicare for All plan that also allows private insurance coverage and would be phased in over a decade.Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, assailed it as a “have-it-every-which-way approach” that would raise middle class taxes. Biden amplified that charge during the debate by saying, “You can’t beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan.”Valuable BrandHarris shot back that the Biden campaign was “probably confused because they’ve not read it.”Harris’s plan was also attacked from the left. Weaver said Harris was seeking to co-opt the Medicare for All “brand name” while offering her own, scaled-back plan. “It’s not Medicare for All -- at all,” Weaver said.The most extreme flip-flop belongs to Ryan, who’s still listed as a co-sponsor of Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation in the House but laced into the plan during Tuesday night’s debate. The next day, Ryan continued to warn about the political consequences of eliminating private insurance.“I think we’d lose 48 states, and I’m having a hard time figuring out what the two states are we’re going to win if our lead message is, ‘We’re going to confiscate health care from people,’” he said.Aly Javery, a spokeswoman for Ryan’s campaign, said he remained a cosponsor of Sanders’s plan despite his misgivings because Ryan would like to see the country move toward a Medicare for All system.‘Sucking Value Out’Warren, who hesitated to say she wanted to completely eliminate private insurance in the early months of her campaign, has since leaned into Sanders’ vision of a single-payer Medicare for All system that eliminates private insurance.“Every developed country on earth has moved to a single-payer system because it produces better outcomes at lower cost,” Warren said in a July 17 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. “The markets, they’re sucking value out without delivering the health care we need.”But even Warren has shied away from acknowledging that a Medicare for All system would raise taxes on the middle class, which Sanders admits. Asked twice by debate moderators in Detroit if the plan she’s endorsed would raise middle class taxes, Warren dodged by replying that “total costs will go down” to obtain health coverage.With the presidential field expected to narrow in the coming weeks as low-performing candidates potentially drop out before the September debates, the health-care discussion will come into sharper focus as proponents and critics of Sanders’ Medicare for All plan meet on a single stage.Even as many of the original sponsors back away, Democratic strategists worry how a nominee like Sanders or Warren, who support the most ambitious version of Medicare for All, would fare in the general election.“Medicare for All’s biggest drawback is that it destroys choice and that it takes away private health insurance from people who have it and like it,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who now runs the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California.“You could turn an issue that works for Democrats around into an issue that hurts Democrats by telling tens of millions or 100 million people who may like the insurance they have now that they’re going to go into something unknown.”To contact the reporters on this story: Tyler Pager in Washington at tpager1@bloomberg.net;Joshua Green in Washington at jgreen120@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3368r2y

[justsimplylovely]

(Bloomberg) -- In April, many of the top Democratic presidential candidates eagerly lined up to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill -- a vast restructuring of the U.S. health-care system that would go far beyond Obamacare.Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, along with Representatives Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard, all co-sponsored the bill with an eye toward the upcoming presidential primaries.“It was a recognition that the center of gravity in the party has moved in a much more progressive direction,” said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to the Sanders campaign. “Many candidates wanted to position themselves with the vast majority of Democratic primary voters by supporting real Medicare for All.”But as this week’s Democratic debates in Detroit illustrated, many of those initial co-sponsors, fearful of blowback from voters -- particularly those who have satisfactory private health insurance they’re reluctant to give up for something unknown, as they would have to under Sanders’s plan -- have begun backing away.Sanders’s Medicare For All would expand to all American residents the government-run health insurance program that’s covered senior citizens and certain other people for over 50 years. But as the costs and disruptions of the plan have come into focus, Medicare for All has emerged as the major fault line in the Democratic presidential primary.Top IssueHealth-care coverage consistently ranks as the top issue for Democrats and helped drive the party’s electoral gains in 2018. But polls show that voters harbor deep concerns about the possible disruption from a policy as far-reaching as Sanders has proposed.The two-night gathering in Detroit made clear that the biggest fight in Democratic politics right now is whether the party should press ahead with remaking the health care system, which accounts for 18% of U.S. gross domestic spending, or instead pursue more limited reforms along the lines of front-runner Joe Biden’s proposal to “build on Obamacare,” the signature legislative achievement of President Barack Obama.“At the level of the bumper sticker or talking points, proposals are very popular, but when you start filling in the details and the trade-offs become clear, it becomes more apparent that there are losers as well as winners,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “At the bumper sticker level, it seems that everyone is a winner.”A PBS NewsHour/Marist poll of U.S. adults conducted July 15-17 highlighted the Democrats’ dilemma. It found that while 70% of respondents favor a Medicare for All option, only 41% support doing away with private health insurance. A recent tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed overall favorability for a Medicare for All system dropped to 51% in July from 56% in April. It also found that more Democrats, 55%, prefer to expand coverage by bolstering the Affordable Care Act than the 39% who believe in replacing Obamacare with a Medicare for All system.During the debates, Booker and Gillibrand both dodged questions about the role of private insurance under a Medicare for All regime. Instead, they sought to re-frame the conversation about health care in broader terms, drawing a contrast between Democrats and Republicans.“This pitting progressives against moderates, saying one is unrealistic and the other doesn’t care enough, that to me is dividing our party and demoralizing us in face of the real enemy here,” Booker said. Forest Versus TreesGillibrand said the intra-party squabbling risked “losing the forest through the trees.”Harris, in particular, has struggled to stick to a clear position on Medicare for All. The California senator was the first Democrat to co-sponsor Sanders’ bill and raised her hand when moderators at the June debates asked which candidates would be comfortable abolishing private health insurance. Harris later backtracked, saying she’d misheard the question.“She violated a rule I’ve promulgated in politics: if you’re caught in a bind and can’t think of any way out of it, don’t say something that no one will believe,” said Barney Frank, the former Democratic representative from Massachusetts, who’s not endorsed a presidential candidate for 2020.On July 29 Harris introduced her own, less ambitious Medicare for All plan that also allows private insurance coverage and would be phased in over a decade.Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, assailed it as a “have-it-every-which-way approach” that would raise middle class taxes. Biden amplified that charge during the debate by saying, “You can’t beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan.”Valuable BrandHarris shot back that the Biden campaign was “probably confused because they’ve not read it.”Harris’s plan was also attacked from the left. Weaver said Harris was seeking to co-opt the Medicare for All “brand name” while offering her own, scaled-back plan. “It’s not Medicare for All -- at all,” Weaver said.The most extreme flip-flop belongs to Ryan, who’s still listed as a co-sponsor of Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation in the House but laced into the plan during Tuesday night’s debate. The next day, Ryan continued to warn about the political consequences of eliminating private insurance.“I think we’d lose 48 states, and I’m having a hard time figuring out what the two states are we’re going to win if our lead message is, ‘We’re going to confiscate health care from people,’” he said.Aly Javery, a spokeswoman for Ryan’s campaign, said he remained a cosponsor of Sanders’s plan despite his misgivings because Ryan would like to see the country move toward a Medicare for All system.‘Sucking Value Out’Warren, who hesitated to say she wanted to completely eliminate private insurance in the early months of her campaign, has since leaned into Sanders’ vision of a single-payer Medicare for All system that eliminates private insurance.“Every developed country on earth has moved to a single-payer system because it produces better outcomes at lower cost,” Warren said in a July 17 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. “The markets, they’re sucking value out without delivering the health care we need.”But even Warren has shied away from acknowledging that a Medicare for All system would raise taxes on the middle class, which Sanders admits. Asked twice by debate moderators in Detroit if the plan she’s endorsed would raise middle class taxes, Warren dodged by replying that “total costs will go down” to obtain health coverage.With the presidential field expected to narrow in the coming weeks as low-performing candidates potentially drop out before the September debates, the health-care discussion will come into sharper focus as proponents and critics of Sanders’ Medicare for All plan meet on a single stage.Even as many of the original sponsors back away, Democratic strategists worry how a nominee like Sanders or Warren, who support the most ambitious version of Medicare for All, would fare in the general election.“Medicare for All’s biggest drawback is that it destroys choice and that it takes away private health insurance from people who have it and like it,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who now runs the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California.“You could turn an issue that works for Democrats around into an issue that hurts Democrats by telling tens of millions or 100 million people who may like the insurance they have now that they’re going to go into something unknown.”To contact the reporters on this story: Tyler Pager in Washington at tpager1@bloomberg.net;Joshua Green in Washington at jgreen120@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3368r2y

[lovehardenemycollector]

(Bloomberg) -- In April, many of the top Democratic presidential candidates eagerly lined up to co-sponsor Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill -- a vast restructuring of the U.S. health-care system that would go far beyond Obamacare.Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand, along with Representatives Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard, all co-sponsored the bill with an eye toward the upcoming presidential primaries.“It was a recognition that the center of gravity in the party has moved in a much more progressive direction,” said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to the Sanders campaign. “Many candidates wanted to position themselves with the vast majority of Democratic primary voters by supporting real Medicare for All.”But as this week’s Democratic debates in Detroit illustrated, many of those initial co-sponsors, fearful of blowback from voters -- particularly those who have satisfactory private health insurance they’re reluctant to give up for something unknown, as they would have to under Sanders’s plan -- have begun backing away.Sanders’s Medicare For All would expand to all American residents the government-run health insurance program that’s covered senior citizens and certain other people for over 50 years. But as the costs and disruptions of the plan have come into focus, Medicare for All has emerged as the major fault line in the Democratic presidential primary.Top IssueHealth-care coverage consistently ranks as the top issue for Democrats and helped drive the party’s electoral gains in 2018. But polls show that voters harbor deep concerns about the possible disruption from a policy as far-reaching as Sanders has proposed.The two-night gathering in Detroit made clear that the biggest fight in Democratic politics right now is whether the party should press ahead with remaking the health care system, which accounts for 18% of U.S. gross domestic spending, or instead pursue more limited reforms along the lines of front-runner Joe Biden’s proposal to “build on Obamacare,” the signature legislative achievement of President Barack Obama.“At the level of the bumper sticker or talking points, proposals are very popular, but when you start filling in the details and the trade-offs become clear, it becomes more apparent that there are losers as well as winners,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “At the bumper sticker level, it seems that everyone is a winner.”A PBS NewsHour/Marist poll of U.S. adults conducted July 15-17 highlighted the Democrats’ dilemma. It found that while 70% of respondents favor a Medicare for All option, only 41% support doing away with private health insurance. A recent tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed overall favorability for a Medicare for All system dropped to 51% in July from 56% in April. It also found that more Democrats, 55%, prefer to expand coverage by bolstering the Affordable Care Act than the 39% who believe in replacing Obamacare with a Medicare for All system.During the debates, Booker and Gillibrand both dodged questions about the role of private insurance under a Medicare for All regime. Instead, they sought to re-frame the conversation about health care in broader terms, drawing a contrast between Democrats and Republicans.“This pitting progressives against moderates, saying one is unrealistic and the other doesn’t care enough, that to me is dividing our party and demoralizing us in face of the real enemy here,” Booker said. Forest Versus TreesGillibrand said the intra-party squabbling risked “losing the forest through the trees.”Harris, in particular, has struggled to stick to a clear position on Medicare for All. The California senator was the first Democrat to co-sponsor Sanders’ bill and raised her hand when moderators at the June debates asked which candidates would be comfortable abolishing private health insurance. Harris later backtracked, saying she’d misheard the question.“She violated a rule I’ve promulgated in politics: if you’re caught in a bind and can’t think of any way out of it, don’t say something that no one will believe,” said Barney Frank, the former Democratic representative from Massachusetts, who’s not endorsed a presidential candidate for 2020.On July 29 Harris introduced her own, less ambitious Medicare for All plan that also allows private insurance coverage and would be phased in over a decade.Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, assailed it as a “have-it-every-which-way approach” that would raise middle class taxes. Biden amplified that charge during the debate by saying, “You can’t beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan.”Valuable BrandHarris shot back that the Biden campaign was “probably confused because they’ve not read it.”Harris’s plan was also attacked from the left. Weaver said Harris was seeking to co-opt the Medicare for All “brand name” while offering her own, scaled-back plan. “It’s not Medicare for All -- at all,” Weaver said.The most extreme flip-flop belongs to Ryan, who’s still listed as a co-sponsor of Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation in the House but laced into the plan during Tuesday night’s debate. The next day, Ryan continued to warn about the political consequences of eliminating private insurance.“I think we’d lose 48 states, and I’m having a hard time figuring out what the two states are we’re going to win if our lead message is, ‘We’re going to confiscate health care from people,’” he said.Aly Javery, a spokeswoman for Ryan’s campaign, said he remained a cosponsor of Sanders’s plan despite his misgivings because Ryan would like to see the country move toward a Medicare for All system.‘Sucking Value Out’Warren, who hesitated to say she wanted to completely eliminate private insurance in the early months of her campaign, has since leaned into Sanders’ vision of a single-payer Medicare for All system that eliminates private insurance.“Every developed country on earth has moved to a single-payer system because it produces better outcomes at lower cost,” Warren said in a July 17 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. “The markets, they’re sucking value out without delivering the health care we need.”But even Warren has shied away from acknowledging that a Medicare for All system would raise taxes on the middle class, which Sanders admits. Asked twice by debate moderators in Detroit if the plan she’s endorsed would raise middle class taxes, Warren dodged by replying that “total costs will go down” to obtain health coverage.With the presidential field expected to narrow in the coming weeks as low-performing candidates potentially drop out before the September debates, the health-care discussion will come into sharper focus as proponents and critics of Sanders’ Medicare for All plan meet on a single stage.Even as many of the original sponsors back away, Democratic strategists worry how a nominee like Sanders or Warren, who support the most ambitious version of Medicare for All, would fare in the general election.“Medicare for All’s biggest drawback is that it destroys choice and that it takes away private health insurance from people who have it and like it,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who now runs the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California.“You could turn an issue that works for Democrats around into an issue that hurts Democrats by telling tens of millions or 100 million people who may like the insurance they have now that they’re going to go into something unknown.”To contact the reporters on this story: Tyler Pager in Washington at tpager1@bloomberg.net;Joshua Green in Washington at jgreen120@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3368r2y