Sanders campaign a historic opportunity: Time for a People's Movement for Real Social Security and Medicare for All

By Dave Lindorff

An independent mass movement on SS and Medicare is needed now
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The rising fortunes of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist US senator from Vermont, in the Democratic presidential primaries, provides a unique opportunity for organizing a new radical movement around key political goals including a national health care program for all Americans, not just the elderly and disabled, and a national retirement program that people can actually live on.

The elements are there already. Sen. Sanders is calling, on the stump, for expanded Social Security benefits, which with the collapse of employee pensions and the destruction of retiree savings in the Great Recession and the ensuing "lost decade" of the stock market, is badly needed. He is also calling for expanding and enhancing the Medicare program to cover everyone from birth to death, much as is done in Canada and in every other modern nation on the globe except the US.

The key here is to build a movement around these two programs that might work in parallel with the Sanders presidential campaign, but that would remain separate from it so that, when the election is over, win or lose, that movement will continue. If Sanders were to win the presidency, as is looking increasingly possible if polls can be believed, and if, as some polls also suggest, his win helped Democrats to retake both the Senate and the House, then having an independent movement in place would be critical. Such a movement militantly demanding Medicare for all and enhanced Social Security benefits would put intense pressure on both a President Sanders and a new Democratic congress to deliver. Meanwhile, if Sanders were to lose, a having a strong, well organized movement in defense of both programs would become even more urgently important.

Better yet, Sanders is a movement veteran, not just someone like Obama who supposedly did a little stint as a "community organizer." Sanders' entire political life dating back to his college days has been about fighting for more income equality, and improved lives for the poor, minorities and working people. One can and must (and this journalist does) criticize his record of support as a member of congress for most of the US government's imperial policies abroad, and even for most of its illegal wars, but domestically, at least, his record of support for fairness and for more racial and economic equality, for worker rights and for women's equality is pretty much unassailable.

What this means is that as long as he is running -- which looks like it could be right through to November -- then win or lose he will be pressing for those issues of strengthening Social Security and for replacing Obamacare -- that huge, cumbersome gift to the insurance industry -- with an expanded and universal version of government-run Medicare. If a movement built around those two issues were to organize marches and rallies and Occupy-style actions in Washington, DC and around the nation, a candidate Sanders could be counted on to appear at them and to support them as he looks to build voter support.

At the same time, a movement fighting for Medicare for all and for expanded and improved Social Security would keep the media more honest, preventing the spreading of the kind of treacherous lies such as just spewed out by Sanders' main opponent Hillary Clinton. A recipient of millions of dollars in "donations" from the heatlh insurance industry, she has been allowed by a supportive corporate media to claim, largely unchallenged, that Sanders' Medicare-for-All plan would mean "dismantling Obamacare, dismantling CHIP programs (state programs that offer health insurance to poor children), and dismantling Medicare and Medicaid," and that his plan would end up "making health care more expensive for most people."

Her assertions are lies, and Clinton knows it when she utters them. She knows Sanders would only be dismantling Obamacare because his plan to expand Medicare would eliminate the need for private insurance, both for individuals and for employers. He would clearly not eliminate Medicare, as he wants to make it universal, not just available to the disabled and those over age 65 as it is today. He would eliminate Medicaid, the miserly and bureaucratic state insurance program for the poor, but only because Sanders would have those people instead covered by the much more expansive benefits of Medicare. The same for children who currently receive insurance through CHIP. And Sanders' scheme would be cheaper for everyone because even though Medicare for All would be funded by higher payroll taxes, nobody would be paying premiums to insurance companies for health insurance anymore. Neither woul employers, who would instead be pressed to provide savings to employees in the form of higher wages.