This Is A Setup

One of the things that I expect my opponents will attempt to use against me is that I'm inexperienced. True or not, I know what's going on, and I'm going on the record about it right here.

Today, the most popular politician in office, Bernie Sanders (not coincidentally, an Independent), is bringing forward his Medicare For All bill, which is a single-payer healthcare bill to replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). I believe Sanders intended this as a way to sell the idea to the country at large, because there's no chance of it actually passing, since Republicans control both houses of congress. Sanders' message is simply, "Hey, if you want to 'repeal and replace Obamacare' why don't you do it with a system of universal healthcare that will actually cover everyone and save our country money?"

What he's doing is a good thing. However, it's important to understand the motives of many of the Democrats who recently signed on to co-sponsor the bill. Hint: They don't actually want it to pass, and they're co-signing it knowing that it can't.

From NBC news, here's a list of the Democrats who have co-sponsored the legislation (right). All of the names in italics are considered likely candidates to run for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2020.

This is a short blog, but I'll concentrate on New Jersey's Cory Booker here to make the point. In the 2016 election cycle, Booker brought in over $1 million from the healthcare industry alone. And at the end of 2016, into 2017, he helped to kill a bill introduced by Bernie Sanders to allow Americans to buy their medications from Canada, which frequently has much lower costs. That bill would have passed, by the way. It had 12 Republican votes in favor, including TED CRUZ, while 13 Democrats voted against it. Those 13 Democrats, led by Booker, received over $3.3 MILLION combined from Pharmaceutical companies between 2011 and the time of that vote.

After the backlash he received, he announced - and this isn't a joke, although it should be - that he would "pause" putting his pharmaceutical donations (which totaled over $450,000 in the 2016 cycle). Pause. PAUSE! "Pause" means that you're going to start it back up again, otherwise it's a halt! And the reason he gave? Was it because it's bribery and bribery is wrong? Or because he doesn't agree with the industry forcing poor people to pay exorbitant amounts of money for drugs they could get for a fraction of the price from Canada or India? No. It's because it "arouses so much criticism"! He "paused" it for political, not ideological, reasons.

The game is here, and the card the Democrats are playing right now is to latch on to popular ideas such as universal healthcare so that they can use their stance on it today - when it truly doesn't matter, because it can't pass - to win them the nomination, and hopefully the presidency, in 2020. After which, they are not going to make passing universal healthcare a priority, just as they didn't in 2009-2010. And if you don't believe me, here's audio of Barack Obama (you have to subscribe) explaining why he didn't want universal healthcare: Because he was worried it may hurt the insurance industry.

As far as I can see, there are two possibilities here:

1) These Democrats have all decided they don't like the massive quantities of free money coming to them from the largest lobby in all of Washington (larger than the next three combined).

2) They're lying to you.

Which do you think it is?