The most powerful elected official in the United States is not the President. It is the Speaker of the House. Speakers rarely if ever defer to presidents. It was Nancy Pelosi who drove the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Affordable Care Act, the two most significant pieces of legislation of recent decades. When the Speaker says something will not happen, only persuading the Speaker to change his or her mind will allow it to happen.
In an interview with CNBC Nancy Pelosi recently said:
Democrats should focus on making improvements to Obamacare instead of trying to reinvent the wheel with “Medicare for All,†House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday.
“God bless†2020 Democratic presidential candidates putting forth Medicare for All proposals, Pelosi said in an interview with “Mad Money†host Jim Cramer. “But know what that entails.â€
Pelosi’s thoughts on how to improve the nation’s health-care laws appear to align with those of former Vice President Joe Biden, who in his 2020 presidential bid is calling for building on provisions of Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act.
“I believe the path to ‘health care for all’ is a path following the lead of the Affordable Care Act,†Pelosi told Cramer. “Let’s use our energy to have health care for all Americans, and that involves over 150 million families that have it through the private sector.â€
Whatever the Democratic presidential candidates say, from that we can reasonably infer that “Medicare For All” will not happen as long as Nancy Pelosi is House Speaker and Nancy Pelosi will remain House Speaker for the foreseeable future. “Medicare For All” can reasonably be considered a “bait and switch” that will stick to any candidate endorsing it as much as the “Mexico will build the wall” claim has stuck to Trump or “No New Taxes” stuck to George H. W. Bush.
I have long contended that high health care prices are the most significant challenge in reforming our health care system. For example, it is one of the factors behind the GM strike. GM doesn’t want to pay skyrocketing health care bills for its employees and the workers don’t want to pay more than they already do (which isn’t much).
Whether it could be effective or not, strike M4A as a means of curbing health care costs.
We will never be able to cut health care spending until a Speaker dares to cut reimbursement rates which may be never.
