Why hasn't Congresswoman Betty McCollum yet cosponsored H.R. 676 Medicare for all single payer act?

I just discovered that Democratic Party congresswoman Betty McCollum has not yet signed on as a co-sponsor of  H.R. 676 Medicare for All bill that has already garnered 112 cosponsors.  Here is the official listing of the co-sponsors.  I thought about this after watching a Jimmy Dore youtube video where he interviews a guy who is primarying against Nancy Pelosi -- Pelosi also not yet a cosponsor and has said words to the effect that she is against single payer.  This makes me wonder if maybe I should primary against McCollum, even though she doesn't represent my residential district.  That would be a little ironic because Represents congressman Jason Lewis 'represents' my district, but resides in McCollum's district.

Democratic constituents, in these congressional districts that lean so heavily Democratic that the Dem candidate is all but guaranteed to get elected, should see the primaries as brass ring opportunities to get the most progressive candidate possible.  By that I mean there isn’t much of a need in those districts for a candidate to compromise in order to acquire the moderate fence sitters that might get put off by the far left progressive positions of a candidate.  But instead, it seems more so that the opposite has occurred, whereby the constituents of perennial House Democrats settle for progressive mediocrity in electing very conventional neoliberal, corporate friendly candidates.

Democrats need to embrace good regulations and progressive taxations to lure the Republican vote.

by Glen Wallace

We need a strong central government imposing regulations to protect the common man from the tyranny of the wealthy.  While, as a leftie progressive, I'm willing to admit that some regulations are onerous and unnecessary, I never seem to hear from a right wingnut regressive admitting that some regulations are helpful and needed to protect the worker, the consumer and the environment from harm or exploitation at the hands of a ruthless businessman.  It seems like the free market set want to create a social political environment where we return to the days of company towns where the residents are considered to have freedom because they aren't physically restrained from leaving -- never mind that the company town is in the middle of nowhere and none of the residents own a car or have a dime to their name that could be used to move out.

Let's remove the income tax and put in its place a federal property tax on the wealthy that covers not just real estate but any and all assets held by the top one tenth of one percent.

Good regulations are proactive whereas, any competitive marketplace without any regulation, is, at best, reactive in dealing with problems.  I say 'at best' because some business can go on harming customers, the environment or workers for years or decades before, or if ever, they get punished in the marketplace for their actions.

The Democratic Party could gain their biggest strength by undermining or outright removing the biggest rallying points for the political right wing.  Democrats could start by eliminating income tax for most, if not all, the 99 percent.  The loss of revenue could be compensated for by increasing the income tax on the top one tenth of the top one percent.  Additionally, there are a great number of other sources of potential revenue the could, and should be tapped -- high frequency trading machine tax, VAT tax, where resource extraction on Federal lands is a given, the transaction should be designed with a fiduciary responsibility towards the owners of that land -- the citizens of the U.S.

Additionally, the power over the ability to create money needs to be returned entirely to the people and taken away from the private Federal Reserve Banking system.  I'm not saying "end the Fed".  If they want to continue as a industry association where banks can voluntarily join, that's fine.  But monetary policy should be set by the US Treasury.  While supporters and representatives may claim that the Fed is audited and nothing untoward has been found, I would counter that there still could be something untoward going on with the Fed and its relationship to the American people it is supposed to be looking out for.  While the Fed may have only one set of accounting books, it may have two sets of strategy books.  That is, it may have a public strategy that complies with the Congressional mandate it is supposed to follow, it may have a private strategy that it instead follows that is directed at aiding the Fed's shareholders at the expense of the American people.  For, instance, had Fed insiders known early in the 2000's where the housing crisis was heading they could have made some strategic shorts, thus benefiting from the Fed's strategy to blow up the housing bubble.  Then when the bubble burst, Fed insiders could have had inside knowledge of the QE program and how it would be used to boost commodities and the stock market for which the insiders could take a long position ahead of the rise.    

But regardless, Democrats need to look at what is motivating the populist base of the Republican party that leads them to vote the way they have.  And then have an answer that might just persuade them to switch sides.  Remember, most of those Republican voters are not rich.  Hired disinfo agents may try to fire up that middle to lower class Republican base by complaining about wealth redistribution.  But I find it hard to believe that base will get worked up into much of a lather when hearing about how some sherry swilling, tailored suit wearing, manicured men with soft hands that never have seen a callous in its life, with a sixty thousand dollar Patek Philippe watches sitting just above those soft hands, has to fork over more in taxes -- especially when that would mean those working class Republicans get to avoid paying income tax altogether.

Additionally, where regulations are concerned, show how good regulations protect the consumer, the environment and the worker from unscrupulous business owners and how a strong government acts as a measure against such businesses.  Without a strong government there is a power mismatch between the little guy and the tycoon.  But where there is unnecessary, onerous regulations, Democrats should be seen working hard to end such bad regulations while continuing to strengthen, tweak, enhance good existing regulations while enacting new good helpful regulations.

Obamacare is Not Socialized Medicine, But I Wish it Were

By Glen Wallace

While I have no doubt that they have the best of intentions, I think it is unfortunate that the progressive set has now seen it as their duty to rally in support and defend Obamacare as thought it were this great compassionate improvement in the current state of affairs.  I think the only solution that progressive minded folk should see as acceptable is a single payer government run universal plan that is modeled after the best run plans of northern Europe.

The Hillarycare plan would have been much more like the European single payer model, and therefore I really wish it would have succeeded.   With hindsight they should have been able to come up with a better way to sell the plan to the public.  What they could do now is have their own 'there's got to be a better way' commercial like the insurance companies put out against the plan, but this time the government could put out their own commercials supporting the plan using real people recounting their health insurance horror stories from dealing with medical debt they incurred from either high deductibles or cases where the insurance company has weaseled out of paying for hospital bills.  At the end of the commercial they would say "there's got to be a better way..... but wait, there is, and they're already doing it over in Europe and Canada."

I heard on public radio that two thirds of all American's with medical debt had health insurance when they incurred the debt.  One person that they had featured on the radio program with medical debt, who had health insurance, was battling with the billing hospital and health insurance company because the insurance company claimed some of the billed care he received from the hospital was not covered.  Trying to get either the hospital to remove the charges or get the insurance company to pay for them, had become a full time job for this guy who was still recovering from the motorcycle accident that caused the very costly hospital stay where the bills got run up in the first place.  Not only would all these problems go away for the individual with a universal single payer plan, but implementing such a plan would remove a huge costly burden from employers that would likely free up some money to hire more employees and expand a business.  It seems like the single payer plan is such a win-win that it should practically sell itself.  Perhaps we as a country need to get over our aversion to particular terms such as 'socialism' and become more pragmatic and simply choose the ideal solution regardless of what label applies to it.