Umair, your articles are typically very long. I hate long articles. And yet after I finish reading your editorials, I appreciate every word you’ve written. Your perspective is so unclouded and your arguments are so well supported that I feel I’ve grown as a result of having read your stories.
“democratic socialists” tend, ironically, to be cautious incrementalists, not transformational revolutionaries. That’s going to make a lot of them angry — but I think it’s fair to say that much on a global scale. They want Medicare For All — not an American Healthcare System.
Just one comment, in support of my general appreciation. Medicare (and Medicare for All) are essentially insurance policies. They are NOT Healthcare Systems. If your insurance is top notch, but the people providing your medical care are bottom shelf, then who cares that you’ve saved money on your hospital bills?
One of Bernie’s themes (and pretty much that of all the Democratic candidates) is that drug prices are too high. But no one seems to care whether or not the particular drugs being prescribed are healthful or harmful. Bernie’s own Prescription Drug Price Relief Act of 2019 for example, cites the high price tag for the arthritis drugs Enbrel, which “currently costs about $4,941 for a 30-day supply in the U.S., could cost $2,471” and Humira, “ which currently costs about $2,770 for a 30-day supply in the U.S., could cost $1,385.” And yet there’s no consideration for non-prescription alternatives like Boswellia or curcumin / tumeric, which according to a peer-reviewed journal article (British Journal of Pharmacology, 2013) can be a cost-effective alternative and (this may or may not be in the article cited — I’ve read only the abstract) with fewer harmful side effects. (I take a boswellia-curcumin-silymarin combo that costs about $30 per month — and it works fine.)
The European model of pharmacology is rational — “healthier is better”; the American model is based on “cheaper is better.” And none of the Democratic or Republican decision makers seems even slightly concerned with a rational alternative to their capitalist model. So the Sanders model of democratic socialism (substitute any other candidate you like) claims to be more beneficial than the predatory capitalist alternative, but in reality, it’s a band-aid placed over a gaping, fatal wound.
