Fact Checking The United States of America Presidential Debate: Healthcare is Not a Human Right and Citizens Do Not Have Choice in Medical Care
The debate questions ABC's moderators should ask the candidates tonight to avoid stale healthcare policy talking points, co-opted Single Payer language and decades-old false rhetoric
Tonight, the 2024 United States presidential debate (the only one) will be broadcast live on ABC from Philadelphia’s Constitution Center. The days of true, informed, substantial debate are long gone in the United States and oratorial skill and grace are also near extinct, but overly simplified questions will be asked, and citizens will watch.
What should be domestic agenda priority number one—healthcare policy—will be diminished and given minimal media real estate. Talking points will be regurgiatated and decades-old recycled rhetoric about healthcare freedom, healthcare choice and healthcare access will be heard.
The reason Healthcare and Public Health policy are so integral? Healthcare policy is economic policy. Healthcare is National Security policy. Lifelong health maintenance is essential to leveraging access to trade/craft/college education, seeding entrepreneurial start-ups, stabilizing long term employment, keeping business tech updated and modern, increasing innovation, supporting ongoing leadership education, improving recruitment, reducing unemployment, reducing homelessness, augmenting lifelong job training, encouraging product development, financing research and much more. Enacting Universal Healthcare, would leverage citizens in this way.
Here are the Public Health and Safety policy questions the debate moderators should be asking tonight:
Let’s address the United States Health Tax American citizens pay: The U.S. taxpayers spent more on healthcare in 2022 than the governments of Germany, the U.K., Italy, Spain, Austria, and France combined spends to provide Universal Healthcare coverage to the whole of their population (335 million in total), which is comparable in size to the U.S. population of 331 million. Why do American citizens and residents pay the highest Health Tax in the world but they are not granted access to lifelong health maintenance through Universal Healthcare?
American citizens pay multiple Health Taxes to finance Medicare, Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Veterans Affairs Health Care (VA), SNAP, the Indian Health Service (IHS), the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHB), and countless additional publicly-financed health programs. On top of those taxes, they pay for commercial health insurance premiums, are required to meet deductibles before accessing medical care, pay out-of-network fees, pay office visit fees, pay copays, pay for non-formulary medicine costs, pay lab fees, and are unable to see their medical care professionals of choice because of Managed Care restrictions via HMOs and PPOs. The Affordable Care Marketplace is also dominated by the Commercial Health Insurance industry which continues to deploy Denial of Care as a business model within the ACA. Why do American citizens and residents pay more than any other country in the world for healthcare, and yet, have difficulty accessing care and affording it in times of need?
If you cut taxes and raise tariffs, will that widen the wealth gap?
American citizens and residents carry record-breaking medical debt (billions), have the highest comorbidity rates, highest medical debt bankruptcy rate, highest levels of chronic illness, poorest health outcomes, and the highest murder of children by gun rate in world. To what do you attribute the current Public Health crisis and in your view, has the privatization of Public Health programs stabilized Public Health and Safety in the United States since 1987?
Nutrition Taxes are taxes imposed on unhealthy products like tobacco, alcohol, vaping products, white sugar-sweetened beverages and other harmful products. Consumption of these products is a major risk factor for multiple noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including cardiovascular diseases, cancers, respiratory diseases, and diabetes. Would you enact legislation that would prevent companies from being permitted to willfully, knowingly, intentionally and legally continue to harm Public Health?
Will your proposed trade policy proposals increase the runaway inflation?
Will you allow Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairwoman Lina Khan to maintain in her leadership position during your presidency? Kahn wants to continue breaking up the commercial health industry’s market monopoly, reverse vertical integration and stop mergers and acquisitions that further consolidate power and wealth and put patients and ethical medical professionals at risk.
More than 31 million Americans have been affected by the 10 largest cyber attack breaches of health data in the first half of this year alone, exposing private medical and personal identity records. The Optum Change / UnitedHealth Group attack caused harm because that one company provides so many business functions for so many providers, including processing claims and prescriptions. Optum then intimidated and harassed providers (both via email and verbally) to be acquired by UnitedHealth Group. What will you do to stop the commercial health insurance monopoly and white-collar crime by the corporate healthcare industry?
Do you think the Fed model should change?
The Commercial Health Insurance industry’s business model is Denial of Care by PxDx and nH Predict. Medical claims submitted by paying consumers are denied by Ai and algorithms at a rate of 100 per 1.2 seconds. Would you allow Denial of Care as a business model to remain legal?
(Art by Daniel Vincent Bigelow. The first National Improved Medicare For All bill was HR 676. It was presented to Congress in 2003. The current bill is Senate bill 1655. This bill would implement a Single Payer National Health Program / National Improved Medicare for All within four years of passing.)
Senator JD Vance of Ohio supports Lina Khan’s tougher approach to antitrust crime and monopoly prevention. Do you?
Do you support Senate Bill 1655 to economically leverage businesses and families across the United States? Why do you oppose or support Single Payer?
What companies and individuals working in the Commercial Health Insurance industry currently finance your campaigns? Please name the companies as well as the individual executive donors who give as citizens.
Medicare Advantage and Commercial Health Insurance are the longest-running scams in any market in United States history. Consumers pay for a product and service and are then frequently and consistently prohibited from accessing it. Further, consumers do not know what the cost of these products and services are prior to the Point of Sale. How do Consumer Rights Law and Civil Rights Law factor into your proposed healthcare policy and platforms? How will you each protect consumers from the ongoing fraud and white-collar criminality?
Each year in the U.S., roughly 300 - 400 physicians die by suicide; In the U.S., suicide deaths are up to 400% higher among female physicians when compared to females in other professions; In the general population, males complete suicide four times more often than females. To what do you attribute the historic level of Moral Injury and Self-harm of our ethical medical students and healthcare professionals? And secondly, what policies would you enact to prevent physicians from being stripped of their autonomy and agency by the Commercial Health Insurance industry?
The Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act is landmark legislation supporting health workers’ mental health and well-being. Since its passage in 2022, the Lorna Breen Act has funded $103 million across 45 organizations to implement evidence-informed strategies that reduce and prevent suicide, burnout, mental health conditions, and substance use disorders. But this is only scratching the surface of caring for our caregivers — in October 2023, the CDC released its “Vital Signs” report identifying a mental health crisis among health workers. With less than 1% of the 6,120 hospitals in our country receiving program funding from the Lorna Breen Act, 200,000+ other types of healthcare settings are left without the ability to help their workforce in crisis. How will you reverse course and begin to assign value to our medical professionals and healthcare support staff?
Vice President Harris: You frequently repeat “Healthcare is a Human Right,” but healthcare is not a right in the United States. This statement is not factual. Do you plan to amend the United States Constitution to include access to lifelong healthcare without barriers or Denial of Care as a Human Right for American citizens and residents? How high a priority is that in your domestic agenda if so?
The United States government in 2024 approved $841.4 billion for the Department of Defense (DOD), $32.4 billion for national security programs within the Department of Energy (DOE), and $438.0 million in defense-related activities. This does not account for weapons contractors, emergency funding of wars globally and military contractors. Is it a fact that the United States government cannot afford to enact Single Payer non-privatized National Improved Medicare for All for all of its citizens?
In your view, is the Public Health crisis in the United States a National Security concern?
Would each of you agree to send your Chiefs of Staff and Health Policy Advisors to shadow Emergency Medicine physicians in a United States Emergency Room for one month to better understand what is happening to citizens and ethical medical professionals inside our hospitals?
Because the U.S. Congress has allowed vertical integration in healthcare, American patient medical data is not private. It is shared with Commercial Health Insurance companies, third party companies and others without patient consent or knowledge. Hospitals experience cyber attacks hourly. The SEC and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have proposed cyber disclosure rules requiring hospitals and companies to disclose breaches more quickly to inform investors, but the rules do not protect patients in any way. The bodies, health outcomes and futures of Americans are traded on Wall Street daily. Tonight, would you please both share all of your medical records, and the medical records of your families, with our live audience and viewers around the world?
