WHAT DEMOCRATS NEED TO DO Part 2

Democrats need to be more dramatic, effective, and consistent in opposing Trump, his nominees, and the congressional Republicans’ agenda. They need to step up their resistance while promoting and committing to enact policies that would support everyday Americans.

(Note: If you find this post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Correction. In my previous post asking you to contact your U.S. Representative and ask them to oppose elements of the proposed Republican budget, I wrote that the proposed cuts to Medicaid were “$700 - $800 million.” As many of you know, that should have been $700 - $800 BILLION.)

This previous post made the case that Democrats need to be more dramatic, effective, and consistent in opposing Trump, his nominees, and the congressional Republicans’ agenda. It identified policies that Democrats should be promoting for our economy and the economic well-being of all Americans. This current post focuses on policies in the social services arena, including health care reforms, drug price reductions, enhancements to Medicare, and ensuring long-term funding for Social Security.

Here are some specific policies Democrats ought to be promoting and committing to enact in the social services arena when they are back in power:

• Ending wasteful and dangerous privatization of health care. Here are two examples;

o   Private equity firms should be banned from the health care industry. The example of Steward Health alone should be enough to seal this case, but there are plenty of other examples as well. (See this previous post for more information.)

o   End the Medicare Advantage program, which privatizes Medicare and results in huge, often fraudulent, wasteful costs to the Medicare program. For example, in 2024, illegal overbilling by Medicare Advantage providers (i.e., big insurance corporations) was estimated to be $83 billion. Medicare Advantage is estimated to cost Medicare $140 billion more per year than if all individuals were on traditional Medicare. [1] (See this previous post for more details.)

• Strong regulation of drug prices. President Biden took some initial steps to regulate and reduce drug prices, but President Trump is undoing them. In 2022, U.S. drug prices were two and three-quarters times (178% more than) prices in 33 other industrialized countries. This means that our federal, state, and local governments (i.e., taxpayers) and all of us pay over $200 billion a year extra, which fuels exceptionally high profits for drug makers (when compared to other sectors of our economy). [2] (See this previous post for more details.)

• Enhance Medicare. If the Medicare Advantage program was eliminated and Medicare was allowed to negotiate prices for all drugs (see the above two bullet points), the savings would be sufficient to pay for the addition of dental, hearing, and vision benefits to Medicare, as well as to cap out-of-pocket spending by Medicare enrollees.

• Ensure Social Security funding for the rest of this century. Currently, workers pay taxes into Social Security only on the first $176,100 they earn in a year. This means that someone making a million dollars stops paying into Social Security after February 15 and someone making ten million dollars stops paying into Social Security after the first week of January. Simply eliminating this cap would increase Social Security’s revenue by roughly $100 billion per year. This would provide about 75% of the funding needed to allow Social Security to pay out its full planned benefits for the rest of the century. The rest could be raised by taxing investment income, estates, and gifts or a variety of other strategies. [3]

o   NOTE: The Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act in Congress would require taxpayers with over $400,000 in income in a year to pay a bit more into Medicare and Social Security. This would fully fund planned Medicare and Social Security benefits for at least the next 75 years. [4]

There are plenty of other policies that Democrats should be advancing to demonstrate that they would better serve and support workers and everyday Americans than Trump and the Republicans. Examples include housing; early education and child care; supporting workers and their unions; effective regulation of businesses for worker, consumer, and public safety; and strong enforcement of antitrust laws including the breaking up of monopolistic companies.

If any of your members of Congress are Democrats, I urge you to contact them and ask them to step up their resistance while promoting and committing to enact policies that would support everyday Americans. You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Dayen, D., 1/27/25, “We found the $2 trillion,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/economy/2025-01-27-we-found-the-2-trillion-elon-musk-doge/)

[2]      Dayen, D., 1/27/25, see above.

[3]      Dayen, D., 1/27/25, see above.

[4]      Conley, J., 5/9/25, “Democrats’ bill would extend Social Security and Medicare solvency ‘as far as the eye can see’,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/social-security-medicare-2671925476)