Wisconsin Dem. Party chair discusses healthcare on La Crosse Talk PM

Everyone gets sick. Everyone need to see a doctor once in awhile. But not many are happy with the system in place to do that, especially through insurance coverage.

The Wisconsin Democratic Party chair said something peculiar Thursday on La Crosse Talk PM in a discussion about healthcare.

“In the Democratic primary, people talked about it a lot,” Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler said. “In the fall, with the COVID pandemic and everything else, it kind of faded into the background. In 2018, Democrats talked about the fight for healthcare all the time.”

Democrats tout their line on healthcare as a reason for winning elections in 2018. Then the court challenge to repeal the Affordable Care Act failed and healthcare was, for some reason, no longer an issue — despite going through a global pandemic, where literally everyone’s health has been at stake.

Heading into 2022, there is legislation being passed to improve aspects of health care. Democrats in Congress and 12 Republicans just passed Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig’s bill capping out-of-picket insulin payments for the insured at $35 a month.

But, as a talking point to improve the healthcare system — so people aren’t price gouged by health insurance companies through high deductibles making their coverage basically useless, unless their lives are at stake — that doesn’t seem to be at the forefront of many political campaigns.

It is for U.S. House candidate, Dr. Mark Neumann, who’s running to replace the retiring Ron Kind in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District. Neumann noted on the show there is legislation to overhaul the healthcare system — H.R. 1976: the Medicare for All Act. Neumann said about 120 reps signed the bill.

While Neumann’s top issue is overhauling healthcare to what he calls a “Medicare for all of us” system, Wikler agreed it is a bit ironic more candidates aren’t discussing healthcare.

Wikler did point out, however, Democratic politicians are mostly on the same page that a public option or single-payer system is the way to move forward on improving healthcare.

He also agreed that a good way to show how universal healthcare would work is to simply look at how easy it is to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and imagine that’s how every trip to the doctor would be.

“You make such a great point about the experience of COVID vaccines,” Wikler said. “Hundreds of millions of Americans have got these COVID vaccines now because you don’t have to pay anything, you just go get it,” Wikler said. “And it’s like, obviously, for an infectious disease, but also so much other medical care. The whole system works better if we just insure people can get it when they need it.”

Wikler noted there are multiple pieces of legislation to move the nation forward to better healthcare but, of course, they’re all held up by the Senate filibuster, which is where the $35 insulin cap bill will die.

A majority of U.S. citizens would like to move to a form of universal healthcare, like the rest of the industrialized world. Those who don’t, Wikler said, are being misled on how well it works.

“Republicans, the way that they oppose healthcare progress at every turn is, essentially, by lying,” Wikler said. “By claiming that somehow, someone was going to take away your doctor or something’s going to change and you’re going to lose something.

“They do this fear mongering, funded by the special interests that profit off of a system that does not serve us well.”