Why is Rep. Brad Schneider blocking a vote on Medicare for All in the House?

With polls pointing to bipartisan support of Medicare for All at seventy percent (including over fifty percent R and over eighty percent D), it seems like a no-brainier for House Democrats to bring HR1384 Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, to the floor for a vote before the 2020 election. What better way for Democrats to 'resist' than to stand up and fight back against Trump's broken campaign promises to protect healthcare? And while we know this legislation will go nowhere in Mitch McConnell's Senate, it will go a huge way towards proving to voters that the Democrats care more about their well-being than they do the donations/profits of the health insurance industry.

Our Democratic House, under Speaker Pelosi, has passed some amazing legislation in this 2019 session, including HR1, the anti-corruption bill that would solve money in politics (if the senate had a backbone to pass it), HR8 closing the gun-show loophole for background checks, and many others. Unfortunately they refuse to address the #1 issue Americans say they will be voting on: Healthcare. Americans have caught-on that we are the only industrialized nation in a for-profit system, and they are demanding change.

So why aren't our leaders listening? Or, more to the point, why are they specifically fighting against us?

Follow the money; Pelosi and other anti-m4a Dems are working closely with health insurance lobbyists to sabotage the voters. It is naive in the extreme to pretend the Democrats who oppose Medicare for All are just uninformed of its benefits (fiscally, in quality of care and politicly). We’ve all seen the statistic, Medicare for All = $5.1 Trillion saved over 10 years, and 45,000 deaths/year prevented from lack of healthcare.

Yet Democrats, like our own Congressman Brad Schneider, continue to block Medicare for All. Why?

We've asked Congressman Schneider that very question several times. Unfortunately the Congressman continues to hide behind a narrative of “how do we pay for it?” That excuse is getting old, and we’ve answered this question for Brad more than once. In fact, Our Revolution Buffalo Grove and Lake County have conducted signature drives, have met with, and have attended town halls, all of which Brad has dismissed Medicare for all. You can see the latest video of him refusing to tell us what it would take to support the bill here. I spelled out exactly how it is paid for, he said we would have to wait till the hearings to better understand it.

Brad’s critical seat on the Ways and Means committee means that he will help determine whether we even get a vote and #MedicareForAll before 2020. The American people deserve to have Congress go on record regarding a not-for-profit Medicare-based system. Unfortunately Brad continues to stall and stop us from even bringing the bill for the floor. And since he refuses to acknowledge the financial savings or tell us what it would even take to get the bill OUT of Ways and Means we feel it is our obligation to point out that Brad has a direct financial interest in NOT allowing Medicare for All.

Brad's Tax Returns: Follow the Money

After a lot of pressure, we finally got Brad to release his tax returns and unfortunately the information within shows a potential financial motivation to keep the for-profit system in place. The following is from the article: Wife of Rep on Health Subcommittee Is Trading Health Stocks

"Julie Dann, Schneider’s wife, is a senior vice president at Alliant/Mesirow Insurance Services, which offers “individual health and Medicare supplements.” Mesirow Financial bought her family’s private insurance company, Dann Insurance, in 2006, and Mesirow sold its insurance division to Alliant Insurance Services in 2016.

Alliant/Mesirow is part of Alliant’s insurance brokerage, which has a health care division, Alliant Healthcare Services. Alliant has its own health insurance company, and has several other health-related operations. Dann has an ownership interest in Alliant Holdings LP worth between $250,001 and $500,000, according to Schneider’s 2017 financial disclosure.

The 2017 disclosure also includes Dann’s ownership of between $250,001 and $500,000 worth of stock in Thermo Fisher Scientific, a biotechnology product company that owns medical device subsidiaries, such as Accumed. The disclosure does not account for periodic transactions that took place that year: Dann’s purchase of between $100,001 and $250,000 worth of stock in DexCom, which produces glucose monitoring devices for diabetes management, and her purchase of between $15,001 and 50,000 worth of stock in telemedicine company Teladoc.

Since 2017, Dann has bought and sold stock in other companies in the health care industry, including Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (she bought and then sold between $250,001 and $500,000 worth of stock) and Teladoc (she bought $100,001 and $250,000 worth of stock).

Most recently, in February 2019, Dann bought between $250,001 and $500,000 worth of stock in AptarGroup, which manufactures dispensers for pharmaceutical products, and sold between $250,001 and $500,000 worth of stock in medical device company ResMed, which she had purchased in 2018."

While we continue to negotiate in good faith with Congressman Schneider, it becomes hard not to question if personal financial motivation and conflicts of interest play a part in how he represents the people of IL10.

ACTION REQUESTED

Please call Congressman Schneider at (847) 383-4870 and let him know we deserve a House vote on Medicare for All! Then please sign and share our petition!