RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EPISODE 272: Trumpcare Fiasco/Logic For The LeftJune 1, 2019
Medicare For All advocate, Dr. John Geyman, rejoins us to discuss his latest book “Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco.” And philosophy professor Ben Burgis explains how to “Give Them an Argument: Logic For The Left.” Plus, David Helvarg comes on in the Wrap Up to explain how he’s “Putting The Blue in the Green New Deal.”
John Geyman is an M.D. and professor emeritus of family medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. As a family physician with 21 years in academic medicine, he has also practiced in rural communities for 13 years. Dr. Geyman has served as president of Physicians for a National Health Program and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. His new book is entitled; Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco.
“In 1912, Teddy Roosevelt ran as a progressive for national health insurance. And it’s been shut down politically all these years since then. But, it’s not a fringe idea.” Dr. John Geyman, author of Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco
Ben Burgis teaches philosophy at Rutgers. He is the author of a new book entitled Give Them an Argument: Logic for the Left. It’s published by Zero Books, which produces a YouTube channel that also features Professor Burgis. You can also see him every Tuesday evening on the Michael Brooks Show.
“I would make a distinction between liberals and leftists. I think that in the kind of MSNBC liberal like Rachel Maddow you get this technocratic centrism: that political problems come from people being too ideological, not thinking hard enough about the sort of technocratic wonky solutions to them. That’s why Obama spent his whole first term trying to pursue a Grand Bargain with Republicans, because he thought that if everybody could just get over all this ideology then they could just reason together and figure out how to slash entitlements and allegedly save Social Security… And that’s very different than the left wing values I care about.” Professor Ben Burgis, author of Give Them an Argument: Logic For The Left
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 273 TRANSCRIPTSteve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, my name is Steve Skrovan, along
with my returning co-host David Feldman, welcome back, David.
David Feldman: It is an honor to be back.
Steve Skrovan: It's good to have you back. And we have the man of the hour too, of course, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Hey, how are you? This is going to be a titanic issue to 2020 elections.
Steve Skrovan: Yes, we hope it is. And what Ralph is referring to is we've got a couple of
doctors on the program today. One is an MD, the other is Ph.D. And first up is Dr. John
Geyman. He is back with us to discuss healthcare. Regular listeners remember Dr. Geyman as
an advocate for Medicare for All; he has done a deep analysis of Obamacare vs. Medicare for All
as well as the Republican alternative, whatever that turns out to be, and I'm going to give him
credit for coining the term Trumpcare. Trump, I think owns the healthcare system now and he
likes to talk about how people don't want to give up their “beloved private health insurance.”
And I believe it’s the first time the word beloved, has ever been used to describe private health
insurance. And of course, this is the same guy who said, you know, who said, “who knew
healthcare was so complicated”. He said that after taking office by the way, so Dr. Geyman’s
new book is entitled, Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco,
that's the first half of the show and the second half of the show we turn our attention to the art of
persuasion. We welcome Dr. Ben Burgis, who is the author of a book entitled, Give Them An
Argument: Logic For The Left. It's sort of a handbook on how we take apart the logic of the right
and David you've actually read this and talked to Dr. Burgis, right?
David Feldman: Yes, it’s really interesting because a lot of people on our side don't know how
to fight back. We kind of just listen and then walk away so it's very valuable information.
Steve Skrovan: And in between, we're going to break up our two doctors with a man who should
get own doctorate in exposing corporate crime, our Corporate Crime Reporter, Russell
Mokhiber. And you podcast listeners won't want to miss this week's Wrap Up; we're going to talk
to David Helvarg, the head of Blue Frontier, the advocacy group for ocean conservation. He has
a new proposal called “Putting the Blue in the Green New Deal.” So, we'll get to that in the
Wrap Up, but first, let's talk about how we can fix the fiasco of Trumpcare, David.
David Feldman: John Geyman is an MD and Professor Emeritus of Family Medicine at the
University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. As a family physician with 21 years in
academic medicine, he has also practiced in rural communities for 13 years. Dr. Geyman has
served as president of Physicians for a National Health Program and as a member of the National
Academy of Medicine. His new book is entitled Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How
We Can Fix This Fiasco. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Dr. John Geyman.
John Geyman: Well thank you. I'm glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
Ralph Nader: Welcome again, John. Seems like we're old friends now with so many interviews
and my promotion of your various books, which are very-very clearly written listeners, and
you're well advised to read these books because this is going to be the big issue in the 2020
presidential and congressional campaigns. Are we going to continue the present corrupt,
constant denying, profiteering, cruel, inefficient healthcare industry system? Or are we going to
have a simpler, more efficient single-payer system with free choice of doctor and hospital, no
networks, and of course, better outcomes as a result? So let me start with the big deception here,
because there are some people who don't like to use the phrase Medicare for All, because of the
sabotage of Medicare by the Republicans and Democrats in allowing more and more of Medicare
recipients to be seduced and deceived into what's called Medicare Advantage Programs--what I
call Medicare disadvantage. We now have one out of three elderly people under Medicare drawn
in by these deceptive promotional lunches, that the health insurance companies have all over the
country, where they have presentations that should be prosecuted by the Federal Trade
Commission, they are so deceptive. In your book on page 21, you have a pretty devastating
summary of why people over 65 should stay clear and just go into traditional Medicare, not go
into Medicare so-called Advantage. Can you tell our listeners why they should avoid Medicare
“Disadvantage,” as I call it?
John Geyman: Well, I agree it is a Medicare “Disadvantage.” And they have all kinds of
deceptive marketing approaches, as you mentioned Ralph, including one that isn't talked about
much, but they have these marketing pitches on second and third floors of places without
elevators, so they can pick out people that can handle stairs; they're always trying to get healthier
people and make as much money from them as possible, meanwhile limiting; they have
restrictive networks that change all the time. Even docs can't keep up with the latest changes.
Sometimes a doc doesn't even know if he's in or out of network; they can change so rapidly and
all these pre-authorizations and now it's just a total rip. It's an example of why we don't need the
private, multi-payer insurance industry anymore. It's ripped us off for a huge number of years,
not just privatized Medicare, but privatized Medicaid. And then overhead of these private
insurers runs about six times what traditional Original Medicare is of about 2.5%. So, this huge
overhead and right now what we're seeing is the private insurers, more and more fighting back
for their expanded place in healthcare, including buying up more and more physician groups so
they can run them, etc.
Ralph Nader: It's a corporate takeover. I don't use the word privatized, John; I use the word
corporatized. So basically, Medicare, so-called Advantage is a corporate takeover and all the
abuses that people who are under 65 are exposed to it by health insurance companies operated
here. They deny benefits, they're wasteful. They require you to go only to a certain network of
doctors and hospitals, even though they may not be proper for your ailment. It's what Dr. Fred
Hyde in Connecticut once told me about Medicare Disadvantage. He said, “it's not what you pay,
it's what you get, or what you don't get. It’s what you don't get. Stay with traditional Medicare,
even though they require the traditional Medicare patients to subsidize the Medicaid and Medicare
health insurance companies. And just to give you an idea, Centene Corporation--this is
in Dr. John Geyman’s book, Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This
Fiasco, just out and it's also online--the largest private Medicaid insurer in the country, took in
1.1 billion in profits between 2014 and 2016 just in California, “even as its plans were among the
worst performing in this state.” That's another way of saying they’re expert at denying benefits
and underpaying what's required, often turning patients away in desperation, and even making
more money. Now, you're enthralled by one bill in the House of Representatives and explain
that; give the bill number. I think it's fair to say it's the best single-payer bill--better even than
John Conyers’s bill and Bernie Sanders’s bill. And it's supported by a lot of Democrats. So,
give the vital statistics about that bill, starting with its number.
John Geyman: This is H.R. 1384. It's in the House. It's expanded and improved Medicare for
All [Act of 2019]. It's a great bill, the best we've ever seen. Its two leading co-sponsors are
Pramila Jayapal from Seattle [WA] actually and Debbie Dingell from [Dearborn] Michigan. This
will bring us a new system of national health insurance for all US residents, based on medical
need, not ability to pay, and on a principle that healthcare is not a privilege but a human right.
It'll bring right away universal access to healthcare for US residents, full choice of providers and
hospitals anywhere in the country, no restrictive networks, covers everything: outpatient-
inpatient care, laboratory diagnostic services, dental, hearing and vision care, prescription drugs,
reproductive health, including banning the Hyde Amendment so that women can have full
reproductive healthcare, maternity, and newborn care; mental health services will be a lot better
covered, including substance abuse treatment, and long-term care and support. Some of this is
absent in Bernie's Bill in the Senate; quite a bit of what I just said is absent. There's no cost-
sharing, such as co-pays and deductibles in the House Bill. They'll negotiate drug prices, as the
VA does, and has for years, to get to get prices down to about 58% of what we pay. It'll be huge
administrative simplification with negotiated fee schedules for physicians and other health
professionals who will remain in private practice; global budgeting of individual hospitals and
other facilities, and bulk purchasing of drugs and medical devices too. That's a big deal, the
medical devices, if you had a hip replacement, you know that the cost, that can vary a lot
wherever you are in the country. The House Bill will eliminate the private health insurance
industry with its administrative overhead and profiteering, and no longer need for employer-
sponsored health insurance. Cost savings, we've got two great studies we can talk about later if
we need to, that enable universal coverage through a not-for-profit, single-payer financing
system. Two great studies, as I said, one just six months ago—two-year transition period
actually for the House Bill. One year after enactment, people over 55 will be so covered and
under 19; after two years, everyone's covered. Shared risk for the cost of illnesses and accidents
across the whole population of 326 million. So, it is really a good bill; 70% of Americans
support it, including 85% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans.
Ralph Nader: And I might add, when people have access to health insurance, they don't
postpone needed healthcare, which either ends up destroying their lives or disabling them, losing
their jobs, or they inflict even more costs on the healthcare system and Medicaid, etc., because
they didn't have the money to afford health insurance under the present system to get diagnosed
and treated in time. So, where the present system has this perverse incentive of feeding on its
own waste and rejection, this system goes in the opposite direction; it catches medical ailments
early before the cost becomes 10 or 100 times more, as the ailment becomes more and more
serious, whether it's respiratory disease, cancer, or what have you. You know, when I hear you
say all this John, my first reaction is why in the world, this is the USA, the last western country,
years and years, it doesn't have universal health insurance. All other countries--Iceland,
Luxembourg, Italy, Germany, France, England, Canada, Taiwan, Japan--you know, it’s not just
Western countries, and we know it's because when Lyndon Johnson had a chance to go for
Medicare for All, the country was spending huge amounts of money in the Vietnam War and
there were members of Congress who were saying, President Johnson, “you can't go cover
everybody; we can't afford it because the Vietnam War is draining us, and there's inflation. So
that's another cost of imperial wars by the way, because as you quote in your book, there was a
government study out in 2012, saying 45,000 Americans die every year because they can't afford
health insurance and therefore can't get diagnosed and treated in time. Well, that's almost 1,000
people a week and if you multiply that by 40 years, or more, since the end of the Vietnam War,
that's over 1.7 million people who could have been saved. So, and the second response I get to
this, when I hear you speak, is that the supporters of full Medicare for All--everybody in and
nobody out, free choice to doctor and hospital, better outcomes and half the cost per capita--
that’s the experience in Canada, and unless we think Canadians are a lot smarter than we are,
they have modern healthcare; they have the equipment. They come in at half the price per
average per capita, and they cover everybody in the country. As you point out in your book,
about 30 million people under Obamacare are not covered; it's getting worse and about 80
million people are under-insured and we still spend twice on the average per capita than Canada.
But the supporters of S1804, which is that great bill you describ in your book, I submit, don't
know how to argue very well for it. They're already put on the defensive by people. Republicans
mostly say, “how are you going to pay for it; it's going to be multi-trillion dollars a year”. Tell us
the many easy ways to pay for a system that once it's in place costs half as much as the system
costs today in dollars, and doesn't kill anyone because nobody dies in Canada or France because
they can't afford health insurance; they are insured from the moment they're born.
John Geyman: Yeah, that’s just one example of the Canadian advantage over us. If you're an
auto manufacturer in Toronto, they pay very little compared to what a US car manufacturer has
to pay for healthcare for their employees. But yeah, if we bring it down to people and budgets,
which we should have a system that cares about people instead of corporate profits and Wall
Street investors. But anyhow, the average family of four today with employer-sponsored health
insurance, pays $28,000 a year now.
Ralph Nader: Good heavens, $28,000 a year.
John Geyman: 28K, but then the median income in the country is something like 59K. So, this
is just absurd and if we compare that with national health insurance through Medicare for All,
95% of Americans will pay less in taxes than they do now for insurance and healthcare through a
progressive tax plan. I'm going to mention these; we've had two studies, both of which showed
huge savings. The Friedman Study of six years ago or so told us we could save $616 billion a
year by going to Medicare for All. That includes $220 billion through insurance overhead and
administration getting rid of that, etc., lots of administrative savings. Then the second study is
more recent, and is very well done, the Political Economy Research Institute [PERI] out of the
University of Massachusetts in Amherst, this reported out just six months ago, that total health
spending will increase from 3.2 trillion to 3.6 trillion due to many people getting care they
previously had to forego, but we'll save 5.1 trillion over 10 years through savings from getting
rid of the multi payer, profiteering, private insurance industry. So, we have solid numbers and
different ways of progressive taxation. The PERI Study out of Amherst would set business
premiums at 8% below what business now pays on healthcare; they would set a sales tax on non-
essential goods of 3.75%. They’d put a recurring tax of 0.36% on all wealth over a million, and
they would tax long-term capital gains as regular income. So, there's a lot of work that's been
done, but the opponents of this are gathering momentum again, like they always do, including
hospitals that are saying, “Oh, we might not get paid as much as we are”. Well, they'll get paid
better, actually. Insurers, of course, are complaining because they'll be going away.
Ralph Nader: They have to be replaced. You can't have a single-payer, government funding,
private delivery of healthcare, and still have private health insurers like Aetna, that in one year
recently paid its CEO over $55 million--one year!
John Geyman: Right. They'll have to be replaced. The way I’d like to think of it is, the winners
and losers under Medicare for All single-payer. The winners are all Americans, physicians and
other health professionals will win, because they'll have much less bureaucracy, they'll have
more time to take care of patients. That's why they became such. Hospitals will win; employers
will win big time; mental healthcare will win. Mental healthcare is very underfunded; it'll be
better reimbursed. Public health will win. Federal and state governments will win and taxpayers
will win. The losers are private health insurance, corporate middlemen, corporate stakeholders,
privatized Medicare and as you said Disadvantaged Medicare Ralph, privatized Medicaid,
displaced workers. Well, there's a plan in the House Bill that allocates 1% of its budget over the
first five years for assistance and retraining of workers displaced by the elimination of the private
health insurance industry. And that's probably 1.7 million people. So, there are big numbers
there.
Ralph Nader: You know, if people are still skeptical, take a look at some of the reports on the
pricing of healthcare services in this country--$3,000 in Berkeley to take someone a mile and a
half to a hospital, in an ambulance, 3 thousand bucks! Their operations in the US for $100,000
per operation that in Canada are done at $25,000. You have massive billing fraud, minimal
estimate this year, 350 billion dollars in the US. That's about what the whole healthcare system
in Canada for 33 million people costs; you have far less billing fraud. People don't even see a
bill in Canada for the most part, none of the anxiety, the dread, the fear, the insecurity that
pervades millions and millions of families in the United States. You can't put dollar figure on
that, can you and there are all kinds of ways. You tax corporations, the way they were taxed in
the 1960s, that produced hundreds of billions of dollars. They were making a lot of money in the
1960s; 1960s are one of the most prosperous decades, and they're grossly under taxed. A lot of
these corporations aren't taxed at all. Fifty-six major corporations in this country paid no federal
income tax whatsoever last year, and got rebates, they so gamed the system. For years, General
Electric would make billions of US dollar profits, pay no federal income tax. So, the ability to
pay is everywhere by just making a more just political economy, having the rich and the
multinationals not escape taxation by putting illegally their profits in some little island off the
Isle of England, or in Luxembourg or in Ireland. And just amazing that the supporters of this
Bill, don't know how to make all the arguments. While I've heard a dozen members of the House
support this Bill, they never mention that it would prevent 45,000 deaths a year, and of course,
many more injuries and illnesses, because people will be able to afford health care. And they
won't be denied because they couldn't afford health insurance to get diagnosed and treated in
time. They never mention it! I haven't yet heard anyone mention that it will save hundreds of
billions of dollars in fraud. I haven't heard anyone mention that no longer will the drug
companies be pursuing the sky is the limit and hit a patient for $100,000 or $150,000 for a year’s
treatment, when you can get it for 5% of that in Egypt, the exact same drug, because they control
prices in Egypt and other countries. What do you think is going on here? The Republicans
argue, without the facts forcefully, and they use all the non-factual arguments, the scare tactics,
the lies; the Democrats don't use their full panoply; they don't use their full menu of arguments.
Therefore, they're on a defensive in the House of Representatives. Why?
John Geyman: Yeah, I want the Dems to stand up. And we do have a progressive wing; there
are 107 co-sponsors in the House of Bill--that Jayapal/Dingell Bill. They're a major force; we
have to listen to them and some of our enemies are our own Democrats in the center who still
take credit for the Affordable Care Act, which has failed after nine years to control prices. It
helped for a while with getting people covered, but we still have 30 million uninsured and, 80
million or so underinsured, so it had no price controls, never intended. It pleased this coalition of
profiteers, corporate profiteers, but that's not good enough so.
Ralph Nader: I think you touched on the answer to my question.
John Geyman: Yeah.
Ralph Nader: If the Democrats in the House make the full arguments for single-payer full
Medicare for All, they are in effect, condemning all the holes and all the escape hatches, and all
the profiteering allowed under Obamacare, which is under attack by the Republicans who want
to repeal Obamacare. They can't have it both ways. We need a clean sheet here. Too many
people's lives, too many people's anxieties, too many people's livelihoods are at stake. Here's
another eye-opener, listeners in Dr. Geyman’s book. By the way, have you been invited to testify
in the House of Representatives? They now are controlled by the Democrats; they've had
hearings on single-payer, have they invited you?
John Geyman: No. I have had...
Ralph Nader: You have already written about eight books on the subject, a practicing physician,
an academic professor of medicine at a well-regarded medical school in Washington State--why
aren't they inviting you? How can they be authentic?
John Geyman: Well, I think we just touched on it, there's too much cowardice politically across
the Democratic spectrum. And the centrists are running things more than they should. And that's
bad; we've tried incremental little tweaks to the system for years and they don't work.
Ralph Nader: They don't work because the corporate lawyers for the health industry know how
to game it.
John Geyman: Right.
Ralph Nader: The corporate industry is ripping off Medicare 60 billion with a “b” a year,
listeners. That's your money; they are ripping off Medicaid in the tens of billions of dollars every
year; that's your money. Here's a quote from your book, that ought to open up the eyes of all our
listeners whose ears are already open, “the federal government now pays about 60% of total
healthcare costs in this country, a much higher figure than most people realize. Much of this has
been ongoing subsidies of the private health insurance industry, which receives $685 billion in
government subsidies each year and the Congressional Budget Office projects this number to
double in another 10 years.” So, they're already spending more of your money than would be
necessary to support a single-payer system, which comes in at half the price of what you're
paying now under the corporate system and the government subsidy system. So, I think we're
not going to get this bill through the House, much less the Senate unless there is a real informed
1% of the people out there, who summon their senators and representatives to town meetings,
thrash it all out and send them back with their instructions. Eighty years of dilly-dallying since
before Harry Truman was president are enough. Would you agree that we need town meetings
back where you are, where your two senators and representatives have to answer up and get
educated by you and others?
John Geyman: Absolutely. And it's interesting on let's say two other points right here. In 1912,
Teddy Roosevelt ran as a progressive for national health insurance. And it's been shut down
politically over all these years since then, but it's not a fringe idea. The other thing, we get all
kinds of reasons by the coalition and corporate coalitions against Medicare for All, one of which
is it'll be too disruptive. Well, I can tell you, I was in practice in a small town in Mount Shasta,
California in 1965 when Medicare came in; it wasn't disruptive at all.
Ralph Nader: One point you make in your book on page 177, is if you have full Medicare for
All, you're going to have more primary care doctors and there won't be this incentive to go
immediately into specialized medical practice and you point out that having more primary care
for patients is a great preventive approach--not just treatment approach and diagnostic approach.
You say access is more available and efficient, getting primary care. Receiving more preventive
services, costs are better contained with strong primary care; quality and outcomes of care
improved by primary care. Primary Care provides better coordination, integration of care, and
you spell it all out. You got to get this book listeners; how do they get the book? Because I want
to ask you one last question-- what's the difference between Obamacare and Trumpcare? Which
is the title of your book Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco
by Dr. John Geyman of Washington State. How can they get this book fast and have discussions
in their living rooms and town meetings back home and really start a rumble? So, when the
members come back for the Fourth of July recess from Congress, and they take off a month in
August, they get some real citizen heat and citizen light and they get back with their orders.
John Geyman: They can get it on Amazon right away. They can get it through bookstores; it's
out there.
Ralph Nader: Okay and also online probably, you don't want to give all the business to Amazon,
right John?
John Geyman: No, it's online. Sure.
Ralph Nader: Right. How do they get if they want to get it from you? What if they want you to
autograph a copy? Would you do that for them?
John Geyman: Well, of course, I would.
Ralph Nader: Because you are a great figure in American medicine and you get almost no press.
John Geyman: I have a website, johngeymanmd.org. So, they can find out more on all that.
Ralph Nader: That's G-E-Y-M-A-N, Geyman.
John Geyman: Dot.org, yeah. johngeymanmd.org, yeah.
Ralph Nader: Have you been on NPR or PBS in recent years?
John Geyman: No, no.
Ralph Nader: There you are. I'll bet you they've had 100 cosmetic surgeons dealing with
vanities of men and women on hundreds of times.
John Geyman: Yeah.
Ralph Nader: How do you contour the nose that's pointed, upward doctor? What an insane
system of media priorities, isn't it? I just finished an article that says “the worst is first and the
best is last” that I gave all kinds of examples, even in sports. The highest paid players are very
often nowhere near the best players but even in politics, and book writing, in movies, in the
professions, often the worst practitioners are the highest paid. And the loving, serving
practitioners, like serving needy, poor patients are going over to Africa and dealing with the
Ebola crisis, hardly get paid a living wage in the United States. So, what are you going to do
about that? We have to have millions of people listening to what you have to say in reading your
book. Maybe we can get some advice from Steve Skrovan and David Feldman; what about it?
David Feldman: Yes. Yes, I think Ralph; I think you let doctors off the hook. I can't get a
straight answer from doctors. There are only 152 some odd medical schools in this country. And
doctors have no right to play the victim in all this, why? You could solve this problem overnight.
Doctors have to stand up and say this is unacceptable. We have a disease in this country. It's
called our healthcare system. We're not going to practice medicine unless it's fixed. We're not
going to work for these health insurance companies. We're going to go on strike. Why aren't we
targeting the 150 some odd medical schools in this country who receive federal funding? There
are fewer medical schools than there are congressmen to target; I'm sorry, this is infuriating.
Ralph Nader: You think there should be more medical schools?
David Feldman: I think there should be more medical schools, but if you want to get universal
health insurance in this country, it's the doctors’ fault. It's their greed. They could stop it in a
second.
Ralph Nader: Is it the doctors or the American Medical Association, or both? What's the
answer, Dr. Geyman?
John Geyman: Well, the AMA has been against national health insurance forever. Actually, it’s
interesting, a little side story, in 1917 they had a social committee in the AMA, which came up
with “we need something like national health insurance”, and they sent that out to the state
chapters, which all came back, “no, no way ever”, so that's one little side thing, but yeah.
David Feldman: It’s like talking to an alcoholic and addressing all the issues other than the
drinking. If you can't get the doctors on board, it's not going to happen.
Ralph Nader: Well, majority of doctors already David, in poll after poll, are for single-payer
about 55%--higher percentage for nurses.
David Feldman: Yeah, I mean, so it's their fault.
Ralph Nader: What do you say?
John Geyman: It's our organizations that is the problem because they get bought off. But yeah,
exactly right, Ralph, most physicians are and other health professionals, especially leaderships
by nurses, is strongly for Medicare for All.
Ralph Nader: You have real touching examples in your book about how people, because they
couldn't afford a certain procedure, ended up worsening in their condition and dying. This is
America—land of the free and home of the brave. Before we conclude, what's the difference
between Trumpcare and Obamacare? Dr. John Geyman, author of the brand new book,
Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco.
John Geyman: Well, Trumpcare is much worse than Obamacare. The GOP and the Trump
administration has sabotaged Obamacare, but Obamacare wasn't fixing all of our problems
anyhow. And Republicans still haven't come up with a healthcare plan and they won't.
Ralph Nader: Actually, Trumpcare took millions of people off Medicaid. Can you explain that?
John Geyman: That's exactly what they've done and they want a handover, through state block
grants, the responsibility for Medicaid state by state. Well, a lot of the states cut it back to almost
nothing. In Alabama, I think if you have a family income much over $3,000 a year, you're not
eligible, stuff like that so.
Ralph Nader: It’s as if Trump is telling the poor, you know, let the poor die they don't vote for
him anyway?
John Geyman: That's what it is.
Ralph Nader: Well, Dr. John Geyman, the chief sponsor of your favorite bill in the House,
H.R.1384, is Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, and she comes right from the district near where
you live.
John Geyman: Right.
Ralph Nader: Are you going to ask her to invite you to testify in the next hearing?
John Geyman: Yes, I will and I have been in touch with her and sending her the book and the
pamphlet and of course, all that and thanking her for leadership; that doesn't mean I've been
invited.
Ralph Nader: Well, if you do testify all kinds of reporters crowding around, interviewing you
and you'll reach the national media.
John Geyman: Yes.
Ralph Nader: Thank you very much for all your good work Dr. John Geyman, the author of the
brand new book, which you can have, called Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We
Can Fix This Fiasco. And he doesn't let Obamacare off the hook one bit either. Thank you,
John.
John Geyman: Thank you for having me.
Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with Dr. John Geyman. We will link to Struggling and
Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco at ralphnaderradiohour.com. Now we're
going to take a short break and check in with our Corporate Crime Reporter Russell Mokhiber
and when we come back, we welcome first-time guest Ben Burgis, who is going to tell us how to
argue with right wingers; back after this.
Russell Mokhiber: From the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., this is your
Corporate Crime Reporter “Morning Minute” for Friday, May 24, 2019. I'm Russell Mokhiber;
Health Canada, the governmental agency responsible for public health, is charting a new course
when it comes to dietary advice, particularly in the area of sugar substitutes. In a significant
departure from the past as well as from the U.S. approach, Canada's new food and dietary
guidelines released this year say zero calorie and low-calorie sugar substitutes are neither
necessary nor helpful. That's according to a report in The Washington Post. Sugar substitutes do
not need to be consumed to reduce the intake of free sugars, the guidelines say. The new
Canadian approach seems to be that if a food or beverage doesn't have a demonstrated health
benefit, it doesn't belong in your diet. New York University's Marion Nestle agrees. “Personally,
I follow a food rule not to eat anything artificial. So, these sweeteners are off my dietary radar.”
For the Corporate Crime Reporter, I'm Russell Mokhiber.
Steve Skrovan: Thank you, Russell. You know, a lot of people on the right fancy themselves as
eminently logical. In fact, one of the most widely read libertarian magazines is called Reason.
Well, our next guest is going to tell us how those of us on the left can fight logic with logic.
David?
David Feldman: Ben Burgis teaches philosophy at Rutgers, is the author of a new book entitled
Give Them an Argument: Logic For The Left. It's published by Zero Books, which produces a
YouTube channel that also features Professor Burgis. You can also see him every Tuesday
evening on The Michael Brooks Show. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, professor Ben
Burgis.
Ben Burgis: Thank you. It's great to be here.
Ralph Nader:Welcome indeed. Now you're known in Rutgers circles, and around the country
as a hard-boiled logician, driven by cold reason and facts, and not deterred by emotion. So how
come you dedicated your book to, in your words, “my beautiful wife, Jennifer, among her many
virtues, she's the best logic instructor I know.”
Ben Burgis: Because it's true. I would also point out that one of the things I do try to argue in
the book is that Star Trek got it wrong; there really is no conflicts between logic and emotion.
You know, it's entirely possible to care deeply, for example, about pursuing political and
economic justice, and also think carefully about how to achieve those goals.
Ralph Nader: How do you like that, David?
Ben Burgis: I didn't hear your laugh, David.
David Feldman: No, I'm listening.
Ralph Nader: All right. Let me ask you some side questions before we get into a couple of
areas dealing with how you deal with Ben Shapiro and Nate Silver.
Ben Burgis: Yeah.
Ralph Nader: MSNBC fancies itself as a liberal network in contrast to the Fox cable outlet, and
yet they never invite, with very few exceptions, progressives like Jim Hightower, Bill Greider,
me, even Mark Green. Rachel Maddow doesn't want to be anywhere near a progressive. You
think there's a legitimate distinction to be made between liberals and progressives, given that you
described yourself as a thinking person’s Marxist?
Ben Burgis: Yeah, I would make a distinction between liberals and leftists that I think that that
kind of MSNBC liberal like Rachel Maddow, really what you get/the message you get from them
is this kind of technocratic centrism, that political problems come from people just not having,
you know, being too ideological, not thinking hard enough about the sort of technocratic wonky
solutions to them. That's why Obama spent his whole first term trying to pursue a grand bargain
with Republicans, because he thought if everybody could just get over all this ideology then they
could just, you know, reason together, then they could figure out how to slash entitlements and
allegedly save Social Security and all that stuff. That's very different than the kind of left-wing
values that I care about.
Ralph Nader: Okay, so let's segue right into one of your most powerful points. You quote Nate
Silver, who for years was the analytic pollster and analyst for the New York Times on national
politics. And I guess he was pretty much in favor of Hillary Clinton, because he said on more
than one occasion, and you quote this in your book, Give Them an Argument: Logic for the Left,
Nate Silver says, “Clinton and Sanders voted together the same way 93% of the time” and you
know to someone who doesn't know much about the facts of the two politicians’ record, that's a
pretty impressive argument that Hillary Clinton's pretty left. And then on page 78, you say 93%
is misleading. Here's some of the votes on which Hillary Clinton differed from Bernie Sanders.
1) The war in Iraq: Sanders voted against the invasion; Clinton voted for it. 2) A long series of
votes to continue funding for the war, which Sanders opposed and Clinton favored. 3) A long
series of trade deals, which Sanders opposed and Clinton favored. 4) The Patriot Act: Sanders
voted against it; Clinton voted for it. 5) Reauthorizing the Patriot Act: Sanders voted against it;
Clinton voted for it. 6) Guantanamo Bay: Clinton voted for a bill to force President Obama to
keep the facility open by blocking funds to transfer detainees; Sanders voted against it. 7) The
bank bailout: Clinton supported the bank bailout; Sanders opposed it. Now, why doesn't Nate
Silver pay a penalty and reduced credibility for pulling off something like this?
Ben Burgis: Well, he certainly should. If pundits ever had to pay a penalty in reduced
credibility, he might. It's also worth noting that a lot of those votes, obviously the list you just
rattled off, shows that not every vote is equally important, right? Even if those had been the only
ones that voted differently on that would still establish some pretty profound ideological
differences, but a lot of those votes don't even make it into his factoid, because they happened
when Bernie was in the House while Hillary was in the Senate. So, his factoid only takes into
account the two years they overlapped in the Senate. And my favorite part of this is almost like
a textbook example of how to mislead people with statistics. During the two years that they
overlapped in the Senate, Hillary Clinton was running for president, so presumably, she wasn't
showing up to the Senate every single day to cast votes.
Ralph Nader: Well, as a logician, you are peculiarly sensitive to the misuse of language, are you
not?
Ben Burgis: Well, I think that's an important part of making good arguments, which is one
appreciate.
Ralph Nader: Okay. So why do you call long-time prisoners in Guantanamo detainees?
Ben Burgis: I am just using the standard words, but I do see your point about that.
Ralph Nader: And why do you call social welfare services for the poor entitlements?
Ben Burgis: Well, again, those are, those are the standard terms, I would point out that whereas
entitlement has been, the phrase, the word entitlement has been toxified by right-wing
propaganda. On this point, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the idea that people are in
fact, entitled to these things. They paid into them; they are entitled to benefit from them even if
they hadn't paid into them; they would just be entitled as human beings to have a decent
retirement and all that sort of thing.
Ralph Nader: Yeah, because Social Security and Medicare, people pay into them. And they're
called entitlements, yet hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate welfare, bailouts, handouts,
giveaways, subsidies; the corporation didn't pay anything for them, and they get it all free and
that's called incentives. Why a Marxist like you uses capitalist words to shoot yourself in the
foot is beyond my comprehension. What's your response?
Ben Burgis: Well, I think that you need to pick your battles about whether to spend your time
arguing about words and every single paragraph, or whether to communicate to people the
language they already understand while trying to make what you see as the larger argument.
Ralph Nader: So, you don't believe in Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher, who says if
you don't have the right language, you can't get to second base? That's before baseball.
Ben Burgis: Yeah, I was gonna say, I'll be very surprised if Confucius used a baseball bat.
Ralph Nader: Well, let's get to something else that fascinated me in this book, which some
people may find a bit hard to read, but they can pick and choose. And it deals with 34-year-old
Harvard Law grad, fast-talking, right winger Ben Shapiro, who thinks he can argue everybody
into oblivion on a stage in front of an audience. Before you start dissecting his techniques briefly,
because we don't have that much time, would you debate Ben Shapiro? And would you predict
the outcome?
Ben Burgis: I would absolutely debate Ben Shapiro; Ben if you're listening, I'm down for that.
And I would predict that the outcome would be that he would do what he always does, which is
talk loud and talk fast and try to bulldoze through the substance of what's being said, but I hope
that somebody there would call him on it in real time--showing and explaining exactly where his
arguments go wrong--might make at least some of his more thoughtful followers think twice.
Ralph Nader: Is he afraid to debate people generally? He just likes to stand on the stage and
engage in soliloquy?
Ben Burgis: Yeah, he likes to debate 19-year-olds who don't really know what they're doing,
who ask him questions in Q&A on college campuses so they can use some progressive language
in a faltering way, and he could yell at them and again, kind of bulldoze through what they're
saying. And then somebody could make a little clip of it to put out on YouTube: “Ben Shapiro
destroys another snowflake liberal on campus.”
Ralph Nader: Tell us about his techniques briefly, what he gets away with, and how the New
York Times praised him in a glittering profile, quite apart from his vicious attacks on Palestinian
and Arabs, which is quoted in your book. It's a clear example of anti-Semitism against Arabs.
How does he get away with this in the New York Times and what's his technique? He's making
huge speech fees.
Ben Burgis: Yeah. So again, I think that a lot of Ben Shapiro’s shtick is just that he is very
loud, he sounds very confident, he talks very quickly, so you don't have time to stop and think
about what he's saying and in fact, if you look at his book--he wrote a little booklet about how to
argue with leftists and destroy them--which is, of course, a very overblown title, but if you read
the book, the vast majority of it isn't really about how to make good careful arguments, which is
what you care about, if you want to get to the truth; it's about how to rhetorically frame the
arguments. Despite this though, the New York Times had an article about him, which should
embarrass everybody involved with it called “the Cool Kids’ Philosopher”, where they refer to
him as the destroyer of weak arguments, which is really striking because if you read that article,
they only give one example of him allegedly destroying a weak argument, which is he's doing
one of his typical Q&A's on college campuses, a 22-year-old girl raises her hand and challenges
his position on transgender people's rights. And he says, “Oh, how old are you?” And she says,
“Twenty-two.” And he says, “Oh, can you just identify as sixty?” and she sputters for a second
because it takes her a moment to sort of think of what to say. And then he just starts ranting at
her, which, of course, if he actually cared about getting to the truth of the matter about carefully
thinking about it, then he'd pause and let her collect her thoughts. So, he could say, “Oh, is this
really a good analogy? Is being transgender really like being 22 and identifying as 60 or are
those two different things?” But he doesn't want to pause to give people time to think about stuff
like that. As to the Palestinian issue, where to be clear, he actually has a history of advocating
literal ethnic cleansing. He has an article that he wrote, where he says that all Palestinians, not
only in the occupied territories, but even in Israel proper, should be, he says, peacefully deported
from the country, and he's since then disowned that, but in a very half-hearted way, you know,
like he said, “Oh, that was dumb”, but he still opposes the existence of a Palestinian state. And
he still opposes, certainly giving Palestinians voting rights in Israel and if you oppose both of
those things, then you're saying that this is a group of people who should be kept as a permanent
underclass without basic legal or democratic rights.
Ralph Nader: And in fact, you quote, the title of his article is, “The Radical Evil of the
Palestinian Arab Population” and he says the Palestinian Arab population is rotten to the core, the
most evil population on the planet and he's still regaled in the New York Times. I mean, when is
this guy going to get his comeuppance by people like you, who could nail him to the wall, invite
him to Rutgers and dispatch him on the stage with your pure logic, reason, and ability to
demolish his hateful, racist, bigoted articles and views? Because he's had a history of
downplaying poverty and racial injustice; thinks the massive wealth gap between white and
black Americans doesn't have anything to do with racial injustice. A person on the left would
never get away with stuff like that. Can you have the student forum invite him to Rutgers? This
will be a showdown in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Ben Burgis: I think it's a fantastic idea. And yeah, clearly, this tells you something not only
about what's wrong with Ben Shapiro, but what's wrong with American media culture in general,
because what you can get away with saying about Palestinians and other Arabs, is clearly way
out of sync with what you can get away with saying about other groups; that level of open
racism, if directed towards almost anybody else, would certainly stop somebody from being
positively profiled in the New York Times and it's absurd that it doesn't stop somebody from
being positively profiled the New York Times when it’s directed against Palestinians.
Ralph Nader: He's been on a lot of media. Have you been on PBS and NPR for this book?
Ben Burgis: No, I’d like to be, but I have not.
Ralph Nader: David, you suggested that we have Ben Burgis on--author of the new book, Give
Them an Argument: Logic For The Left. You have any comments or questions?
David Feldman: Yeah. I was wondering if the fault is with the moderators of these shows
because in the adversarial nature of a trial, we can get to the truth and yet we don't see that in
debates where there are no moderators, enforcing penalties against logical fallacies. Why aren't
they improving debates, Ralph? You had the taboo debates and I noticed that even you didn't
have somebody throwing flags down on logical fallacies.
Ralph Nader: You're referring to the website debatingtaboos.org David, where we had four
subjects that really aren't debatable. They're sort of taboo, like anti-ballistic missile defense,
which is a phony unworkable, $14 billion a year project by the Pentagon and we did debate
whether anti-Semitism against Arabs is worse than anti-Semitism against Jews in the United
States and we had a very civil debate with two people on each side and you can decide for
yourself listeners. Go to debatingtaboos.org, but I think it's more than that David; it’s that
university and college campuses are often dead zones intellectually. There's no ferment; people
come and talk and most of the seats in the auditorium are empty. People who have serious
dramatic controversial issues that don't happen to be in the news, like the sexual harassment
issues are today, don't even get invited anymore. I remember speaking at Rutgers and they were
hanging from the rafters, at Princeton hanging from the rafters, at law school hanging from the
rafters. And the conditions then were nowhere near as bad as conditions are today for tens of
millions of people, and the expansion of empire, and the domination of global corporations over
almost every enclave of life in America. So, it goes right back; the students are not demanding
serious speakers. They like Seth Meyers, and other comedians, for whom they pay huge lecture
fees. What do you say about that Ben, what's the situation? What's the climate in the
universities these days--am I incorrect?
Ben Burgis: Well, I was gonna say if they want comedians and can pay huge fees, they should
invite David Feldman, but in any case, I think there is some truth to that. I think that probably
has a lot to do with the increasingly prevalent idea that the purpose of a college degree is just sort
of credentialing for the job market, to get skills that will please employers, which really de-
emphasizes the idea that it's a positive good in itself to spend a few years learning to read and
think and devoting yourself to ideas, which is something that both makes college campuses less
interested. And it's also important to talk about because I think one of the goals of the left that is
talked about now more in the last couple of years is everybody being able to go to college, right?
You know, that we want tuition-free public universities and I think that if we're going to do that,
we really have to think about how we're going to sell that, you know, to make a good honest
argument for it, because it can't be that Oh if everybody goes to college that everybody will get a
good middle-class job, but it will solve the economic inequality because the more people who
have that credential, the less it's worth in the job market; that's just how supply and demand
work. So, if we're going to make an argument for it, we really have to make an argument for the
positive good of going to college, the positive good of getting to have that enriching experience.
And you know, learning to read and think in that way and do things like go to see controversial
speakers and get excited about that.
Ralph Nader: Well, listen, we're out of time, Ben. We could go on and on. I hope you get other
media; I'll certainly recommend it. We've been talking with Ben Burgis, who is a professor of
philosophy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He's the author of the new
paperback, it's not that long to read, called Give Them an Argument: Logic For The Left. Thank
you very much. Ben Burgis.
Ben Burgis: Thanks, Ralph. It's an honor. I voted for you twice.
Ralph Nader: Thank you.
Steve Skrovan: We've been speaking with Ben Burgis. His book is Give Them an Argument:
Logic For The Left. We will link to that at ralphnaderradiohour.com. I want to thank our guests
again. Dr. John Geyman, Professor Ben Burgis; for those listening on the radio, that's our show;
podcast listeners, you're in for a treat. Stay tuned for the bonus material, we call the Wrap Up,
where we not only continue our conversation with Dr. Geyman and Professor Burgis, but we also
talk to, as a bonus, ocean conservationist David Helvarg, who you'll hear talking about putting
the blue in the Green New Deal. A transcript of this show will appear on the Ralph Nader Radio
Hour website soon after the episode is posted.
David Feldman: For Ralph’s weekly column, it's free to go to Nader.org; for more from Russell
Mokhiber go to corporatecrimereporter.com.
Steve Skrovan: And Ralph’s got two new books out, the fable, How the Rats Re-Formed the
Congress; to acquire a copy of that go to ratsreformcongress.org and TO THE RAMPARTS how
Bush and Obama paved the way for the Trump presidency, and why it isn't too late to reverse
course. We will link to that also.
David Feldman: The producers of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour are Jimmy Lee Wirt and
Matthew Marin; our executive producer is Alan Minsky.
Steve Skrovan: Our theme music, “Stand Up, Rise Up”, was written and performed by Kemp
Harris; our proofreader is Elisabeth Solomon.
David Feldman: Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour when we welcome back
Eric Steenstra of Vote Hemp and journalist Catherine Eban and her book Bottle of Lies, about the
generic drug boom. Thank you, Ralph.
Ralph Nader: Thank you, David, Steve, Jimmy, and remember folks, if we want to get single-
payer, it's Congress. That's what John Geyman has been fighting for and has offered his new,
helpful book Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This Fiasco... We the
people turning Congress around, unbeatable!
***
Q. There is a difference between "progressives" and "leftists". Why do you cling to "Progressive," and not go all the way to calling yourself a "Leftist"?
[Ralph Nader] Because the "left" gets pigeonholed just the way as the "right" does, and they are not always right, and they're not always "left." So, a "progressive" argues on the facts, wherever they may fall. So it's not a pigeon-holed ideology. There's a lot of baggage to the words "left" and "right." A lot of baggage. It's too categorical for an evidence-based mind.
Q. You were never tempted by Marxism when you were young?
[Ralph Nader] No, because there's too many premeditated decisions. That's why people say "neo-Marxist," or "I'm a modern Marxist." When somebody says, "I'm a Marxist," all I think is they are people who pay a great deal of weight to economic aspects shaping political and economic reality, and concentrated power. The point is, power can be corrupted regardless of whether it's public or private, and there's plenty of history to demonstrate this. So once you pigeon-hole yourself, you don't want to admit one or the other. When you say you're a "capitalist," Wall Street is always right. When you say you're a "socialist", you're often pigeon-holed into saying whatever government does is always right. And that's not true. Concentrated power, wherever it is, produces abuses, no matter what it's configuration. And that doesn't mean they are all on the same plane of abuse in any given time in history. They're not. Like right now, corporate capitalism is producing the most horrendous prices to the accumulation of profit in the history of capitalism: empire, domination, destruction of freedom of contract, perpetuation of poverty. Those are the prices of profit. Nanotechnology, biotechnology, are unregulated. Artificial intelligence is unregulated. The price of corporate profit is staggering, and that's not true of socialism any more, because they aren't in charge.
