By Joseph Q. Jarvis | Published: 25 August 2026
Luke Savage of truthdig.com recently published an article saying what I have been saying for years: there is not a dime’s worth of difference between Ds and Rs when it comes to what they DO about healthcare policy. If you find that hard to believe (that I have been saying for years what Mr. Savage is now finally publishing) please check out page 145 of my first book The Purple World: Healing the Harm in American Health Care (you can purchase a copy of my book here: ebook; audible), which I published in 2018.
To be sure, there is a big difference between what Rs are saying about health care and what Ds SAY. Many of my friends who are dyed-in-the-wool bleed blue democrats are incensed when I insist that their party does nothing different about health care than does the other party, and they point to the rhetoric from elected Ds. But rhetoric does not get the job done.
Here is what Luke Savage is saying now (The Democratic Healthcare Hoa):
“Democratic elites have — for going on two decades — relied on a rotating arsenal of talking points designed to preclude all except the most minor changes in healthcare policy. In their bid to muddy the waters as much as possible, liberal opponents of Medicare for All have sought to quietly redefine the phrase “universal healthcare” such that it means universal insurance coverage through a patchwork of different programs rather than a single program, free at the point of use and available to all. Instead of talking about “free healthcare, which is both the right moral horizon and straightforward to explain, liberal opponents of Medicare for All make incessant use of words like “affordability” and “access.” Rhetorically speaking, this evokes a vague spirit of reform while enabling elite Democrats and their auxiliaries to avoid making clear commitments of any kind. And it goes without saying that making something “affordable and accessible” is not the same as making it universal and free. Tying it all together, we have the transparently false insinuation that there is some kind of good-faith policy debate at play here, i.e., every Democrat shares the same ultimate goal but some respectfully disagree about how it can be best achieved. This final point is particularly important because it speaks to what the real nature of America’s healthcare debate has always actually been: a political struggle pitting the basic needs of millions of Americans against the narrow interests of an immensely lucrative industry whose profits depend on the status quo. The former group might be more numerous, but its democratic weight pales in comparison to what the healthcare industry has in its corner.”
As I have stated in a previous Substack essay, American politics is essentially a fight about health care, and will continue to be such until we get health care right, or our nation fails economically due to the skewed GDP spending imposed by the greedy medical industrial complex upon all of the rest of us (American politics is a fight over health care)
And that fight is raging within the Democratic Party, sometimes within the soul of individual Ds. For instance, during his tenure as an Illinois State Senator, Barack Obama held a press conference at the national offices of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), the premier single payer advocacy group for the past 40 years, extolling the virtues of single payer health system reform and calling upon the nation to step up to the plate and do the right thing for America’s patients—pass single payer health care. Just a few years later, however, after having won the presidency on a platform of ‘affordable’ health care, but before he was sworn in, Mr. Obama made a deal with the health insurance industry which gave the store away (please look up the Frontline special report about this event entitled Obama’s Deal).
Why the about face by Obama? Very simple—he needed the money of the medical industrial complex to run for president. So he took that cash and, against what he had himself declared to be the best policy in health care, gave up on single payer reform and instead created the mess that is known as the affordable care act, or ObamaCare. Only one thing was accomplished by the ACA-enriching the medical industrial complex and its shareholders. During the decade from when Mr. Biden stood behind Pres. Obama while he signed the ACA into law and when Mr. Biden himself took the oath of office of POTUS, stock values for health insurers increased 1000%.
Mr. Savage agrees with me, saying: “As David Sirota has noted, politicians like Hakeem Jeffries can rake in hundreds of thousands (and sometimes more) in campaign contributions from healthcare PACs in a single election cycle. Health insurance companies are also major advertisers, which is among the main reasons you’ll rarely find support for Medicare for All anywhere on cable news”. Apparently the medical industrial complex can buy D votes as readily as it can by R votes, and influence left leaning mainstream media as easily as right leaning mainstream media. Fake news, indeed.
Here is Mr. Savage’s conclusion:
“In any case, I’m not sure any single issue better illustrates the moral cynicism and rank hypocrisy of the people leading the Democratic Party. Ahead of every election cycle, they are content to make the rounds on TV and rattle off the same dishonest talking points while fully cognizant of the fact they are actually standing in the way of reform. Jeffries, who inherited the conch from Nancy Pelosi, will eventually hand it off to a successor who will dutifully court all of the same donors and say all of the same things — as will the likes of Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom come 2028.
The GOP is widely understood to be a party more radical and extreme than its Canadian or European equivalents. Less well understood, by liberal Americans especially, is the fact that its would be center-left opponent has been a functionally center-right formation since the 1980s: “progressive” in an aesthetic sense, perhaps, but small-c conservative when it comes to most things that matter.”
Personally, I don’t believe that we Americans will ever get the health care we deserve from Congress or any legislative body. Those institutions, though supposed to be doing the people’s business, are bought and paid for by corporate health interests. Our collective hope must be in the possibility of succeeding with a ballot initiative. To be sure there has never been a successful single payer ballot measure, though approximately 2 dozen of these measures have been launched. Generally, the proponents of single payer ballot measures find themselves outspent 10:1 during the campaign with the opposition sowing doubt and confusion about what single payer health care is and will do. But as slim as that hope is, it is much more likely that a ballot measure will pass than that a legislature in the United States of America will get a single payer bill past the immense lobbying power of the medical industrial complex.
So, during the current election year, what should we do? First, do not automatically vote by party. Party first voting has created the nightmare we now are living in. Second, consider dumping incumbents, no matter which party they belong to. Incumbents have already had a chance to help us, to serve the public, to get health policy right, and they have failed. Third, don’t put all your muscle and effort into candidate elections. Save a significant portion of what you can donate and do for ballot measures. If your state does not have ballot initiatives, or if it does and there is no single payer ballot initiative proposed, please find an alternative state where single payer legislation is being pursued by ballot initiative AND DONATE TO THAT CAMPAIGN.
In all humility, allow me to encourage your patronage of the Utah Cares Political Issue Committee. We have drafted the necessary single payer legislation for the Beehive State (read it at View source at utahcares.health). We have already studied the economics of single payer health care in Utah (all three studies are also on View source at utahcares.health). The health policy choices leading to our drafted legislation are discussed at length in two books I have written, which you can also link to on the website (View source at utahcares.health). And we have produced a feature length documentary which outlines the problems with health care in the US and points to the single payer solution, entitled Healing US. You can find a link to that film on that same website: View source at utahcares.health. Watch it and then organize a community meeting for your neighbors to watch and invite me to come speak to the group.
The Utah Cares PIC has done all that work to further the cause of single payer reform. We hope we have pioneered a pathway that others can use. But further progress here will require the assistance of many from across the nation. We plan to have the Utah Cares Act on the ballot in 2028, but we will need your donated funds to make that happen. We would be very grateful if you could go to the website: View source at utahcares.health and make whatever size donation is possible for you.
Many thanks..
Dr. Joseph Q. Jarvis is a public health physician, chair of the Utah Cares Political Issue Committee and author of several books, including The Purple World: Healing the Harm in American Health Care and What the Single Eye Sees: Faith, Hope, Charity, and the Pursuit of Discipleship.