Los Angeles Times - 05.03.2020

LATIMES.COM/OPINION THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2020A

OP-ED

J

oe Biden’s strongSuper
Tuesday performance solidi-
fies him as a front-runner in
the Democratic primary race
alongside Bernie Sanders.
But winning primaries in solidly
red states tells us very little about
whether he can ultimately garner
the necessary majority in the elec-
toral college and win the presi-
dency.
Many Democratic primary vot-
ers say their single most important
issue is finding the candidate with
the best chance of defeating Presi-
dent Trump. And the Democratic
National Committee hasn’t done
enough to give voters good elect-
ability information.
To decide who’s electable, we
need more current head-to-head
polls asking likely voters in swing
states whom they would vote for in
a general election if the choice was,
say, either between Trump and
Sanders, or between Trump and
Biden. Available head-to-head
polling data show Biden has the
best odds of beating Trump, but we

need fresher state polling to find out what likely voters currently think. National polls don’t indicate whether candidates will win competitive states or just rack up votes in safely blue or red regions. Both Sanders and Biden outpoll Hillary Clinton’s vote share by 6% to 10% in head-to-head polling in Kentucky and Tennessee. But these states are so solidly Republican that their relative success would not be enough to win those states’ electoral college votes. To take back the White House in November, the eventual Demo- cratic nominee will need to win the popular vote within enough states to garner 270 electoral votes. The key to Democrats’ electability is flipping competitive states that voted for Trump in 2016, such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, without losing states that Clinton nar- rowly won, such as New Hamp- shire. Our analysis of the 105 head-to- head polls that have been conducted in 26 states since the begin- ning of 2019 suggests Biden is more electable than Sanders, which is essentially what the race has come down to. These polls suggest that Biden would beat Trump “like a drum,” as the former vice president has said, since Biden is forecast to flip 106 electoral votes from red to blue — far more than the 38 extra votes

that Democrats needed to win in

Sanders is also ahead of
Trump in our polling analysis and
is forecast to flip 84 electoral votes.
Our estimates improve upon
electability arguments that rely
upon national polls, cherry-picked
state polls, and statements about
increased voter turnout that aren’t
backed by data. Still, our projec-
tions rely upon too many stale
polls. We weighted newer polls
more heavily in our analysis, but in
some states that will be competi-
tive in the general election, such as
North Carolina and Minnesota,
head-to-head polling hadn’t oc-
curred in the last three months.
Last summer, before the pri-
mary race was well underway,
head-to-head polling was rightly
maligned because it mainly re-
flected how well the candidates
were already known — those with
name recognition polled higher.
But now the field has narrowed
and the remaining candidates are
household names.
With 37% of the pledged Demo-
cratic delegates now accounted for
after Super Tuesday, primary vot-
ers in the remaining states have to
decide whether Sanders or Biden
should go on to face off against
Trump. To guide these voters,
head-to-head polling in competi-
tive states is the clearest way to de-
termine who can put together
enough electoral votes to win in No-
vember.

Our analysis shows that Sand- ers and Biden each should be able to turn enough states blue to win the presidency — so Democratic voters might feel liberated to vote for the candidate whose policies most closely align with their prefer- ences. But risk-averse voters might rightfully worry about whether Trump will again outperform the polls and come out on top in No- vember. In the states Trump unexpect- edly won (Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan), his popular vote mar- gin beat the polls by an average of about 4%. Democratic voters nervous about the possibility of a repeat of 2016’s polling failures might con- sider supporting Biden as the party nominee because he has the largest electoral college lead in a matchup with Trump. This gives Biden the biggest buffer against polling error. Trump would need to outperform the head-to-head polls by almost 6% in competitive states to win an electoral college majority in a race against Biden. In compar- ison, Sanders would lose the electoral college if Trump somehow beats his polling results in competitive states by 3.8%. Again, these results are limited by the paucity of recent polling. Voters, particularly those in non- competitive states, deserve better information about which candi-

dates have the best chance of flipping the battleground states. Democrats in solidly blue or red states can make their primary votes count by selecting a nominee who stands a better chance of winning battleground states come the general election. The Democratic National Com- mittee has used polling results as one criterion for determining which candidates qualify for the televised debates. In the two most recent debates, candidates had to garner at least 10% in DNC-ap- proved national polls or 12% in state polls conducted in Nevada and South Carolina. These polling requirements are one way of lim- iting the pool to the most viable candidates. But now that the nomination race is turning into a Biden-Sanders showdown, the party should make it a priority to provide voters with information on which candidate is most likely to win the White House. As we careen toward November, both the DNC and news organiza- tions have a role to play by sponsor- ing more head-to-head state-level polls. Armed with this additional information, “blue no matter who” Democrats can have their say in whether Sanders or Biden faces off with Trump.

Ian Ayresis a professor and Zachary Shelleyis a research fellow at Yale Law School.

Is Biden or Bernie more electable?

We need more swing state

polling to answer that, but

current data point toward

the former vice president.

By Ian Ayres and
Zachary Shelley

T

he incipientspread
of the coronavirus in
the U.S. has laid bare
the precarious nature
of a health system in
which millions of people lack
health insurance. The way to
avoid rapid spread of the virus is
to make sure that people who
need access to care get it as soon
as possible. But in this country,
30 million people are uninsured
and 44 million more are under-
insured because they can barely
afford to pay the high deductibles
and out-of-pocket costs in their
plans.
With millions of Americans
unable to afford to see a doctor if
they become ill with COVID-19,
what should we do? As a first
step, public health officials
should get out the message that
anyone who needs care should
seek it. We can’t run the risk of
having individuals who might be
infected go untested and un-
treated. People should be as-
sured that when they feel ill they
can turn to the healthcare system
and be confident that they won’t
be saddled with a ruinous bill.
Yet in an ominous moment
last week, Secretary of Health
and Human Services Alex Azar
said he couldn’t promise that a
coronavirus vaccine would be af-
fordable to all when it becomes
available. He later said the gov-
ernment would try to make vac-
cines affordable. What’s needed is
for federal, state and local public
officials to offer strong assuranc-
es to the public that vaccines
would be offered free of charge or
nearly so. The Senate is expected
this week to pass a $8.3-billion
emergency spending bill ap-
proved by the House on Wednes-
day that includes about $300 mil-
lion aimed at making the vac-
cines more affordable, but more
funding may be needed to ensure
broad access.
We should also move quickly
to make Medicaid coverage avail-
able to more people. The Trump
administration has sought to lim-
it coverage and federal support
for Medicaid. Now in the face of
this potential epidemic, it needs
to reverse that approach. While
the administration is considering
using a national disaster
program to pay hospitals that
treat uninsured patients infected
with coronavirus, it also needs to
make sure people have access to
screening for the virus and pri-
mary care before their conditions

become acute. Medicaid is built to deal with broad-scale public health crises. For example, when lead-contam- inated water threatened the health of the residents of Flint, Mich., in 2016, the federal government provided funding to the state to expand Medicaid for pregnant women and children. In New York City, after the attacks of 9/11, local, state and federal officials developed the Disaster Re- lief Medicaid plan that sus- pended federal Medicaid enrollment requirements to en- able low-income New Yorkers to enroll quickly. After Hurricane Katrina, the federal government allowed states to temporarily cover evacuees from states hit hard by Katrina in their Medicaid programs, with the federal government picking up the tab. The Trump administration could demonstrate similar lead- ership on coronavirus. It could allow states to greatly simplify Medicaid enrollment by creating a one-page application form and keeping people continuously enrolled without the need for con- stant recertification. The administration could also allow states to temporarily increase Medicaid eligibility higher up the income scale in all states beyond their current income lim- its. Thirty-six states and the Dis- trict of Columbia have expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act to cover people with incomes of up to 138% of the poverty level. But 14 states have not, leaving more than 2 million people uninsured. Another option is for Congress to pass leg- islation to fully fund expanded Medicaid coverage for these states at least temporarily to en- courage their participation. The United States has long struggled with the notion of shared risk when it comes health coverage. But insurance markets and health systems work best when everyone is included. That is why all industrialized countries have universal coverage and why most of them consistently outperform the U.S. on most measures of healthcare access, affordability, health outcomes and overall costs. The particulars of a viral epidemic — a risk shared by us all — shows we have a shared responsi- bility to confront it together to protect ourselves, our neighbors and strangers with whom we share the world. In dealing with a public health crisis, we can’t separate individual interests from those of the community. Likewise, health insurance coverage has to cover everyone if we want a system that works effec- tively and efficiently. The coronavirus, whether it becomes a full-blown epidemic or not, dem- onstrates that the health system cannot leave anyone out.

Sara R. Collinsis vice president for healthcare coverage and access at the Commonwealth Fund. David Blumenthalis president of the Commonwealth Fund.

Coronavirus crisis

shows why we need

universal healthcare

By Sara R. Collins and
David Blumenthal

Heart attack:A Wednesday op-
ed article about actuarial data
said the chances of living a year
past a heart attack or over the
next four years was roughly 1 in 4
and 1 in 3, respectively, for those
who have a heart attack at
around Bernie Sanders’ age.
Those are the chances of dying in
those time frames.

FOR THE RECORD

O

ne dramatic moment of Super Tuesday was choreographed by anti-dairy protesters, who rushed the stage while Joe Biden was delivering a victory speech in Los Angeles — and his wife blocked them from reaching her husband. Last month, protesters inter- rupted a Bernie Sanders rally in Nevada to demand he “stop prop- ping up the dairy industry.” Three women paraded across the stage topless with the message “Let Dairy Die” written on their chests. And at this year’s Academy Awards, Joaquin Phoenix chas- tised the dairy industry for artifi- cially inseminating cows and then “stealing” their babies. What’s going on here? Are we in the midst of a “Moo Too” movement? I spent several years observing close-up the operations of a modern dairy farm, and I’m neither an animal-rights activist nor do I con- done political violence, but I get the point: The way we exploit and abuse dairy cows as femalescan be seen as a feminist issue. The use of the phrase “Moo Too” is not meant to diminish the #MeToo movement, but to empha- size the disturbing fact that exploitation of females is so systemic it even crosses species. As a city dweller, I knew little about where food came from. That began to change years ago while waiting in line at a McDonald’s to buy my daughter a Happy Meal that came with a coveted Teenie Beanie Baby. Among the collec- tion’s stuffed animals were Snort, a red bull, and Daisy, a black-and- white cow. How strange, I thought: McDonald’s expects my daughter to play with a toy cow while eating the grilled remains of a real one. And then I wondered: Would it be possible to move backward from “billions and billions served” to just one — one live cow, and to observe the process by which a living animal becomes food? For the better part of two years, a large, family-owned dairy farm less than an hour’s drive from my

home in Rochester, N.Y., allowed me to witness cow life. I learned that much of a fast- food hamburger is made of meat — not from beef cattle — but from dairy cows sent to slaughter when their milk production has declined. But I also learned that animal suffering is built into the modern dairy system, and a lot of it has to do with exploiting cows as females. There is nothing inherently wrong in raising cows for milk, but when it’s done on an industrial scale, systemic abuse is built in — nearly 200 supersized U.S. dairy farms have, on average, more than 7,000 cows. The National Milk Producers Federation declined to provide The Times a statement on dairy- industry protests or practices. But Alan Bjerga, a spokesman for the organization, told Fox Business shortly after the Oscars that if Phoenix “studied the commitment of dairy farmers to animal welfare ... he might have a different percep- tion.” In my experience, dairy cows are routinely caused pain and dis- tress, made ill, and have their life- spans shortened because of how they are treated. Since a cow gives milk only after a calf is born, she must be made pregnant as often as possible to maximize milk production. On the farm, the artificial inseminator walked through barns selecting cows in heat at the peak of their 21- day fertility cycle. He’d restrain the cow in a standing position, insert into the vagina a 3-foot metal tube known as an “insemination gun” and release a dose of bull semen. Over 25 years, he estimated he had forcibly impregnated nearly 75, cows. In a natural state, the cow-calf bond is strong, with calves being nursed for nearly a year. After one birth on the farm, a mother bent over her calf and vigorously licked it across the eyes, forehead, ears, stomach and back. Licking dries the birth fluids so the calf doesn’t get chilled. Forty minutes after this birth, the farm’s “calf manager” picked up the newborn and drove it to the calf barn. Later, the mother sniffed the straw where her calf had lain and bellowed for much of the day.

After giving birth, a cow natu- rally lactates for nine months to a year. Cows injected with BST growth hormone — banned in some countries but permitted in the U.S. — can lactate at a higher volume, sometimes for years. But excessive lactation causes wear and tear. In nature, cows can easily live for 20 years, but dairy cows typically are worn out and sold for beef when they are about 5 years old. Foot damage among dairy cows is so common that the farm had a resting place near the milking machines just for lame animals, so they could walk a shorter distance to be milked. Some lameness can be traced to genetic manipulation aimed at increasing milk yield by producing large, heavy udders that distort a cow’s normal gait. Living on concrete floors and eating too many starchy foods — thought to help increase milk yield — also con- tribute to lameness. Mastitis, or infection of the ud- der, is perhaps the most common ailment among dairy cows. In most cases, it is a byproduct of their wet and crowded living conditions. Se- rious cases usually respond to antibiotics, but as one vet put it: “The best way to treat a cow with chronic mastitis who doesn’t respond to re- peated rounds of antibiotics is high-speed lead.” It doesn’t matter if you buy regular or organic milk or whether the carton says “grass fed.” Most female dairy cows struggle with these problems. And that’s to say nothing of other painful pro- cedures or what they face later: de- horning, tail-docking, truck rides to a slaughterhouse and then a stun bolt to the head. If you can find a small, family- run dairy where conditions allow cows to be treated humanely, then wonderful: Enjoy a tall, cool glass of milk. Otherwise we should respect our cows as females and not support their exploitation and un- avoidable, systemic abuse. A glass of almond, soy or oat milk, anyone?

Peter Lovenheimis a journalist and author whose books include “Portrait of a Burger as a Young Calf.”

ANTI-DAIRYprotesters see the way dairy cows are exploited as females as a feminist issue.

John GibbinsSan Diego Union-Tribune

A ‘Moo Too’ movement

By Peter Lovenheim

Los Angeles Times - 05.03.2020

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