White House, HCAN, Ignore the Single Payer Option
Most western democracies guarantee their citizens a right to medical services through their own version of government managed single payer health care. But such a system has been attacked in the US as "socialized medicine" since before the 1950s especially by lobbyists for the insurance and drug industries who would see their profits decline. Although Barack Obama was elected on a health care reform platform, his version ignores single payer. Nor is single payer advocated by his allies in the well-funded coalition called Health Care for America Now, composed of MoveOn, USAction, ACORN, Americans United for Change, the unions SEIU and UFCW and other liberal heavy hitters. Journalist Russell Mokhiber, founder of the new group Single Payer Action, notes that no advocate of a single payer system was invited to the recent White House summit on health care reform. Only protests by Progressive Democrats of America and others won an invitation for Congressman John Conyers, sponsor of the United States National Health Care Act: H.R.676. Mokhiber quotes Dr. David Himmelstein of Physicians for a National Health Program: “The President once acknowledged that single payer reform was the best option, but now he’s caving in to corporate health care interests and completely shutting out advocates of single payer reform," even though "the majority of Americans favor single payer, and it’s the most popular reform option among doctors and health economists."
Comments
Go Obama! Single Payer is a recipe for disaster.
Obama ignores single payer because it doesn't work. nevar has, never will. Single payer advocates are cut out of the debate at the outset and that's exactly where they ought to be, Socialism doesn't work. Live with it.
In case you hadn't noticed,
"disaster" is what we have right now. And single-payer advocates are cut out of the debate not because "socialism" doesn't work -- every other industrialized country's health care system works better than ours! -- but because the bloodsucking for-profit health insurance industry owns our Congress. And you've obviously learned to live too easily with that.
America Doesn't Need Dittoheads, It Needs Critical Thinkers
Dittohead is a term used with pride by cultish followers of Rush Limbaugh who 'ditto' his opinions rather than actually digging into issues and thinking for themselves. The new president is brilliant and charismatic, but I think it's becoming painfully clear that he is also wont to throw hundreds of billions of dollars at propping up failed institutions and structures, rather than broadening his vision and backing fundamental change. Your Joe McCarthy-isk characterization of 'single payer' shows minimally that you haven't taken a look at it. You owe it to yourself to visit this site:
PNHP
single payter
Anonymous hides behind no name because he knows he is lying through his teeth.The people of single payer nations have said they won't trade their health plans for our s for any reason.They also have better health care according to many world health organizations.Go back to wall street
Single Payer is NOT Sociallsm
Hello, you really need to examine your facts about "Socialism." First of all, Single Payer is NOT socialism, it's more of a hybrid system. The UK, where the government is the administrator of all healthcare and healthcare dollars, is SOCIALISM. Having moved to Canada recently, I'm now a member of their single payer system. I hate to break your bubble, but for the majority of people the majority of the time, it works just fine. I would never again trade my universal healthcare for the legalized rape going on in the US by the for-profit HMOs and insurers. This does not mean there are not problems with Canada's system. But overall, the quality of life here is high and the system seems to function very well for nearly all.
So what you are saying is
So what you are saying is that you are happy to have yourself and parents dropped from Medicare'; you will no longer be driving the federally created and subsidized public highway system and walk only on private roads; you won't be calling the police when your house is burglarized or your wife is mugged'; you also won't count on the fire department to come when your house is on fire (I sure hope you don't live in the wildfire areas of California). Also, don't bother listening to the weather as NOAA is the originator of all our national forecasts. I wish you a happy and healthy life of marginal bliss.
reply
Wow! That is quite a convincing argument! You must have been on the debate team in high school.
If the lobbyists for the
If the lobbyists for the insurance and drug industries are against it, single payer is the system i want.
How cool would it be to have
How cool would it be to have a government that represents US. Like the guy before me says, if the lobbyists are against it, I am for it. As far as the socialism boogeyman talk, I don't buy it. Can you give any examples of how it's never worked and why it never will?
HCAN's survey ignored single payer option
Single Payer advocate Jerry Policoff has noted "a recent poll commissioned by HCAN (Healthcare for America Now) suggests strong grassroots support for the Obama-supported Healthcare reform plan. It is indeed an interesting survey, though not a particularly candid or objective one, and if one reads between the lines, the survey strongly suggests that the one option respondents were not asked to consider, the Single-Payer option, would have resoundingly defeated the others if it had been included in the survey questionnaire."
It's YOUR fault!
It's the voters' fault. YES, I MEAN YOU!
You have consistently voted for corporate-financed parties that are dead-set AGAINST single-payer. Why are you complaining? You got what you voted for!
Even 5% of the vote for a non-corporate party (like the Green Party) that ADVOCATES single-payer would have sent the Democrats a wake-up call. But no, you TOLD THEM with your votes that what they were doing was just fine.
You've made your bed, now lie in it. (And make a wiser choice next election!)
Ah, the Green Loser is heard from...
Typical Green whiner! The most imaginative thing you can think of is telling people to vote Green every four years. Well, frankly, the Greens haven't shown an ability to organize their way out of a wet green paper sack! If the revolution depends on the Greens, everyone go have fun and kiss it goodbye. And I often vote for Green candiudates. But this whining loser attitude that mistakes the Green Party for the Second Coming is one reason why you Greenies turn off so many. Take that vitriol and sniping and aim at liberal sellouts like HCAN and MoveOn, not at the public at large, Greenie.
It is NOT (entirely) YOUR fault!
The problem with these arguments is it ignores the function of propaganda in our society. Please return to Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. The United States has ceased to be a free country in any meaningful way (if it ever was). Elections are decided on appearances -- even JFK said so directly more than 40 years ago. As long as this state of affairs continues, it is pointless to blame the sheeple. There is an elaborate 'appearance' of elections which are all that is needed to give the 'appearance' of democracy. Direct proof of stolen elections for many years causes no stir in the people. Maybe in their hearts most know we do not have freedom?
Green Party doesn't get it.
Maybe if the Green Party would start at the local levels like state Reps and Senators, or US Reps and Senators, they might have a chance. You can't build a party by just going for the Presidency every four years, that'll never work.
I do agree with much of the Green Party's platform, but it will never be a viable option without building from the ground up.
Single payer is the only viable option for a prosperous future.
Single Payer supporters...
If Mokhiber's Single Payer Action group finally opens up the Pandora's Box regarding private insurers' vast holdings in most of the worst health-damaging firms on Wall Street, including even top cigarette manufacturers, then we will know that we have a Single Payer activist group that is not doing As-Little-As-Possible....as so many others seem to be doing.
As a visit to public documents at the Security & Exchange Commission (SEC) shows anyone who cares to look, top health insurers also have multi-million dollar investments (using what was our health care money) in Big Coal, top oil producers, pesticides, GE "food", chlorine interests galore, and top "war" contractors.
Insurers invest also in pharmaceuticals, thus setting up motive and fiduciary duty to favor investment properties' drugs over others that may be safer, cheaper and more effective...and to overlook health problems with the property's drugs.
The idea that Private Insurance is Bad for Our Health (not just our finances) has not been put into the discussion. This is a clue to what may be a dark, almost (not quite) unimaginable situation, that some or many Single Payer groups are somehow set up to fail...to create the illusion that "something is being done"---as long as it's ineffective in removing private insurers from our public health system.
Groups set up to fail? Follow the money!
Unfortunately on the left end of the spectrum groups are so used to failing that it becomes a way of behaving. But I actually think there has been some great and underpaid, not to mention under appreciated, policy work done on single payer by groups like Physicians for a National Health Program. The REAL problem are the mainstream liberal and union groups pouring by now probably a hundred million dollars into HCAN -- the SEIU, UFCW, MoveOn, etc. This giant liberal coalition is nothing but a cheering section for Obama's inability to bite the hand that has fed him. Look at Obama's big donors, and of course he had more big donors than ANY candidate in the race, and you'll see Wall Street and the Insurance Industry own him as well as the Congress, and these boosters in the unions and the liberal money clique don't want to do anything but have a small chair at that party. Conspiracy? Look at the obvious.
Good Job! Thank You!
Dude, I don't know who you are, but your excellently-worded post speaks volumes to those of us who are saying, upon reading such a post, "it's about time somebody said this stuff!
I've been railing against the 'health' insurance industry for years, intuitively seeing it for what it is: yet another tentacle of a MACHINE that ultimately wants to get its hands on as much of our assets as possible - health be damned.
Our friendly auto mechanic paid $13,000.00 for coverage for himself, spouse and 3-year old in '07.
I still can't believe he still smiles - or has incentive to go to work and bust his ass every day all the while forfeiting such shocking amounts of hard-earned lifeblood to the greedy and arrogant.
Talk about 'entitlement mentality'!
Only when enough of us STOP paying the shysters will any meaningful change come about.
As a pertinent aside, check out this riveting, totally accurate skewering of Massachusetts' so-called 'health reform' - basically welfare for 'health' insurance companies:
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=fraud+in+the+guise+of+health+reform
Moreover, who's talking about the nature of medicine itself - so inextricably tilted toward profitable, pharmaceutical/surgical sick-care? You might be interested in finding out about natural alternatives:
lef.org
http://www.anhcampaign.org/index.php
Many of us would love to completely opt out of our for-profit American system, yet welcome some kind of 'safety net', should we get gravely injured, etc.
Dave
Cut the crap and end the circular firing squad
Your pot shots at HCAN are mean spirited and are as helpful to the left as a Cointelpro hit.
The folks at HCAN aren't Obama's "allies," they are authentic grassroots activists PUSHING the Obama agenda and they represent tens of thousands of people all across the country.
When you show us how you can get 60 votes in the senate to eliminate one of the most powerful industries in the history of western capitalism you will suddenly find yourself with just as many allies and grassroots organizers as HCAN has. Then we can talk about nationalizing other industries, like energy.
Until then, please continue to push forward the critique of the insurance industry but PLEASE do not take pot shots at your allies working to expand the public sector and shrink the private sector. We HAVE to work together.
PS . I enjoyed your book and used it in my Social and Economic Justice Class. But please cut the crap.
Sounds like "allies" to me.
They're Obama's allies precisely because they're pushing his agenda instead of pushing him to push the true grassroots aganda, i.e. single-payer universal coverage.
Yeah, but should it have to take 60 votes in the Senate just to get a couple of token single-payer advocates a seat at the table?
This side of the squad is reloading. Better duck.
Afterthought
Too bad, then, to have to remind you that such books don't spring from a toe-the-line mentality, and neither does social justice itself.
The Party Line
Thanks for the dress down. Sorry I'm violating the Party Line!. I'll get back to my little Blue Book and memorize the correct Center for American Progress and Progressive Media messaging on this issue. I guess I let critical thinking get in the way of Party loyalty - again!
Health Care Reform
Commenting with respect to HCAN - I recently attended my first HCAN sponsored Health Reform Meeting in CT (yes, aka "Health Insurance Capitol of the
World") and I got up and asked why the group was still trying to work with the insurance companies and also directed this question to Congressman Himes, to explain why the Administration has abandoned the concept as well. BTW, this question did provoke loud applause from the other attendees. HCAN's rep looked (to me) somewhat sheepish and replied (I am paraphrasing here), that it became apparent to them when they worked with Hillary Clinton on health care reform that there was no way to fight the corporate interests (insurance, hosptials, pharma) and that is when the group started working almost exclusively to get public funds for political candidates, laying the ground work (I assume) to populated the legislature and senate with people who were not beholding to these interests. How successful that has been, especially in light of all the money from health insurers and the like that Clinton and Obama (among countless others) is pretty doubtful. Himes stated that if he had to give odds on the passage of a bill for health care reform he gave it an 80% chance as it is currently (which includes the corporations) and a 0% chance is single payer were part of the plan.
I truly do not think the corporations want to be in the health insurance business for too much longer (aging baby boomers=increased costs) - my theory is that they are actually angling for the government to do EXACTLY what Obama and HCAN etc plan - to pay THEM to deliver services under a govt sponsored plan - basically a tax payer subsidy for the health care industry. I believe both sides "know" this but our side keeps silent thinking that if we were to say that the country is stepping into providing health care at a time that will statistically be the most expensive we are just handing ammunition to the other side.
If I had to guess I would say that HCAN and the like are making a deal with the devil in the hopes of whittling away at the corporations powers from the edges rather than taking a frontal attack. Look, that may work (eventually) and may be the ONLY way given our screwed up system. I look at the demonstrations in France and England and I can't understand why the American people are so meek about something they obviously want. I believe that a frontal attack against the health care industry would only be successful if we in America did what people in France and England do - fear is a two way street afterall.
To that end I am traveling to Washington DC for a Health Care Reform rally on May 13th. Anyone reading this post - if you can make your voice heard and join us!
Power to the People!
Great post!
I firmly believe that with the enacting of the unPatriot Act, the knowledge that the government has and probably still is recording every phone call and keystroke, and people are drugged down through fluoride poison and pharmaceuticals in the water, and the crap drugs that most doctors feed them, are some of the reasons people are afraid to participate in demonstrations.
We are afraid and demoralized. That's how you control the population.
Healthcare reform
The comments are very appropriate and it is hard to deny the influence of the healthcare power brokers. In Obama's case remember that his wife was handsomely paid by a large Hospital System, and that salary tripled when he became a senator. So the fix is probably in.
On the other hand, the sigle payer systems mentioned enjoyed by the europeans, and canadians are not always enjoyed. Rationing care through screening, delays, and limited availability of certain treatments frequently frustrate their citizens. Dying while waiting for certain treatments, or denials of treatments designed to improve the quality of life will be a difficult pill to swallow for those who have paid for their care under the current system.
Along with the fix, the administration seems to want to use the not yet invented time machine. There is no question that successfully moving to a prevention, disparities reduction agenda will lead to future health cost reductions. Unfortunately, we have a population that includes many individuals who will need extensive care including end of life care issues. So, a plan that expects to implement a prevention agenda and simultaneously dismantel the hospital/nursing home model has time and reality against it. The health disparities we face now suggest growth in the hospital.nursing home sector, The prevention agenda requires extensive resources to manage that change in this country. That will also take time. Can they invent the time machine fast enough?
single payer health care option
I am a registered nurse of over 35 years and 65 years of age. The people will have to demonstrate at the level of anti Vietnam War and pro civil rights to get our government to do the right thing when it comes to affordable health care. We cannot expect executives of the health insurance industry, pharmaceutical companies and medical devices/equipment companies to change a broken health care system where they have the most lucrative financial gain. Civil disobedience is out right and the only way to bring about "real change".
Single payer
People who are praising "western" health care system outside of the US have no idea what they are asking for: they will have long waiting lines to incompetent physicians. This is my personal experience of living in Belgium for 3 years while doing my PhD. We need to help people who cannot afford health care, we need to allow physicians to charge non-insured patients the same rate insurance company pays them and so forth. But be careful, the US system of medicine is the only one on earth that provides a patient with reasonable level of quality and accessibility.