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Published on Friday, February 6, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Americans Should Not Stand for Lock-down on Single-Payer Discussion
As
an ardent advocate of single-payer healthcare for many years, I am more
than a little frustrated by Washington insiders—beholden to healthcare
corporations—telling the American people that passing single-payer
healthcare reform, specifically HR. 676, the United States National
Health Care Act, can't happen. The fact is they are standing in the way
of it happening.
They cite specious reasons like we're an entrepreneurial nation and need a uniquely American solution, or we can't afford it, or single-payer won't work in the U.S. Well it works quite well in the form of Medicare, an incredibly popular and uniquely American program. In a nutshell, HR 676 basically improves and expands Medicare to cover everybody.
The say it can't happen because Americans don't want it. Polling indicates otherwise; a January 30, CBS poll shows significant support:
The U.S. already spends far more on healthcare than any other nation; yet with all our power and treasure, we are the lone wealthy industrialized nation that does not ensure healthcare for all of our citizens. Fifty million Americans are currently uninsured, and twenty two thousand of those Americans die every year because they do not have access to healthcare.
Meanwhile, CEOs of healthcare corporations earn $3.3 million to $22.2 million in salary per year, paltry amounts compared to their stock options. When a CEO earns $1.6 billion in stock options ("Business 2006: Who Won, Who Lost," Associated Press, December 2006), who loses? The average American, that's who—the people who are dying, getting sick from lack of preventative care, facing bankruptcy from medical bills, losing their jobs and their homes. They are Americans who can't afford "health insurance" and certainly can't afford large contributions to senatorial, congressional, and presidential campaigns.
These CEOs and their corporations have senators like Max Baucus (D-MT) in their pocket. Baucus flatly refuses to even discuss single-payer as an option. The time to take this option off the table is after an honest debate of the pros and cons of HR 676, not before.
So why does the lock-down exist? Could it be because many members of Congress and the Senate are dependent on healthcare corporations for contributions to their election campaigns? HR 676 is a simple elegant solution to what ails us. Congress appears hell-bent on creating a complicated and convoluted program, which won't work because it includes for-profit healthcare corporations as the centerpiece.
All evidence suggests that the majority of Americans want single-payer healthcare, that it would be good for all businesses (with the exception of the healthcare corporations), and that it would stimulate the economy. HR 676, if passed, would create a far more affordable and sustainable system than the current alternatives, which basically puts the healthcare corporations on the public dole and includes mandates that force people who already cannot afford insurance to buy it.
If there ever was an opportune moment for guaranteed healthcare for all, now is that moment. Too bad our elected officials refuse to do what they were elected to do—represent us, instead of the interests of the very powerful and wealthy healthcare corporate lobby. Let your member of Congress know that single-payer healthcare/Medicare for all should, at the very least, be an option that should be discussed. While you're at it, give Max Baucus a call.
They cite specious reasons like we're an entrepreneurial nation and need a uniquely American solution, or we can't afford it, or single-payer won't work in the U.S. Well it works quite well in the form of Medicare, an incredibly popular and uniquely American program. In a nutshell, HR 676 basically improves and expands Medicare to cover everybody.
The say it can't happen because Americans don't want it. Polling indicates otherwise; a January 30, CBS poll shows significant support:
Americans are more likely today to embrace the idea of the government providing health insurance than they were 30 years ago. 59% say the government should provide national health insurance, including 49% who say such insurance should cover all medical problems.Besides being the moral and compassionate thing to do (two values which Americans used to embrace), single-payer healthcare makes good business sense. In this study (PDF), research shows single-payer healthcare/Medicare for all would:
In January 1979, four in 10 thought the federal government should provide national insurance. Back then, more Americans thought health insurance should be left to private enterprise.
- Create 2,613,495 million new permanent good-paying jobs (slightly exceeding the number of jobs lost in 2008)--jobs that are not easily shipped overseas
- Boost the economy with $317 billion in increased business and public revenues
- Add $100 billion in employee compensation
- Infuse public budgets with $44 billion in new tax revenues
The U.S. already spends far more on healthcare than any other nation; yet with all our power and treasure, we are the lone wealthy industrialized nation that does not ensure healthcare for all of our citizens. Fifty million Americans are currently uninsured, and twenty two thousand of those Americans die every year because they do not have access to healthcare.
Meanwhile, CEOs of healthcare corporations earn $3.3 million to $22.2 million in salary per year, paltry amounts compared to their stock options. When a CEO earns $1.6 billion in stock options ("Business 2006: Who Won, Who Lost," Associated Press, December 2006), who loses? The average American, that's who—the people who are dying, getting sick from lack of preventative care, facing bankruptcy from medical bills, losing their jobs and their homes. They are Americans who can't afford "health insurance" and certainly can't afford large contributions to senatorial, congressional, and presidential campaigns.
These CEOs and their corporations have senators like Max Baucus (D-MT) in their pocket. Baucus flatly refuses to even discuss single-payer as an option. The time to take this option off the table is after an honest debate of the pros and cons of HR 676, not before.
So why does the lock-down exist? Could it be because many members of Congress and the Senate are dependent on healthcare corporations for contributions to their election campaigns? HR 676 is a simple elegant solution to what ails us. Congress appears hell-bent on creating a complicated and convoluted program, which won't work because it includes for-profit healthcare corporations as the centerpiece.
All evidence suggests that the majority of Americans want single-payer healthcare, that it would be good for all businesses (with the exception of the healthcare corporations), and that it would stimulate the economy. HR 676, if passed, would create a far more affordable and sustainable system than the current alternatives, which basically puts the healthcare corporations on the public dole and includes mandates that force people who already cannot afford insurance to buy it.
If there ever was an opportune moment for guaranteed healthcare for all, now is that moment. Too bad our elected officials refuse to do what they were elected to do—represent us, instead of the interests of the very powerful and wealthy healthcare corporate lobby. Let your member of Congress know that single-payer healthcare/Medicare for all should, at the very least, be an option that should be discussed. While you're at it, give Max Baucus a call.
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69 Comments so far
Show AllLet's see here. We have an economic crisis with poor health care adding to the burden. The majority of Americans want universal coverage.
But wait. The medical/pharma/insurance complex disagrees with most Americans.
Well, then. That makes it so much easier. Since we exist under a corporatocracy, our money needs to go to the entrenched rackets of restricted health care. Then later, some of that same cash goes into the campaign funds of the corporatist politicians. Pretty slick. Why fix it if it ain't broken?
Mr. Obama will not fight the Big Money boys. He wants them "at the table". And we don't even get a high chair at the table to dribble on about our selfish needs.
http://davedubya.com
We need a cure for health care in America. http://www.wisecountyissues.com In East Tennessee, Profit care comes ahead of Patient Care.
Health Insurance isn't the Cure to America's healthcare problems.
Health Insurance is the Cause of America's healthcare problems!
I have to put up with self-righteous rightwing assholes from time to time who sneer at single payer as somehow "socialized" medicine and they'll even act so childish by covering their ears and singing a-la-la-la.
What's cool about when they cover their ears and sing "la la la", it's a perfect opportunity to punch that idiot right in the nose as hard as you can!!
And consider this: these idiots usually close their eyes when they do that too, so it pretty much guarantees you a devastating shot.
I think it's proof that people who think like that are de-evolved - they've lost a basic survival instinct - defensive thinking. Anyone with the ability for defensive thinking has realized that the current healthcare system greatly increases the risk of death to them and their loved ones.
Maybe they'll do us the favor of nicely removing themselves from the gene pool.
Most folks who are against single payer are often the types who rely too much on Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Neal Boortz, etc ... to spoonfeed them soundbites. Having been a former conservative now liberal, I know exactly their thinking. They refuse to listen or learn the basics unless some rightwing celebrity tells them otherwise. I try to tell my conservative friends and coworkers who while nice in temperament often react with hostility if I or anyone tries to bring up the issue of single payer healthcare. I get responses such as "Well, millions of jobs will be lost", "People, not government, should decide their own healthcare provider", "If someone doesn't like the healthcare coverage their employer is giving them, they should quit and find another job", "Single payer healthcare is 'SatanCare' or better yet HillaryCare !", etc ... My friends and coworkers, while conservative, are cool and friendly but neither I or my other friends who are liberal and/or moderate just cannot seem to be able to convince them. Unfortunately, there are more conservatives than there are liberals and moderates combined in my place and even state. I'm picking up some ideas on this site and rereading Lakoff's books so that I might be successful in convincing some, if not all of them otherwise.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
I only have my right arm while my left one is an artificial one. I suppose wacking them with my cane will show them, LOL !
"I only have my right arm while my left one is an artificial one."
_____________________________________________________________
Well, if it's any consolation, at least metaphorically speaking you have something in common with our new President!
· Yr Obd't Servant
Which, by the way, is probably the nearest thing to culture that they get.
Tired of the best government money can buy? Try this:
www.ni4d.us/
We can have insurance companies, or we can have a good health care system; BUT, we can't have both. Insurance companies are responsible for the deaths of 18,000 every year because insurance company lobbyists block a Single Payer System. Therefore, health insurance companies are more dangerous terrorists than those responsible for 9/11.
Maybe the health insurance CEOs and lobbyists should be sent to Gitmo.
Sioux Rose
ROSEMARIE: I agree. Imagine if THAT statistic got more media play than all the crap about terrorists, maybe "what happened to Kansas" voters will get with the program and realize who's really in their court, and who's picking their pocket, singing patriotic tunes all the while.
WOW! Good point!!
Two bumper stickers I found online that I now have on my car: the first reads "18,000 Americans die every year for lack of health care" and the second reads "How can you be pro-life and oppose universal health care?"
NMLib
"...the partisan dynamics have changed in Congress. While some Republicans might vote for single payer, they wouldn't need to. The Democratic leadership could persuade enough Democrats to vote to pass it without a single Republican, if they chose to." --Three Reasons Why Single-Payer Health Care Has Become Possible By David Swanson
The Democrats have to get back to being Democrats.
There are no more excuses.
The Democrats are just like their Republican counterparts in an essential way: they are bought and paid for. Nothing is going to change that if they can help it.
I would like to see every Senator and Representative who says that they think "socialized" or "government run" health care is a bad idea, give up there own, government paid for, health care. Then they can all go out and support the free-market insurance system by trying to find their own insurance. Not that the overwhelming majority of them couldn't afford it, but at least they wouldn't be quite so blatantly hypocritical.
Sioux Rose
INCENSED: I share that burning sensation... and totally agree with your prescription: give' em some of their own medicine!
What a way to run a government. Why, they might actually have to be responsible for their actions!
Ahhhhhhh.......will single payer every happen? I dunno', but I think, in contrast to the "lockdown" views of this article, that HR 676 is beginning to gather steam. A problem seems to be so many channels for 676: too dispersed, thereby greatly diluting the punch we so desperately need. Just take a walk though various sites: it's way too dispersed. "Branding", something 676 really needs, can't happen when the message gets too distorted through too many channels. We need to gather HR 676 campaign in ONE place, with ONE "brand". That's when it'll begin to take off. The operative word here is "campaign", and as we all know, we've got to "stay on message." So, where do we gather at ONE place with ONE message???? What is your vote?
Omaha, Nebraska - it's the closest larger city to the geographical center of the US. A good central meeting place.
Health industry jobs are good jobs that cannot be shipped overseas, like the author mentions. They are also jobs that require the ability to do something materially useful, which is more than can be said for the millions of bureaucrats who work tirelessly to deny coverage for the people they insure. Speaking of those bureaucrats, do the Republicans LIKE bureaucracy as long as it doesn't occur in government?
Agree with dduke on the need for "branding" single payer health care. Don't have a vote for a good centralized place for organizing, but am recently becoming acquainted with http://mainstreetalliance.org/wordpress/ as a potential good place for organizing small businesses on health care.
By the way, I hope dduke isn't a tribute to David Duke.
"Health industry jobs are good jobs that cannot be shipped overseas, like the author mentions."
Don't be too certain about that. All imaging procedures are digitized these days, easily transferred over computer networks and read in low cost countries. Computer enhanced robotic surgery is on the cusp of allowing procedures to be carried out remotely. Insurance companies looking to lower costs are a potential threat to the medical industry. All stakeholders need to get onboard demanding single payer universal coverage before the US wakes up to an outsourced health care industry.
There is only one reason why we do not have single payer---MONEY.
substitute "greed" for "money" and I agree.
We need a signed petition from every qualified voter in the country to petition Congress that will remove all free medical insurance for Senators and
Congressmen and women. Unless we remove this goodie from our elected officials
they will procastinate in favor of the drug and pharma industries..
Senator Dodd as good an example as you can get, his statment re One Payer
Health System,,"It will never happen",. Why is he so sure? does he have a pipeline to the Insurance Companies like he had at Countrywide?
OK, that still leaves us with a gain of 613,495 new jobs. What's wrong with that? :)
And it'll be a great place for those displaced workers to find employment that they are already trained for...
Sounds good to me.
When Canada introduced Single Payer back in the early 1970's no significant job losses occurred in the Insurance industry.
As Donna has pointed out repeatedly, single payer will more than likely produce more jobs than those lost.
In any case, widget makers sometimes lose jobs to a better invention.
As I first noted some time ago, the criticism that single-payer will further encumber an already disintegrated labor market is entirely bogus.
It would be like demanding that Dr. Salk halt his research into developing a polio vaccine on the grounds that it would have a devastating impact on the iron-lung and prosthetics industry.
AFAIK, no one made that argument back in the day. Apparently IQs HAVE dropped sharply during the intervening period.
· Yr Obd't Servant
What you said.
nwfisher,
Those 2 million jobs are easily replaceable. It's not as if they can't find similar jobs related to their fields in other sectors. Besides, those 2 million jobs are low paying Walmartized jobs and very few benefits from them anyway. Your arguments against single payer are BULLSHIT. Just because you don't want healthcare doesn't mean others can't have it. And with single payer, there's plenty to choose from. Most fishermen are in dire support of single payer from what I've heard. You self-righteous fascists need to put up or shut up.
Also, from an earlier poster to answer that doubt of yours:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
raydelcamino January 27th, 2009 4:07 pm
For every job lost as a result of single payer, 20 US jobs in other industries will be saved as a result of single payer.
Unless single payer is adopted, many US businesses and industries (not just GM, Ford and Chrysler)will continue to not be globally competitive, trying to compete with other nations who have already adopted single payer. Many CEOs have already told us this, and many employees in many businesses are losing jobs, and will continue to lose jobs, until single payer is adopted.
All programs have implementation costs. With proper retraining, some of the insurance company employees could work for the government's single payer program, others could be retrained for other jobs, and some would get a severence package, all paid for by the government, out of the implementation budget. This will be much less costly than the costs of all the lay-offs the current system causes in other industries.
Singel payer is as much an economic stimulus issue as it is a health issue.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
The new jobs will be in direct HEALTH CARE. The lost jobs will be in wasteful paper pushing and bureaucratic administration. The transition could be eased with training for the transition to socially useful jobs.
Joe
Health shouldn't be a profit pt. on a Corp. spreadsheet. Good affordable healthcare should be a human right. Why America is acting like a third world country by denying it's citizens this basic right is beyond me? Maybe it's because the whole system is corrupt from top to bottom for a start?
I totally agree with single payer. On another point: does anyone know why dental is excluded from medical insurance? At least it is in my plan, which pays for all kinds of expensive fertility treatments, but which will compensate nothing for the $3300 I have to spend this month on an abcess in my molar...Why is the mouth excluded from the rest of the human body?
While we're pushing for single payer, we also have to simultaneously push for a complete re-evaluation of the definition of health and well-being. There is absolutely no logic to my current coverage (another example: they'll pay for me to have expensive surgery on my shoulder, but not for physical therapy that might help me avoid surgery).
My dream: a single payer system putting everyone in the same boat founded on a philosophy of wellness and preventative care (but of course still paying when something goes wrong), coupled with cleaning up our food and agriculutral industry (the food we eat being seen as being fundamental to preventative care), eliminating dangerous materials that fill our bodies with toxins (e.g. #1,3,7 plastic)...in other words, let the notion of "health" reverberate outwards and allow us to de-toxify our whole society. Make the notion of "organic food" obsolete because all food will be "organic" (we will have cleaned up the meat industry, and helped the environment in the process...)
One side will always get their "utopia." For a long time, the corporations have gotten their "utopia," and we are wallowing in it. Now it's time for the people to get their own version of utopia.
,
If the United States provides "single payer" health insurance for all of the 325,000,000 citizens of the U.S.A.; plus an additional 50,000,000 illegal aliens who are here.....WOULDN'T THAT BE WONDERFUL !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Who is going to pick-up the bill ???????????????
,
There are NOT 50m "illegal aliens" in this country. The number is far less. Now cut it out !
Correct, there were approximately 20+ million last year, but some have headed home.
From the most current info that I can find online quickly, $4271 is spent in the US on health care per person (as of 2002) the highest per person in the world, the highest I can find with a national (single payer) system is Norway, at $3182, and for that savings of just over $1000 per person they have a lower infant mortality rate (3.61 vs 6.3 per 1000 live births) higher life expectancy (79 vs 77) lower maternal mortality (6 vs 8 per 100k) more physicians per 1000 people.
So, Norway has a much smaller population, you say. How about Japan, still a smaller population, but much closer, as well as an aging population. Japan: $2243 per person, and still better in infant mortality, life expectancy, equal to the US in maternal mortality, and fewer physicians per 1000 people. Quite possible that some of this information has changed (the info I found being 6 years old) but I bet it hasn't changed that radically. Here is the site I found this on with a quick google search
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_spe_per_per-health-spending-per-person
From what I've seen, its a waste of money to NOT have universal health care.
Actually, you're already paying the bill for NOT having this. All the other so-called developed countries provide healthcare, as a right, to their citizens. It is only the over-propagandized United States, brainwashed by the right-wing talk show hosts, that stands alone in the world and allows more than 50 million people to go without healthcare. This puts a tremendous strain on the EMERGENCY ROOMS since this is where they end up after months of NOT being able to go and get preventative treatment from doctors or clinics. WAKE-UP and DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!!
Well, they are giving billions of dollars to the banks to 'save our economy'. Our elected officials think nothing of voting to spend billions on armaments and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps that is where the payment could come from?
Your spew is all about 'illegal aliens' isn't it. Come-on, fess up.
Aside from the fact that your number is way off, Single Payer Insurance would only be for US citizens, just as it is in other countries.
"....plus an additional 50,000,000 illegal aliens who are here"
Where did you get the fifty million from?
Maybe if the US government stopped flushing billions down the drain to pay for immoral wars which have nothing to do with the defense of this country we could afford universal health care.
It's so simple, so doable, and so disgusting that there's so many walls put up around it. The people want it, a better society will result from it, yet there's so much opposition to it in Washington. That's really telling and is enough to make one an anarchist.
Socialism can save America and the rest of the world along with it.
I wonder if people would use Netflix if it cost $500 a month.
Laura wrote a thoughtful, persuasive article. I hope she writes more here.
Here's the Max Baucus fundraising summary from opensecrets.org. Certainly gives a strong appearance of CLEAR CONFLICT of INTEREST:
Max Baucus
Choose your cycle:
200820062004200220001998Career
First Elected: 1978
Next Election: 2008
Committee Assignments:
Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry
Environment and Public Works
Finance
Leadership PAC: Glacier PAC
Cycle Fundraising, 2003 - 2008
Raised: $11,602,479
Spent: $9,305,359
Cash on Hand: $2,316,990
Debts: $0
Last Report: Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Top 5 Contributors, 2003-2008
Schering-Plough Corp $69,200
New York Life Insurance $52,900
KKR & Co $50,500
Goldman Sachs $48,900
DaVita Inc $48,350
Top 5 Industries, 2003-2008
Securities & Investment $830,268
Lawyers/Law Firms $671,804
Insurance $591,235
Health Professionals $535,891
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $516,813
Shaming and embarassing them public usually works if asking nicely doesn't.
Please supply a weblink to the website that supplies such juicy data so everyone can just click to their own Congressional member for such info.
Keep it up and get this corruption published everywhere you can, if they don't respond positively.
Take a bite out of Congressional crime.
Yesterday I saw a documentary about Mandela. There were many film clips of of poor people walking, running, dancing for freedom as far as the eye could see. The people there had little in the way of jobs, money or education, but they had numbers, determination and clarity about the central issues of self-rule and dignity. They brought down the apartheid government.
Part of the solution to the unreliability of our representatives, on this issue and many others, is to run local candidates who will win with the support of an army of volunteers and small contributors. Otherwise even the best of the candidates will be strapped for money and will turn to Big Daddy.
The unions could concentrate and field some Congressional candidates running on universal one-payer health care and green jobs. The peace organizations could get together someone to run on "swords into plowshares', spending for education and health.
Focus and clarity of program require some maturity and the ability to communicate a central message. We need to understand and use modern communication methods. In other words, if someone is running for Congress or local office, they could have a comprehensive position website, but every piece of literature and speech should not have a long long list of every issue here and in every country in the world. People will tune out.
Joe
And here's my letter to my very own congressman--Henry Waxman--who has inexplicably taken himself OFF the co-sponsorship of Conyers' HR 676. May I encourage ALL to write their own representatives and CALL their offices on this issue. If we're going to have any action, it's only going to be through a massive outpouring from their constituents as well as a willingness to support PROGRESSIVE challengers in the primaries.
To: Congressman Waxman's staffers
From: Linda Sutton, PDLA Co-Chair
re: Henry's Retreat from Support for Conyer's HR 676 bill to Give Healthcare to Our Country
I just want to express my extreme disappointment with the Congressman's position, or rather, of his non-position...which essentially translates into a "no" position... on this bill of greatest importance to his district.
When I spoke to your D.C. office today, the excuse for taking his sponsorship OFF the bill was that he is now a chair of a committee that could be involved in hearing it. To us, this is certainly NO reason to retreat from his support for the bill.
What it looks like is that he alerted his constituents that he SUPPORTS single payer, via his co-sponsorship of HR 676, but NOW, when it MATTERS MOST and when constituents are focused on the economy and stimulus package, he erases his name off the bill.
Certainly the people in this congressional district deserve to have a COMPLETE explanation in the newsletter you send out all the time WHY our congressman is not willing to stand with the people of this country and help them obtain the needed healthcare WITHOUT the insurance company profits added on top (see article attached at end--the Bonham one).
We're talking about FIFTY million people and growing quickly. With a serious national healthcare program, as in SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE PROGRAM, many of the companies now laying off workers would not have to be doing this. And what happens to all the laid off or fired workers? COBRA? Like any of them will be able to pay the exhorbitant costs for this, again, insurance profit-driven product!! We deserve better from our electeds, and I certainly hope that MY congressman will reconsider his position.
Noted, during a year when there was no opposition in either the primary or the general election, on opensecrets.org. Total of $280,217 to Henry Waxman from the "health" and "insurance" industries:
Top Industries
Congressman Henry A. Waxman 2007 - 2008
Campaign Finance Cycle: 200820062004200220001998
Career Health Professionals $96,717
Public Sector Unions $85,000
Lawyers/Law Firms $76,000
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $63,600
Hospitals/Nursing Homes $63,600
TV/Movies/Music $62,500
Lobbyists $29,750
Misc Unions $28,500
Real Estate $23,500
Insurance $22,800
Health Services/HMOs $19,000
Telecom Services & Equipment $18,000
Misc Manufacturing & Distributing $15,200
Building Trade Unions $15,000
Misc Health $14,500
Telephone Utilities $13,000
Human Rights $10,000
Electric Utilities $10,000
Computers/Internet $9,500
Printing & Publishing $9,000
And this from the Political Action Committees:
PACs
Congressman Henry A. Waxman 2007 - 2008
Campaign Finance Cycle: 200820062004200220001998Career
Total PAC Money for 2008: $661,887
Number of Contributions: 329
Sectors
Agribusiness $2,000
Communications/Electronics $106,500
Construction $11,500
Defense $4,500
Energy & Natural Resources $16,500
Finance, Insurance & Real Estate $46,000
Health $211,567
Lawyers & Lobbyists $58,000
Transportation $2,000
Misc Business $30,000
Labor $146,500
Ideological/Single-Issue $18,020
Other $8,800
(I wrote this above and attached Bonham's article here)