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TechnoratiPut Single-Payer on the Table
A study just released by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a media watchdog group, found that in the week before Obama's health-care summit, of the hundreds of stories that appeared in major newspapers and on the networks, "only five included the views of advocates of single-payer-none of which appeared on television." Most opinion columns that mentioned single-payer were written by opponents.
Congress is considering H.R. 676, "Expanded and Improved Medicare for All," sponsored by John Conyers, D-Mich., with 64 co-sponsors. Yet even when Rep. Conyers directly asked Obama at a Congressional Black Caucus meeting if he could attend the White House health-care summit, he was not immediately invited. Nor was any other advocate for single-payer health care.
Conyers had asked to bring Dr. Marcia Angell, the first woman editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, the most prestigious medical journal in the country, and Dr. Quentin Young. Young is perhaps the most well-known single-payer advocate in America. He was Martin Luther King Jr.'s doctor when King lived in Chicago. "My 15-minute house calls would stretch into three hours," he told me.
But he came to know Barack Obama even better. Though his medical partner was Obama's doctor, Young was his neighbor, friend and ally for decades. "Obama supported single-payer, gave speeches for it," he said.
This past weekend, hundreds turned out to honor the 85-year-old Young, including the Illinois governor and three members of Congress, but the White House's response to Conyers' request that Young be included in the summit? A resounding no. Perhaps because Obama personally knows how persuasive and committed Young is.
After much outcry, Conyers was invited. Activist groups like Physicians for a National Health Program (pnhp.org) expressed outrage that no other single-payer advocate was to be among the 120 people at the summit. Finally, the White House relented and invited Dr. Oliver Fein, president of PNHP. Two people out of 120.
Locked out of the debate, silenced by the media, single-payer advocates are taking action. Russell Mokhiber, who writes and edits the Corporate Crime Reporter, has decided that the time has come to directly confront the problem of our broken health-care system. He's going to the national meeting of the American Health Insurance Plans and is joining others in burning their health-insurance bills outside in protest. Mokhiber told me, "The insurance companies have no place in the health care of American people. How are we going to beat these people? We have to start the direct confrontation." Launching a new organization, Single Payer Action (singlepayeraction.org), Mokhiber and others promise to take the issue to the insurance industry executives, the lobbyists and the members of Congress directly, in Washington, D.C., and their home district offices.
Critical mass is building behind a single-payer system. From Nobel Laureate in Economics Joseph Stiglitz, who told me, "I've reluctantly come to the view that it's the only alternative," to health-care providers themselves, who witness and endure the system's failure firsthand. Geri Jenkins of the newly formed, 150,000-nurses-strong United American Nurses-National Nurses Organizing Committee (nnoc.net) said: "It is the only health-care-reform proposal that can work. ... We are currently pushing to have a genuine, honest policy debate, because we'll win ... the health insurers will collapse under the weight of their own irrelevance."
Dr. Young has now been invited to a Senate meeting along with the "usual suspects": health-insurance providers, Big Pharma and health-care-reform advocates. I asked Young what he thought of the refrain coming from the White House, as well as from the leading senator on the issue, Max Baucus, that "single-payer is off the table." "It's repulsive," sighed Young. "We are very angry." But not discouraged. I asked him what he thought about Burn Your Health Insurance Bill Day. "Things are heating up." he chuckled. "When things are happening that you have nothing to do with, you know it's a movement."
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
135 Comments so far
Show Alldo you know how much money would the HMO's execs and investors be fighting for if obama decided to go for single payer ? answer: enough for them to cough up some savings to hire full time and for several years every one of the many mercenary armies of the USA plus the whole of organized crime, just to get rid of him. be careful of what you ask for, else you may end up having to whine about "the friend of usury" aka joseph biden...
the way to go is to draw the clepto-medical complex into a low-cost race that they can neither win nor fend off through demagogy peddled by bribed media.
we all should champion a "healthcare bailout" for *all* industries, one that would cost nothing to taxpayers and would give an enormous ~20%-of-the-GPD! stimulus to the economy:
the obama administration should start accepting into medicaid the workforces of any company for 2/3 of the payments that the company is making to the clepto-medical complex right now.
one would start by putting all autoworkers on medicaid in exchange for 2/3 of the current humongous health-care bill of the auto industry (GM's 2007 health care bill was $4.6 billion!).
50% of these 2/3s would be given back to the auto industry as a "loan deal" to "bail them out", of course with strings for public transportation items, preferred stock with guaranteed 10% dividends, etc.
and any other troubled industry would also qualify for such loan-back deals.
it's win win:
i) it would help the competitiveness of usa manufacturers big time, e.g., vs. manufacturers in canada that are "subsidized" via socialized health care.
ii) it would bring in "paying" users into the medicaid system, i.e., it would work towards "expanding" universal care (since medicaid already covers bad-risk types). this way medicaid would become much less of a money sink and, if the expansion succeeds fully, it will even make money for the federal government.
iii) through this medicaid expansion the obama administration would showcase its ability to deliver "efficient government" and to mobilize the "public service spirit" (of young doctors and nurses, e.g.) and also demonstrate that decent health care can be delivered at much lower cost (one would keep the books for paying users separate from those for indigents, etc). the whole is eminently doable even without "innovation" (just emulating the low-cost, super-efficient administration of soc.security would do most of the job).
iv) since health care is ~20% of the gpd, this is truly the biggest and easiest money to redistribute (easiest because everybody hates the clepto-medical complex).
v) unions would appear as "giving up something" (i.e., give up on expensive private health care for their members, which is not really a concession of course).
furthermore, paleo-conservatives would be dumbfounded if the program is sold using lines like
i) "letting the state do what the market cannot do" (which according to conservatives is the only acceptable role for the state).
ii) "fighting and preventing illness is like fighting and preventing crime".
iii) "repealing the health-care tax on the profits of employers".
iv) "restoring the competitiveness of national entrepreneurs vs. foreign competitors" (by lowering drastically their health care bill).
v) "no privileging of heavily-union, lobbyist-hiring companies", since all companies would qualify (small employers hate unions and bigger companies).
vi) "breaking the choke hold that the clepto-medical cartel has on the nation by jump-starting a *market-place* race for cheaper health care.
Translation: Prop up and use conspiracy theories for scare tactics to that the status quo can be kept.
The fact is that everyone who pays taxes is ALREADY paying into the USan system, but fewer and fewer can afford to use it. Starving the infrastructure and requiring that people who need, say, a bone marrow transplant, first train doctors and nurses and develop anti-rejection meds and build isolation wards, all on their own nickel, is just plain stupid - like pretty much everything that comes out of libertarians' mouths. Bloody infants.
O'Bama's task is to increase the elites' profit opportunities. Specifically, he is tasked with arranging for elite exploitation of the Medicare system by allowing the private insurers to dump the sick ones onto Medicare and keep the healthy ones. The result is that private insurers' profits will skyrocket, and Medicare will become over-burdened. Then, the elites will start their media campaigns to discredit Medicare on the ground that it costs far more per person than private healthcare.
The USan people are taught to accept the elites' propaganda, so they will forget that the average Medicare patient is much sicker than the average private patient. So the people will consent to the elites' solution: Privatization of a large chunk of the Medicare program. Its costs will thereby skyrocket as the elites pocket the loot and create a vicious cycle with renewed claims of excess Medicare costs. The value of US healthcare will continue to diminish in comparison with other countries.
Sioux Rose
RTDRURY: Very well-stated.
As I said below, why don't you invest your own money in stock for some of the healthcare companies that you claim are going to get these skyrocketing profits. You can then take these profits and donate them to the government to help out Medicare.
Investing money in the stock market isn't a great idea at a time the economy is in the toilet. There's no such thing as perpetual growth !
I am not the one claiming that these big corporations are going to get guaranteed profits from Obama's plan. You have COMPLETELY missed the point of every one of my posts.
Bill Walz
Now, if all you so-called progressives will stop with your whining and conspiracy theories, and eagerness to bash Obama, and get out there and write or call Obama [(202)456-1111], and your Congresspersons with positive declarations about wanting HR676, and then write letters to your newspapers and every national news organ you can, and even do what real progressives have always done and put their bodies on the line and begin protesting and picketing insurance companies and hospitals, make as big a stink as you can, then, single-payer may just get paid the attention it deserves. This is where "bottom-up politics" has to take over, because the top is all bought and paid for. Then, Obama will have the support needed to take on these "stakeholders".
Medical care is a human right and a social responsibility. It has been turned into a cash cow by the for-profit medical industries. This is an abomination. I don't know why there hasn't been civil political action on this years ago, but NOW IS THE TIME. Do it! America has been ruined by corporations and the greed motive. There is no better, or more appropriate, issue to confront this profits-above-all-else culture we have descended into than healthcare. PROFIT HAS NO PLACE IN HEALTHCARE! People are dying and being driven into bankruptcy over something that citizens in every other advanced nation on earth have had for decades. STOP THIS CRIMINALITY! Don't put it on Obama. Without massive public support, he can't do it on his own. Give him that support.
There are certainly many places for profit in health care. Start with the linen factory making hospital bed sheets. Should they make those sheets for free? At cost? Or at a profit?
Bill Walz
What a dork! You know exactly what I mean. This is not about sheets or beds or bedpans, except when the sheets, beds or bedpans are being charged for at ten times their actual value, which can only happen when they are connected to the provision of an essential service like a person's health. And another agency is placing itself in between a person's access to those sheets, beds and bedpans and charging an exorbitant fee, basically blackmail on a person's health, for that access, while this agency does nothing to deliver the needed service, but rather is driving up the cost of the service. I'm talking, of course, about insurance companies.
I repeat. Medical care is a human right and a social responsibility. There is no place in that for profit. Why? Because the greed factor (of people, I'm sure, like "Freedomcorps") brings it to exactly where we are. With people being denied medical care and/or being driven into poverty over their health.
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." These words were not meant to cover up naked greed where one segment of the population profits on the suffering of other segments of the population. This is not much different than those who felt their "freedom" was being trampled when the Federal government told them they could no longer enslave other human beings to make a profit and a privileged lifestyle for themselves a century and a half ago. There isn't much life, liberty and pursuit of happiness when you are just an illness away from financial disaster, and others are making oversize profits on this misfortune.
"Freedomcorpse". Is that another of those euphamisims for right wing idealogue? Does this mean only those who agree with you and your brainwashed corporate capitalism uber alles, believe in freedom? This kind of freedom is what has us in this mess - with healthcare, with the banks, with destruction of the environment, with underfunding of education, with a media that corrupts everything for the turning of a profit, etc.
You don't have solutions to the problems. You are the problem.
"This is not about sheets or beds or bedpans, except when the sheets, beds or bedpans are being charged for at ten times their actual value, which can only happen when they are connected to the provision of an essential service like a person's health."
Under single-payer health care, the wealthier part of the population will probably pay many times the actual value of the services they receive under single payer. It is not an "everyone wins" scenerio even with all of the evil profits eliminated from the system. These people have no choice but to pay into this system and that has to be justified with something greater than "it is for the common good" or "I personally would do it for them if our roles were reversed". As an American, you are one of the richest people on the planet. How would you feel if everyone in the country was to the left of you and wanted to force 70% of your income (that YOU earned) from you to pay for health care for everyone on the planet? Even with just 30% of your income remaining, you would still be rich by world standards. Would that be cool with you? If so, then why don't you donate 70% of your income voluntarily to the cause of your own choosing, as opposed to having the will of the majority dictate where YOUR money goes. It will be a tax write-off!
Freedomcorpse has a point and advocates of single payer refuse to recognize the rights of other individuals. Oh wait I forgot, Reagan said this kind of stuff and Reagan was bad--therefore the point is no longer valid.
"You don't have solutions to the problems. You are the problem."
You seem to think that every problem of every individual in society is everyone's problem. Not everyone shares this pack mentality. Not only that, you have an unjust and immoral solution to the healthcare problem. Coerced participation in a program at a rate dictated by your income is not moral, fair or justified.
"Under single-payer health care, the wealthier part of the population will probably pay many times the actual value of the services they receive under single payer."
Not the wealthier. The healthier!
If single payer is paid for using taxes, then the wealthy will pay for more than what they get. Okay fine, the healthy wealthy:).
The wealthy can afford to pay so shut up and pay up if you're wealthy sir.
Well I am not wealthy and as I said in a different post below, one should judge matters in a disinterested way--not just on whether they personally will benefit or not. I personally don't feel right in using the voting booth as a way of forcing wealthier individuals to pay for some of my health care. I just don't see why they owe me or how they benefit. If they want to donate some of their money to a non-profit organization that provides health services to the needy, then that very nice of them. But they don't owe you or I health care--quit telling them to "pay up".
I believe you waste your time with this one. He is simply phobic on the subject, and, I suspect on several others in fact. He ignores the statistics that show our current health care system a mess and a hardship to far too many and repeats himself ad nauseum about the right to show a profit, in everything.
It would be poetic justice for this person to discover just how little his current health care provider would protect him should a catastrophic illness occur. Not that I wish it on him, but the evidence is mountainous and all he needs to do is care enough to read it...but he wont of course, no real conscience apparently.
"I believe you waste your time with this one. He is simply phobic on the subject, and, I suspect on several others in fact. He ignores the statistics that show our current health care system a mess and a hardship to far too many and repeats himself ad nauseum about the right to show a profit, in everything."
Perhaps he is wasting his time on you. Freedomcorpse is arguing about the immorality of coerced participation in a healthcare system, not whether or not single payer is "good for the whole". There is a consistent viewpoint of the right for justified taxes and this doesn't meet that criterion. One justification is when there are services which society wants that are not amenable to charging each person who benefits from them. If the FDA tests a drug, then it isn't really practical or possible to charge everyone who benefited from that information(you could charge one person and then they could tell everyone else). Another justified tax is when a voluntary transaction adversely affects third parties such as is the case with pollution. I personally don't see how health care for all fits into either of these categories.
If you personally want to donate some of your wealth to taking care of other people, go right ahead. It isn't moral to force money from other people to do what YOU think is best with it. They earned it and it belongs to them--not society.
"Freedomcorpse is arguing about the immorality of coerced participation in a healthcare system . . ."
Funny how "coerced participation" is not an issue when we invade other countries. I don't remember being asked if I want to fund the war in Iraq or Afghanistan.
So two wrongs make a right? The republicans got to take taxes for their war so now the democrats get to take taxes for health care?
There is a consistent justification for forced taxation for military:
The idea is that if some segment of the population were to get together and form a military to protect the borders, then everyone in the country would benefit and there is no way to charge them in proportion to how much they benefit. So taxes are appropriate and overall, it is an appropriate government function.
The same is not true of health care. The primary beneficiary of health care is the person receiving it. I receive no greater benefit from my neighbors health care than I do from the health care someone in Canada gets. Those individuals are the beneficiaries, not me. The same can't be said of Canada's military vs. our own.
If you read any of freedomcorpse' other arguments, you would see that he is not for the sort of empire building that you are referring to. It is a bitch though when you have a military representing you doing things that you personally don't approve of. The same would be true of socialized health care. It may be the case that people have to wait 7 months for chemo yet the govt. provides inessential services like removing ingrown toenails. It is a hypothetical, but I hope you see my point.
You shouldn't have to fund those imperial wars or any of the un-Constitutional garrisoning of the globe.
BW, just to clarify, your position is that any profit greater than ten times of the "actual value" of a product (or service) is the kind of profit you would like to see eliminated from any market that interacts or is wholly contained by the health care industry?
You repeat that health care is a right, and is no place for profits, but there is plenty of opportunity for profit in the exercising of your rights. I suppose most of the authors of the lead articles on this site are paid for their work. But how do they determine the "actual value"? Does the CWA set a price per paragraph that all publishers have to pay? Or is it up to the writers and the check writers? Who sets this price? And who would set it under single payer health care? Government and it's HMO spawn? Or doctors and patients?
You have the freedom to disagree or dismiss these very serious questions about the operation of your proposal. I just don't understand why you're so bent on getting the government to force me to agree with you. It actually seems like the greedier, nastier position to use state violence to get your way instead of allowing free people to voluntarily choose their health care. Because there would be no opting-out: every person would pay for this so-called "single payer" system directly through taxation (well, not all of it, their kids would pay for today's services, too, through inflation and borrowing.)
Trillions for 700 plus overseas military bases, wars and other pentagon orgies but no single payer health insurance? We not only need to put single payer as the MAIN thing on the table, we have to shove bloated pentagon spending completely off the backs of the American people. And folks, don't let them snow you about all the people the pentagon employs. Most of the money is going to the top 1% of the CEOs in the "offense" industry.
Sioux Rose
AGG: Right on! The money was/is there to bail out banks, to pay for military bases and wars of caprice, but when it comes to citizens' needs (and it IS the ciizens' money being utilized) then it suddenly becomes "socialism."
When we study THIS issue (single payer) while looking the budget for the beast (MIC) in the eye, we see the glaring and disgusting priorities that are used to rationalize both sets of expenditures.
No, the money isn't there for any of this stuff, warfare or welfare, they are printing it out of thin air. Call it socialism or fascism, either way, it's fraud backed by force.
"Call it socialism or fascism, either way, it's fraud backed by force."
So is the current corporate system. What's your point sir?
Is it fair to providers to socialize healthcare and not law, oil, etc.?
do you know how much money would the HMO's execs and investors be fighting for if obama decided to go for single payer ? answer: enough for them to cough up some savings to hire full time and for several years every one of the many mercenary armies of the USA plus the whole of organized crime, just to get rid of him. be careful of what you ask for, else you may end up having to whine about "the friend of usury" aka joseph biden...
Oh, so we're supposed to just accept that we'll never get single-payer because there's a possibility some of its most virulent opponents might assassinate Obama? If we have to always worry about that, we're stuck with every single thing the Bush administration gave us: a whole lotta war, a bankrupt economy, lies, murder and piracy sponsored by us the world over. He HAS to make major departures from all that, including this pathetic excuse for a healthcare system or what's the point? We may as well have Bush/Cheney for another 8 years. Let the Secret Service and his personal bodyguards deal with the threat factor. If they're too incompetent to protect him, that can't be the fault of those who've tried to get him to show some progressive cojones and stop giving in to corporate elites.
Yep, Obama knows the exact location of the line that JFK, MLK and RFK crossed that cost them their lives.
It's a sad truth. There are those who will 'do what's necessary'. Those with much power and or wealth will do anything to keep what they have. It would be so much easier to kill a black man than a Catholic in this country. I admire Obama for his intelligence, but not particularly for his courage.
I agree. One person out there alone is a target. There are soooo many things that have to be fixed. Obama has to choose his battles. It is up to us. It always has been.
Joe
TOOK IT OFF THE TABLE OBAMA NEVER HAD IT ON THE TABLE IN THE FIRST PLACE.CHANGE U CAN BE[LIE]VE IN.YEA RIGHT
The "usual suspects": health-insurance providers, Big Pharma and health-care-reform advocates--would very much like to sweep single-payer quickly UNDER the table.
As Dr. Dr. Rick Lipin writes--"both Big Insurance Companies and Big PhRMA have lost significant credibility with the American Public.--Do you know anyone who doesn't fight with their health insurance company?"
They're guilty as sin and now they're trying to hide it.
There oughta be a law--this kind of healthcare scullduggery oughta be a crime.
And if HR 676 is made into law it will be.
Wake up!! All you who continue clambering for more than a two party system: it's here, and been here! Unfortunately, the platforms are so narrow and the candidate's so disconnected from mainstream citizens, the only way they could win would be to split the vote so that less than 30% would win(of course that would take at least 4 candidates). Then much less than a majority would have taken control of the country, except, congress is pretty much 2 party, and probably would not go along with a 3rd or 4th party winner, and if congress had 3 or 4 parties running, it would be like the Israel government, trying to form a coalition in order to get anything done. WE're not getting anything done Now!
What we need to do to get this single payer(Nationalized) WHATEVER. (Hell we can't even agree on what it is!!!!!!) passed is to overload the media. Our congress is media, and lobbyist driven. The constituency ain't us. But, since we absolutely (without a boycott...forget about it)won't sway the lobby, perhaps the attention to US could come from the media, if we can get THEIR attention. This healthcare dialogue has been a long time coming and it will be a long time before it comes around again. It had better be done right this time.
John,
In most of the world, they have either runoff elections, so someone gets elected with at least 50% plus one, or they have instant runoff, where you put mark your preference for each candidate with a number, or like-minded parties form a coalition government to get a majority.
Most of these things could also be done in the US and it would not require a constitutional amendment.
---USAn---
It still amazes me that full health care is provided in the military, government and in prison and is in effect single payer health care - is it not?
The military yes but the government health insurance has gradually been eroded. I'm retired FAA and the Blue Cross deductible keeps going up, the co-pay keeps going up, the CEO of Blue Cross in Vermont makes almost $600,000 a year and my premium went up 13% this year. And this is one of the "better" insurers. It's getting unreal how they have redifined screening tests so that if they find something it all of a sudden becomes "diagnostic" so now I have to pay $300 or so for something that was supposed to be covered. They are deliberately making it more difficult to get blood tests even though they claim they are covered. They deserve the corporate death sentence. And for those who are concerned because they work for Blue Cross, I suggest you start job hunting in a field that helps people instead of dissing people.
It's amazing how some idiots will spite and shoot their faces out against single payer healthcare. To these single payer bashers, please explain how the current privatized moneycare shit is helping you out. Single payer is the best way to ensure public responsibility and can in fact reduce all that bureaucratic red tape work. As for the myth that "people in the insurance companies will lose their jobs, wah wah wah", the only jobs they'll lose are mainly the DISHONEST jobs of fudging the numbers and working as slaves to their masters of denying their customers what they paid for. If you lose your "job" because of single payer, that means GOD is telling you to get an honest job.
And to the assholes crying "socialized medicine", it already exists. Besides, we've got socialized police, socialized fire departments, socialized public education, socialized water and sewer systems, socialized roads, corporate socialism, military-industrial-complex socialism, so what are you crybabies complaining about. Give single payer a chance and either get busy living or get busy dying !
I personally would stand to benefit from single-payer, but that isn't the right way to judge political matters. I might personally would stand to benefit from voting for a person that would take over the middle east and share oil profits equally among every citizen, but I wouldn't vote for it. I don't think that "the greater good of the whole" is justification for violating rights of individuals. I am not okay with the wealthier segment of the population subsidizing my health care because I happen to be born in the same country as them.
90% of the population is religious. Suppose it was in the interest of the greater good to have a state church. Is that cool with you? After all, the pack as a whole benefits, right?
So what does religion have to do with healthcare? Oh I forgot, this is one of the few "Christian" nations that doesn't do single payer healthcare. Religion is a disease !
"So what does religion have to do with healthcare?"
It is called an analogy. If the point isn't transparent in one concrete situation, you create another example containing the same point and hope that the audience sees the underlying thread that makes the two situations similar. Apparently, the attempt failed with you.
Well said! I have never heard the arguments about socialized water, sewers, police, army and fire department before, although it is obvious.
Joe
Right on!
Tell 'em, JW. You've got the goods on these anti-social creeps. Great job!
Hi, thanks. I admit. I picked up more info on the socializing stuff from others. I have to put up with the kind of conservative creeps even in El Paso although it's not as conservative as a great deal of the state of TX.
I believe Obama is working for a plan where people can choose whether to go with the government plan or take one with an insurance company. That may not be as desirable as a complete government run plan, but it might be as good as can be done at the present time. It does no good to end up with nothing rather than settle for what may have a chance now. It will not be easy to take the health insurance completely away from the big insurors and will probably need to be done in steps. We can only work with the possible and this is a very bad time to have to deal with this issue.
"It will not be easy to take the health insurance completely away from the big insurors and will probably need to be done in steps."
Think about it--so far, the insurance industry and allies with all their connections, power and money and lobbyists have been able to deny Americans a basic human right.
If you don't think it will be "easy" now to protect a basic human right--how easy do you think it will be when the for-profit system is expanded and further entrenched?
I think incremental change has it's place as an approach to solving some social problems--but not when powerful vested and entrenched interests are arrayed and organized against that change--as they are with regard to today's for-profit healthcare.
That's why historically, according to Dr. David Himmelstein at PNHP, other countries' that sucsessfully moved to single-player did so by "trailblazing" and not by moving incrementally.
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/february/himmelstein_responds.php
I don't think many people realize how powerful and profitable the health insurance racket is, and how intrenched. It's my opinion that only a revolution will be able to change things. If it ever looks like 'single payer' has a chance the kid gloves will come off.
"I don't think many people realize how powerful and profitable the health insurance racket is..."
I don't know, I suspect they--we--do.
I think for the most part people have narrowed their outlook to self-interest. So I don't think we need a new revolution--just a rededication to the principles and ideals of our founding one.
I think if you read our history with a very critical eye and look past all the propaganda you will see that the principles and ideals of our founding fathers have never worked. They didn't end slavery, and when slavery ended, blacks were soon re-enslaved. They didn't keep the country from being stolen by uncontrolled land grabbing. They didn't save the indigenous peoples from physical and cultural genocide. They are wonderful abstractions produced by the age of enlightenment, but we need some practical principles suitable for the modern age, such as an end to corporate personhood, ways to keep wealth and power redistributed, ways to curb lobbying, etc. And I don't think most people realize how far the intrenched powers of wealth such as health insurance companies will go to protect their status. They are NOT going to give it up, and only revolution (or a miracle such as a change of heart) will unseat them. I'm not expecting a messiah or the second coming, so revolution will have to do. Obama is certainly not up to the task, and our congress is a joke.
gunboatdiplomat March 11th, 2009 12:43 pm wrote: "For example, "Single-payer" is not what people want - what people want is a National Health Care Service along the lines of British and Canadian systems."
Canada does not have a national health care service and we don't want one. We have single-payer non-profit universal medical insurance administered by the provinces (and for some groups - the military and the RCMP, for example - the federal government). It is quite different from the British system.
"single-payer non-profit universal medical insurance administered by the provinces" - well that rolls off the tongue! I don't know what the hell to call it, but the citizens of the Greatest Free Nation on Earth are tired of getting screwed.
I don't know what to call it, either. Here in BC, we call it the Medical Services Plan, or MSP, or BC Medical. But that doesn't really describe what it is, so I threw in some descriptors. I could have added "portable" and "comprehensive."
If anyone wants to understand how the Canadian system works, a good place to start is by reading the Canada Health Act, the federal legislation that mandates what provinces must offer their residents to qualify for federal health dollars.
How can we have single payer health when it means a loss of benefits for Senators and Representatives?
Government workers at all levels (including school teachers paid by local government)have excellent health benefits that they negotiated through their unions.
The State of NY has a very expensive health plan which was negotiated by the civil service unions. While there are premiums and co-pays, most workers would pay a modest amount to have an excellent plan.
Many private industries have negotiated health plans which provide benefits at a reasonable cost.
We need more details and reassurance that single payer plans will acutally be better than our current plans. The devil is really in the detail.
I would love a single payer plan. I, however, do not want a plan that is based on Original Medicare. Original Medicare may be universal. How do we explain the millions who reject Medicare for creditable coverage from their retiree health plans? How do we explain the millions who have switched to Medicare Advantage Plans? How do we expain the millions who buy Medigap policies?
In order to sell a single-payer plan to all interested parties, we need a lot more detail on available servies.
Some factual errors there sawce.
The States are facing rising health care costs as are the corporations. Many are in renegotiation with the unions to gain more of the rising costs from the workers, my own company being one such.
Can you show a link to those "millions" who reject Medicare? I believe most use medicare to supplement their private plans upon retirement, and not, as you suggest , abandon medicare at all.
You are correct in requiring more information, unfortunately the health care industry works diligently to block such information from getting to you. It is really up to you to do the legwork. As it is for us all.
Nice post. I agree with you.
Why would Obama or any legislator listen to progressives? All we give them is grief, insults and demands. Big Pharma and their ilk give them lots of money, perks and good publicity. Plus they will carry out any threats, including defamation, blackmail and murder when we principled progressives will not.
This is not a politician's failure as much as it is a failure of representative government. We should be fighting for direct democracy, but that is a subject that elicits blank stares.
Meanwhile, we can help the nnoc.net and other people and organizations push for single payer.
Yes, Obama knows that, while the millions of progressives that supported him MAY determine if he gets re-elected, big pharma and the financial industry(which includes insurance) WILL determine if he gets a second term.
THis is why I gave money to this site and not to Counterpunch.
The article was very good but as usual the comments are much better. That is not a slight on the article for it faciliated the discussion-- in short it allowed for a MEDIATED discussion.
Why do I get the feeling that Sir Alex Of Humboldt Musclecars is chicken to allow for disagreement? Thanks Common Dreams for allowing a comments section. No need to hide it--
wear it like a badge called democracy small d.
-----
Please read JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, or people will remain thinking that the Presidents Chosen by Wolf Blitzer will change everything, and we-- as a species will devlove into quivering lime Jello, and not even cold quiverin
Tell the same thing to Amy Goodman, who won't allow a comments section on her website either. Nor will she explain why, in 2005, she took $150,000 from the Ford Foundation, despite having to agree to a clause promising not to "promote violence or terrorism" - which the ACLU refused to, and so turned down the funding. I'm starting to think that Cockburn and Goodman are really just false fronts for corporate interests, always spinning away from the real issue.
For example, "Single-payer" is not what people want - what people want is a National Health Care Service along the lines of British and Canadian systems.
Yes there is historical precedence for this left gatekeeping. See history of Encounter Magazine aimed at left liberals. It was CIA entirelyl. See Francis Stoner Sounders The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World Of Arts and Letters.
I think the special communications strategies of intelligence agencies in Media is Public Issue #1.
They let Chomsky chomp away at Indonesia ONLY on condition that he maintaiin the lie that is coast to coast 300,000, 000
citizens: the gov is the 3 branches boys and girls. Its about access ramps. Cannot allow the Political Assassinations of 1960s onto Democracy Now .
WHy is that more dangerous than a billion Indoenesians Genocides?
Because if you mess with that your messing with the basic model, the common denominatro that -- right or wrong-- is in everyones heads whether they are a drop out or an Ivy leage Post modern jack off. Cant have that.
Just so Must CockburnGoodmanChomper reassassinate the Kennedys.
Please read JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, or people will remain thinking that the Presidents Chosen by Wolf Blitzer will change everything, and we-- as a species will devlove into quivering lime Jello, and not even cold quiverin
"For example, "Single-payer" is not what people want - what people want is a National Health Care Service along the lines of British and Canadian systems."
But that is exactly what the British and Canadian systems are! They are single payer. The patient goes for service and the doctor bills the government. The only difference is that the UK system is actually nationalized: the doctors, hospital staff, etc. are employed by the government and paid salaries by the government. I don't believe the Canadian system works like that but that it's more like Medicare or the French system (maybe some Canadian could help me out here).
But both are nothing if not single payer.
Rainborowe
Point taken. They could always fall back to defining single payer as being for insurance. What we want is National Health Care Service. It's a utility, a public utility. Public utilities worked rather well for us and privatization has done nothing to enhance delivery of the common good. Letting money speak in Washington has led to the banking crisis as well as the health care crisis. The so-called free market proponents keep putting their hands out for more money. Like mutant socialists, aka as fascists, they always want more government protection, a bigger corporate subsidy or tax payer bailout and yet still cry about free markets and socialism. Our health care system is already socialized; it is a major profit center representing the equivalent of an Iraq War every year in dole.
If governments are instituted among men to secure their unalienable rights and derive their consent from the governed, then it is legitimate to include the utility of health care among the services of government. Government is inherently a socialist system. The only question left to resolve is whether the lobbyists should be able to continue to increase their socialist subsidy at the expense of the greater good, or if the greater good would be better served by making those expenditures apply to providing care as a public utility. Many would benefit, including business.
Just like impeachment for Bush was "off the table" by the criminal politicians ( the Greeks had it right, as in Greek, poli means many and tics means blood sucking leaches) in Congress, so these corrupt legislators, have taken single payer "off the table" because people like Sen. Baucus of Montana, have sold out the American people again! He and his cohorts take thousands of $ from big pharma and the greedy insurance co. Change we cannot believe in anymore!
No wonder we're not on Sen. Baucus's table! We're under it! Mr. "I can't hear you" Baucus raised $11,602,470 in 2008.
Top 5 Contributors:
Schering-Plough Corporation
New York Life Insurance
KKR & Co.
Goldman Sachs
Da Vita, Inc. (dialysis for profit)
Top 5 Industries:
Securities & Investment
Lawyers and Law Firms
Insurance
Health Professionals
Pharmaceutical/Health Products
Baucus: "So sorry, but I can't hear you over the sound of all that campaign cash. Surely your suffering is nothing to me."
Edited to add: KKR & Co is Kohlberg Kravis Roberts of private leveraged buyout fame. They, along with Bain Capital (Mitt Romney) and Merrill Lynch, bought HCA in 2006. Younger folks don't remember Bill Frist - Senator, Doctor and Insider Trader- whose family started HCA. They've been taking tax money and shareholder money instead of providing care since something like 1996. They're private again, bought for $31.6 Billion. Funny thing is that they're going to work for the Chinese government because the Chinese are providing a universal health care to their peasants to keep them from overthrowing the government.
Amy Goodman was one of the several progressive journalists who supported Obama during the campaign, knowing fully well that he was just another Democrat, which means Republican, corrupt, self-seeking and corporatist.
His health-care "reform" will never betray some of his closest allies, the drug and insurance companies. Her hope that, unlike McCain, Obama's at least someone one can argue with, is just pure stupidity.
Exactly right! Even basic and modest reforms are being held up, although much of that is due to interference by Senate Republicans. Daschle, for example, was the only nominee with enough knowledge of the Congress to get even small reforms pushed through. Recall, Daschle was the victim of the anthrax attacks so he might have been motivated to pay close attention to the Project Bioshield funding scams - but even that was deemed too much, so Grassley and Hatch and other pharma-funded Finance Committee Republicans dug up a tax issue that Daschle didn't know about - and Obama didn't even bother defending him. That was also due to a big mailing effort by pharma PR firms - and now, they've got ex-corporate health care types at the head of HHS.
Not that Daschle or Obama would be interested in a National Health Care Service - now, that would be change you could believe in.
So, all the good that Amy does is forfeit because she supported Obama? When did progressives become so intolerant of other perspectives?
What's next--- an oath of progressive purity?
Your rant is become strident of late,madcow. You should really work on that. This is not about "political purity" and you know it, it is about not getting fooled again and again and again.
When you take umbrage with those who criticize you are standing against an important necessity of our democracy, and you offer no logic or fact to support your side of the argument. In fact you join the ranks of AZJoe and the execrable Nebraska Nathan in dumping on Nader...well done ( not). This seems only an attempt to silence rather than an honest effort to find the truth.
You have done better in the past, I would imagine that it is getting harder and harder to continue to support your man as the evidence piles up....
Who elected you referee of the CD comments section Red Rick? I take umbrage with anyone who trashes Amy Goodman for not being a good progressive. Explain to me, please, how Amy is trying to fool us with Democracy Now!. She does more in one day to move this country left than any of these dogmatic pseudo-socialists does in a lifetime. And I don't dump on Nader, thank you very much---never have.
So, in addition to being an Obama cheerleader you are also an Amy Goodman pompom girl as well. Who gives a rats ass, frankly. You are free to support him and her just as others are free to be critical of them and their positions.
Oh and fuck you very much for that nasty comment. This forum is a place where all are free to comment and free to criticize. Your criticisms are increasingly designed to stifle commentary and not to exchange it. That was my point.
Talk about nasty comments and stifling commentary. Do me a favor, Red Rick, reread this exchange and tell me if you can't see why I might have been a little snippy with you. You accuse me of stifling commentary, being strident, and trashing Nader (something I've never done). And you compare me to others who post here, who you obviously have no respect for.
Peace.
Look madcow, I like you and usually respect your efforts here. If I was over the top then I apologize and would begin again. Being involved with our newest troll, yet another who calls himself "progressive" and posts like Attila was his political mentor, and I guess it leaked over onto you.
My only point is that it is not a crime to criticize our President's policies and directions, nor do those who do so with honesty and truthfulness deserve less than respect. I agree that some are over the top, on both sides in fact. You are in agreement with some of those as well in your "tolerance" of Barack Obama and his intent. I do not see you cautioning those with whom you are allied yet you repeatedly, and occasionally snidely, dig into those who are critical of policies that I find puzzling and you tolerate.
I am one who has asked even those with whom I agree to debate civilly, though I hasten to add I am a serious offender as passions run high on certain topics, death of innocents being high on that list. Anyway, I apologize and hope to exchange views with you again, perhaps with less ego involved.
Apology accepted---thanks. (I noticed the troll exchange, and figured something might be leaking over). You're right about me too---I am perhaps, occasionally, too tolerant of Obama's failings. It's usually in response to an attack that seems unfair or over the top. The real shame is that it seems there are "sides" here between progressives---the socialists who want to blow up the unsalvageable, corrupt system and start over, and those like me who think the change can only come through a long slow process of incremental progress.
One thing I have a hard time tolerating is this idea that's out there that anyone who shows any support---past or present---for Obama is a corrupt sellout who can't be trusted. An idea that leads to---Amy Goodman must have some ulterior motive in pushing for single-payer healthcare because she showed support for Obama. Or her message is entirely ignored because she's a "lesser evilist"....
How does this attitude get us anywhere?
Anyway---thanks again.
I see a call for incremental change as a fleeting hope, precisely because the function and the thrust of our governance is focused solely on the benefits to the corporate entities that finance our politicians. If change is to occur it will only be through the people taking to the streets to force change.
Forcing an end to corporate personhood, forcing a change in our elections that takes the power of money out of the equation. Why did Barack Obama need to raise and spend seven hundred million dollars to gain the White House? Do you not agree that wiser voices and better leadership may be lost because it cannot be heard over the roar of three quarters of a billion dollars? Why are the top twelve jobs at Treasury STILL vacant after almost sixty days of his administration? Why are so many of his nominees( four and counting) failing the litmus test because they failed to properly pay their taxes? Why is Gates still at Defense? Why is Summers in a position that has Obama's ear on the economy while Geithner is an abject fiasco? How does one reach Obama when Emmanuel guards the door?
How does one achieve incremental change when our elected politicos are not listening to we the people but to we the board of directors? I fear that we will see, in a decade or less, rioting in our cities as we turn ever increasingly into just another third world nation.
The ex CEO of Bear Sterns, responsible for the sinking of a hundred year old firm, just purchased a twenty eight million dollar apartment overlooking Central Park in New York...Crime and punishment? I think not.
Any objective reader would see that you were the first to resort to personal criticisms(nasty comments) rather than impersonal attacks on ideas.
I was unaware that you were included in this conversation. I have criticized you to be certain, I think you an obvious troll in fact. My initial comment to madcow, however, was plainly stated and if he found it personal that is for him to say. Stay the fuck out of it when you are only motivated by a desire to get back at me for the way Ive treated your right wing bullshit.
You are far from an objective reader in fact.
I am not trying to be a troll. Is it wrong to go to a left website and present my opinions along with my reasoning if they disagree with those presented/supported by the site? Sorry, I guess I didn't know that everyone just wanted to agree with each other and have a big group jerk off session. I am NOT right wing and I claim that my view on this matter is consistent with Noam Chomsky's political views of voluntary association and organization. I voted for Obama and strongly opposed McCain.
By avoiding my arguments and just packaging them as "right wing bullshit", you are doing the same thing as people on the right by calling everything "socialism" and avoiding an actual discussion.
So supporting someone who's not a Democrat, which means Republican, corrupt, self-seeking and corporatist is now all of a sudden being a progressive purist! lolol
The reasoning, excuses and apologies of Lesser Evilists are mind-boggling. Amy Goodman is just another gutless journalist, nothing more. If she had any shame, she'd be exposing Obama for what he is, a liberal fraud, on a daily basis. She has the platform, her daily show.
Your mentioning evil just reminds me of Bush's "axis of evil" crap. I'm sorry, friend, I don't see any evil at all. Just men and women trying to do their best in a screwed-up system.
Narrow minded= All democrats are corporatist and just like republican. Anyone who sees any progress happening now is a deluded democratic party apologist, lesser evilist. No room for anything else=narrow minded.
Amy Goodman supports Obama= she's a DPA, lesser evilist!
Noam Chomsky said good things about progress= He's a gate-keeper!
Norman Soloman backed Obama= he's a shill!
The truth is extreme, friend. It is or it is not.
If you're trying to do your best in a screwed-up system by voting for a shill (Obama) for the same system, you're the one who's narrow-minded.
If you think "progress" is escalating the war in Afghanistan, staying in Iraq forever, giving billions to banks and Wall Street, not prosecuting Bush for torture and other crimes, etc. then you're a shill just like Obama.
And tell mevwhich Democrat with power right now isn't a corporatist like a Republican. Stop making excuses for your weakness as a thinking citizen.
"If you're trying to do your best in a screwed-up system by voting for a shill (Obama) for the same system, you're the one who's narrow-minded."
Tell me what success you're having by voting for your "pure" Nader or McKinney. How's that working for you? You think your "good" vote absolves you from the sins that are America today? Sorry---You live here, then you participate in the "rewards" that our empire brings home. You, me and every other American are responsible for Bush, the wars, and the bases, and all the weapons we export. Not to mention the fast food and the mind-numbing TV shows. This is what WE are.
You can work to change it from within OR from without. Anyone who puts a dent in it is okay in my book---that includes Feingold, Kucinich, Obama, Amy Goodman, Soloman, Chomsky, Ron Paul, Ed Kennedy, Nader, Glenn Greenwald, and many, many others who I'm sure don't meet your strict test of "progressive purity"
You putting Obama and Chomsky in the same sentence is enough proof that you can't be taken seriously.
Truth is, only Obama out of all the people that you mentioned has the real power to "put a dent" in the system right now. Not only has he given us obvious signs that he won't (as a Senator and now as President), but he's also making it worse by escalating the war and giving trillions to Wall Street conglomerates. Will you apologists please wake up?
As for the "rewards" that our empire brings home, unless you're in the 2% top, there's absolutely no such thing as "rewards", come back to Earth will you, 600,000 jobs are being lost every month and food pantries are turning down hungry Americans.
"You putting Obama and Chomsky in the same sentence is enough proof that you can't be taken seriously."
Notice how you put them both in the same sentence---what do you think that says about you?
Ha-ha
"Truth is, only Obama out of all the people that you mentioned has the real power to "put a dent" in the system right now"
Do you seriously believe that? What about artists and writers and rock-stars? Don't you think John Lennon had something positive to bring to the table, something that dented the system a little?
The idea that only one man has the power to change things is what I mean when I say narrow-minded.
And when was the last time you traveled to a 3rd world country? If you believe that only the top 2% of Americans reap the rewards of our empire, then you've been living a sheltered life and need to get out and see how the rest of the world lives.
And one more thing: Do you think that there's any chance that Obama's actions toward Wall St. might just be designed to stave off another great depression? No, of course you don't. You decry the 600,000 jobs and food pantries opening, but have no positive suggestion as to what our leaders can do to stem the tide. It's all just black and white with no shades of grey.
ditto
The reality of the situation is that if every democratic candidate had the platform of Dennis Kucinich or Noam Chomsky, the republican revolution would have continued and they wouldn't even have to have a "moderate" who believes in things like global warming to win.
We can thank those who supported Barack Obama for not having McCain in office. We can thank Obama for not having a spending freeze during a recession, strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions, etc.
What broken healthcare system? It's working perfectly, and if we can get the 47 million without health care signed up to an insurance company it can only increase profit for the insurance and pharmaceutical companys, it seems this is the only goal of our health care system.
Well, then buy stock in insurance and pharamaceutical companies. Risk free profits right? Then you can use those profits to do good!
To add insult to injury, big pharma has learned from the financial industry that it pays to be big, not only to be able to pay bigger bribes to elected officials, but when you are "too big to fail", the politicians can just tell the taxpayers that you are "too big to fail", thereby justifying handing over boatloads of US taxpayers' money to you.
Look for the US Government to approve more mega pharma mergers in the near future.
Keep fascism alive to keep the socialist menace from infecting our homeland.