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TechnoratiTop Ten Enemies of Single Payer
Most people, when they arrive in Washington, D.C., see it for what it is - a cesspool of corruption.
Two reasonable reactions to the cesspool.
One, run away screaming in fear.
Two, stay and fight back and bring to justice those who have corrupted our democracy.
Unfortunately, many choose a third way - stay and be transformed.
Instead of seeing a cesspool, they begin seeing a hot tub.
The result - profits and wealth for the corporate elite - death, disease and destruction for the American people.
Nowhere does this corrupt, calculating transformation do more damage than in the area of health care.
Outside the beltway cesspool/hot tub, the majority of doctors, nurses, small businesses, health economists, and the majority of the American people - according to recent polls - want a Canadian-style, single payer, everybody in, nobody out, free choice of doctor and hospital, national health insurance system.
Inside the beltway cesspool/hot tub, the corrupt elite will have none of it.
They won't even put single payer on the table for discussion.
Why not?
Because it will bring a harsh justice - the death penalty - to their buddies in the multi-billion dollar private health insurance industry.
The will of the American people is being held up by a handful of organizations and individuals who profit off the suffering of the masses.
And the will of the American people will not be done until this criminal elite is confronted and defeated.
(Remember, virtually the entire industrialized world - save for us, the U.S. - makes it a crime to allow for-profit health insurance corporations to make money selling basic health insurance.)
Before we confront and defeat the inside the beltway cesspool/hot tub crowd, we must first know who they are.
To wit, we present the Top Ten Enemies of Single Payer (listed here in alphabetical order):
American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). AARP, one of DC's most powerful lobbying groups, has worked inside the beltway for years to defeat single payer. Why? AARP makes about a quarter of its money selling insurance through its affiliate, United Healthcare Group, the nation's largest for-profit insurance company. AARP must defeat single payer - which if enacted, would wipe out that revenue stream.
America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). The private health insurance industry. Public enemy number one. The health insurance corporations must die so that the American people can live. Of course, facing the death penalty, AHIP is the most aggressive opponent to single payer. No compromise with AHIP.
American Medical Association. With a shrinking base of doctors (only 25 percent of doctors nationwide belong) - the AMA is the most conservative of the doctors' organizations. I just returned from a health care policy forum at the Center for American Progress. As usual, not one of the panelists mentioned single payer. Only during the question period did a self-identified patient/citizen ask the single payer question. And a pit bull-like Nancy Nielsen, president of the AMA, ripped into the questioner. "Sounds more like a statement than a question," Nielsen said. "And clearly you have a point of view about that. And I don't happen to share that point of view." Clearly she doesn't. But just as clearly, the majority of doctors, probably even a majority of doctors who belong to the AMA, support single payer. Nielsen is in denial and must be defeated.
Barack Obama. He was for it when he was a state Senator in Illinois. Now, ensconced in the corporate prison that is the White House, he says single payer is off the table. To get off the list, Obama needs to put single payer back on the table.
Business Roundtable. Dr. David Himmelstein, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), was at a health care forum a couple of years ago sponsored by the Business Roundtable. And the moderator asked the audience - made up primarily of representatives of big business - to indicate their preference of health care reforms. And the majority came out in favor of single payer. Why then is the Business Roundtable opposed? Himmelstein put it this way: "In private, they support single payer, but they're also thinking - if you can take away someone else's business - the insurance companies' business - you can take away mine. Also, if workers go on strike, I want them to lose their health insurance. And it's also a cultural thing - we don't do that kind of thing in this country."
Families USA. A major inside the beltway liberal foundation and long-time foe of single payer. It's chief executive, Ron Pollack, was once an advocate for single payer. But no more. In November 1991, Pollack was at a Washington hotel debating Yale University professor Ted Marmor in front of then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. Marmor was making the argument for single payer. Pollack against. A November 1994 article in the Washington Monthly, co-authored by Marmor, reported the result this way: "After the two advocates finished, Clinton looked thoughtful, pointed to Marmor and said, ‘Ted, you win the argument.' But gesturing to Pollack, Marmor recalls, the governor quickly added, ‘But we're going to do what he says.' Even considering the Canadian system, everyone in the room agreed, would prompt GOP cries of ‘socialized medicine' - cries that the press would faithfully report."
Health Care for America Now. The largest coalition of liberal groups promoting a choice between a public plan and private insurance companies. "They are saying - we can't do single payer because Americans don't want it," said Kip Sullivan of the Minnesota chapter of PNHP. "That's based on junk research conducted by Celinda Lake for the Herndon Alliance. It is bad enough to say we can't do single payer because the insurance industry is too powerful to beat. But it is just plain insidious to say we can't do single payer because the American people don't want it. In fact, polling data indicates that two-thirds of Americans support a single payer system. And that level of support exists despite the fact that there is little public discussion about it."
Kaiser Family Foundation. One of the most prestigious liberal inside the beltway think tanks on health reform policy. Saul Friedman is a reporter for Newsday. In February, Friedman wrote an article for Newsday arguing that single payer is suffering from a conspiracy of silence. And he says Kaiser is the most culpable of the co-conpsirators. Kaiser, funded initially by insurance industry money, regularly keeps single payer off the table, Friedman says. When single payer advocates released a study in January asserting that Congressman John Conyers' single payer bill (HR 676) could create 2.6 million new jobs and would cost far less than the private insurance currently paid for by individuals and employers, "the Kaiser Family Foundation's daily online report on health care developments at kff.org didn't mention it," Friedman reported. "Nor has Kaiser, the most comprehensive online source of health care information, made any mention of single-payer or the Conyers bill since it was introduced in 2003, despite widespread support for such a plan according to Kaiser's own polls." After a number of insistent inquiries, Kaiser told Friedman that they would publish charts in March comparing the Stark and Conyers bills. They never did.
The Lewin Group. The go-to consulting firm for health reform studies. The most recent study, released last week and widely quoted in the press, of the public plan option, showed that the insurance industry would lose 32 million policy holders if a public plan is enacted. Lewin's health reform policy guru, John Sheils, told the Associated Press: "The private insurance industry might just fizzle out altogether." What the mainstream press didn't report was that The Lewin Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ingenix, which is in turn owned by UnitedHealth Group, the nation's largest health insurance corporation. Lewin Group has conducted studies on single payer at the state level - and their studies consistently show that single payer is the most efficient cost saving system. But Lewin Group has never done a study on HR 676 - which would create a single payer for the entire country and drive The Lewin Group's parent - UnitedHealth Group- out of business. When asked why Lewin Group never has done a study on HR 676, Sheils said - "the President didn't propose single payer, did he?" No, he didn't. That's why he too is on this list. (Sheils says The Lewin Group has studied national single payer. He points to a recent comparison of the different health reform proposals floating on Capitol Hill - including one by Congressman Pete Stark (D-California). Stark's bill would give every American the option of opting into Medicare. But that's not single payer, because it keeps the private insurance industry in the game. Sheils counters that he modeled the Stark bill as single-payer. "The employer coverage option under the Stark bill is made so unfavorable that no employer would do it. We have everyone in Medicare, with the resulting savings." Sheils says that of all the plans studied, the Stark bill saves the most money.)
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association of America (PHRMA). PHRMA chief executive Billy Tauzin says that under single payer, the government would become a "price fixer." By which he means, the government, as a single payer, will have the power to negotiate drug prices downward, thus costing the drug corporations millions in excess profits. In recent years, PHRMA has infiltrated liberal sounding groups like America's Agenda - Health Care for All. PHRMA's Vice President for Government Affairs and Law, Jan Faiks, now sits on the board of America's Agenda and PHRMA contributes money to the group - which has worked in recent years to undermine single payer at the state level. (America's Agenda Mark Blum won't say how much money PHRMA gives to his group.)
We have met the enemy.
And they ain't us.
70 Comments so far
Show AllIf one pays insurance to any large insurance company with connections in the beltway, part of the money goes to lobbying politicians to deny single payer health coverage. The same goes for paying about half the nation's medical services.
Folks, if we want to win this, we may have to drain the $wamp.
BeForKids has an excellent idea: purchase TV time so people hear about single-payer's advantages week after week.
We need a multi-millionaire/billionaire who can, for instance, purchase ad time on every network, including PBS and Fox (if Fox would accept his/her money).
If the oil, mining and nuclear power industries can propagandize us into believing that their pollution is good for us (they hope), why can't single payer be on those same air waves talking about what really IS good for us?
Ok, find a multi-millionaire/billionaire who believes in single-payer and will be willing to fund it.
Wake up the Democrats who oppose single-payer by supporting the Green Party. It's time to pull a Eugene Debs and go third-party to influence the Washington agenda.
Ditto.
I think I shall defect to Cuba. I hear thay have great healthcare.
They're living just as long as we are, anyway.
Single payer healthcare, through a 50% reduction in healthcare costs, frees up everyone's lives for more leisure, recreation and study. Healthcare recipients are able to work fewer hours for the same quality healthcare. And healthcare providers can accomplish more in fewer hours of work. Now that's progress. USans can push through single payer by canceling their private insurance policies in protest. Maybe we can get the media to report on such a boycott.
Here's an eye opener. Make a list of the:
Top Ten Proponents of Single Payer
How many on that list actually don't have insurance? In other words, where is the mass of uninsured voices demanding single-payer?
You know, the general public.
The groups protesting at the "healthcare" summit in LA--the CNA and labor unions etc all have some form of healthcare.
The guy who wrote this article might even have it.
Is it possible no one's trying to rally the uninsured because there's the underlying assumption or acceptance that the Republican viewpoint of the average American citizen is correct?
So instead of asking our neighbors we have to ask Where’s Our Elizabeth Warren for Healthcare?
What is your suggestion for the best means of rallying the uninsured? Specifics, please--what techniques not already being employed should be employed?
Thank you, Russell, for another excellent article. If we're going to have the change everybody says they want (and that they in fact need), we must adopt single-payer. It's by far the best health care delivery system proposed, and it represents a mini-revolution, a change in the society's mentality, and, cracks in the corporate power structure.
All in favor, keep at the Washington types to pass H.R. 676. There are too few information outlets open to us, so let's make the best use of what we have.
Let's go for it!
Maybe Hugo Chavez will finance medical trips to Havana for destitute Americans.
We can get better healthcare but we can't pay more!
Good article Russell.
But stop using the word "liberal" so loosely.
If you want it to mean the "free marketeers" that control the healthcare market, say so. Otherwise you are letting these conservatives off the hook by confusing them with liberals. The same conservatives that have caused our economic meltdown, healthcare crisis and are against single payer.
"Barack Obama. He was for it when he was a state Senator in Illinois. Now, ensconced in the corporate prison that is the White House, he says single payer is off the table."
I think he just wants to stay alive. If he was really smart, he would put single payer up for referendum.
One of the top ten big time supporters of single payer is the Physicians for a National Health Program, which I now proudly belong to as a non physician. I'm so glad I joined.
AD
This writer makes the point so well why progressives must use moral values in this debate and in that over other issues that we will face. But also to the point, it isn't in the least wrong for progressives to bring up ethics, for ethics doesn't at all have to be tied to any particular theistic religious tradition. Those who are absolute atheists can have, and do have, strong moral values. Think Jean Paul Sartre, who was to be a premier leader of the French resistance to the Nazi occupation and oppressive rule of his country. Separation of church and state, and even the wall of separation which Thomas Jefferson advocated has nothing to do with this. With the right wing having the advantage of money, the mainstream media in its back pocket, as well as other advantages that go along with being part of the status quo means progressives will only give up on the moral dimension of debate at their and actually humanity's peril. We can't afford that!
The stakes are too high.
AD
Thank you,
I have been wondering about AARP and its facilating obfuscation for some time. The most mail I receive from them is insurance selling related. Their prior support of that phony drug program by Bush convinced me of their real intent. I think I will commit to withdrawing my membership. Why bother with an enemy when you don't have any friends.:)
The author left out one other HUGE enemy... the mainstream media who refuses to even have one single, national debate on the issue of single-payer. Every major newspaper, T.V. network, the vast majority of radio stations and mainstream publications like Time and Newsweek never delve into this contentious area. No public debates. No coverage of or comparisons to universal healthcare programs abroad (like Canada, all of Europe, Japan, Australia) at anytime. No (fair and balanced) polling of Americans on this topic.
I'm afraid Russell Mokhiber that Americans will never realize our top ten list of enemies until we can first bring corporate media into line.
Actually, Medicare is an excellent example of a Single Payer system - and it works surprisingly well. And it's arguably the most popular of all government programs, despite its shortcomings. People are "scared" of the term "Single Payer" but generally love the term "Medicare."
Go figure.
we already have Single Prayer healthcare ~ to use it, simply say:
Our Father, who art in Heaven...
The author forgot one:
The "JOE THE PLUMBERS" of Main Street playing kissyface with Wall $treet to make single payer impossible. Without them, the people would have won and single payer would be in effect.
Agreed.
Good article from Mokhiber but THE CONGRESS should be on the list.
zmann...I happened to be with Bernie Sanders the other day. He says that there is no hope of getting Single Payer in the near future! BUT, one possible strategy might be to get Single Payer in just one State. In the meantime, people are dying. Here, a clinic has recently been set up. It is open only 3 hours per week.
No access to dental care. Should we be learning how to drill and extract our own teeth? Should we be asking Cuba to send over doctors and dentists? We need foreign aid now that all of our money has gone to Wall Street.
What we are spending our money on now is HEALTH INSURANCE. For instance, my health insurance costs $6000 a year. But I only require, perhaps, $1000 worth of HEALTH CARE. Make this distinction and it is incredibly simple to see who benefits.
And you think the answer would be the same if your HEALTH CARE were to cost, say, $50,000?
The problem in the United States is that the cost of the system as a whole is criminally wasteful and costly. Every industrialized nation that has not-for-profit medical insurance--meaning every one except the U.S.-has half the per capital costs of the U.S. and equal or better outcomes, including better life expectancy and way better infant mortality rates. The overhead of the private system is 30 percent thanks to needless expenses: keeping track of billing, paying dividends, bloated executive salaries, extra staff to deny claims, etc. The overhead of the Medicare system is 5 percent. No contest--the only thing holding up single-payer is the legalized bribery from the HMOs to the corrupt Washington pols--and that includes most Democrats, especially Obama.
Just like gays being allowed to marry, single-payer health care will happen in America; a whole lot sooner if we'd quit being so damn "compromising" with those in power. We keep getting suckered, thinking that someone like Obama is going to bring justice to the issue when he is no better than Bill Clinton--they both sold their souls to the oligarch's. Yes, the devil got outbid again.
I disagree that changing the heads of these organizations will help. Other organizations will fill in the gap to preserve the same amount of funding for anti-single-payer lobbyists.
The only way to stop it is to go after Congress and kick out the members who took this money or have not signed on to Conyers bill.
Democrats.com has been tracking the members of Congress who have signed on to the Conyers bill. Over time the list is reducing in size, not increasing.
I would add mainstream media to the list of enemies... ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, PBS, NPR, CNN, etc.
One of the best aids the enemies of single payer have is the ignorance of the American population of how it successfully works in other First World nations. Any regular reader of business media knows full well that the USA is the most profitable drugs (legal and illegal) market on the planet. Simply put, those entrenched interests loath to lose the goose that lays the golden eggs, societal damage nonetheless be damned.
Top Ten Enemies of Single Payer
1. Insurance companies
2. George Wanker Obama
3. Insurance companies
4. George Wanker Obama
5. Insurance companies
6. George Wanker Obama
7. Insurance companies
8. George Wanker Obama
9. Insurance companies
10. George Wanker Obama
One freakin speech from the Orator in Chief, Our time has come, etc., etc., etc. is all it would take. But I guess he's too busy stealing our retirement for AIG and Goldman Sachs and planning his really smart war in Pockystan.
I keep hearing that the majority of Americans support single payer. That's not what I find when I talk with people. They oppose it out of ignorance, believing what they're being told by the corporate mouthpiece. Too expensive, the govt will ration their care, they lose their choice of doctors (as if they have one now). When I explain how HR 676 works and is paid for, they love it. We need what they call on Broadway an angel. Someone who can afford to buy prime time on TV and explain how it works. You can do it in 5 minutes.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
I agree that much more education needs to be done to lift the fog of disinformation purveyed by HMO stooges in Washington and the corporate media. But there's no question that the majority of Americans already favor single-payer--the latest Gallup poll on the subject shows that 60 percent of Americans want Medicare for all. You can find links to the poll on the PNHP Web site, I think.
I have yet to talk to anyone who supports single payer, either, because the vast majority of Americans are brainwashed by propoganda perpetuated by the MSM. They continually talk about "socialism," "rationing," and other irrational fears when they, themselves, are victims of the system, paying thousands of dollars per year in premiums for plans that will not fully protect them if, heaven forbid, they ever really need them. Friends and acquaintances complain about the high costs and nod in sympathetic agreement when they hear horror stories about bankruptcies and deaths, but no one ever gets off their lazy bum to do anything. Yet the "tea bag" protestors are numbering in the thousands. What is wrong with us?
I used to ignore politics because it was so distasteful. Now the stink is so bad you can't ignore it. It's getting time to flush.
How about a list of the Top Ten Promoters of Single Payer? Progressive Democrats of America, John Conyers, and Bernie Sanders would definitely be on it...who else?
-- California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee
-- Physicians for a National Health Program
-- HealthCare-Now
Donna Smith, American SiCKO
And you, of course :-)
I think that proponents list--and who is NOT on it--may be more telling then the enemies list in explaining why single-payer is getting blocked.
Really? The proponents include the Physicians for a National Health Plan (a group that includes some of the most distinguished physicians in the country--check their Web site at www.pnhp.org); the California Nurses Association, the largest nurses' union in the country; 60 percent of the American people, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject; and the majority of American physicians, according to a survey by the Annals of Internal Medicine. So exactly who on this list of proponents--all of them engaged in painstaking citizen activism and educational projects--do you think is responsible for blocking single payer, and why? What do you think that these groups--or anyone else--should be doing differently or better to help to bring about single payer?
And do you not think that the tens of millions of dollars donated to politicians of both major parties--including Obama--plays any role in their refusal to put single payer on the table?
"So exactly who on this list of proponents--all of them engaged in painstaking citizen activism and educational projects--do you think is responsible for blocking single payer, and why?"
I wrote: "who is NOT on the list." If you can't read it right in the first place, how can you expect ME to help you?
Dude, get some help with your issues from a doctor--I hope you're covered--but I can't help you here.
No--you wrote exactly this: "I think that proponents list--and who is NOT on it--may be more telling then the enemies list in explaining why single-payer is getting blocked." "Who is NOT on the list" is simply an addendum to your original sentence, which asserted that the "proponents list may be more telling than the enemies list in explaining why single-payer is getting blocked."
But you obviously don't even support single payer--if you did, you would have gladly avowed your support rather than accusing me of "McCarthyism"--LOL!--just for asking if you actually did support it. Your refusal to say quite simply that you support single payer makes your agenda quite clear--you are an opponent of single payer who is trying to confuse and derail discussion of how people can achieve this objective. You repeatedly refuse to suggest any specific means by which this objective might be achieved, even after three or four requests to do so.
My guess is that you're a right-wing agent--probably a Republican.
No matter what your game is, you're not very honest--really bad news. I'm glad people are getting a good eyeful of you.
Well, if anyone was made to call and protest and write and write and write their members of Congress it is certainly you. Far be it for me to discourage you or anybody of that. That is not my intention. In fact, I encrourage you to continue and keep up the good work.
And if anyone was made to (a) do nothing and (b) sabotage the efforts of those who do seek to do something, that's you.
You don't even support single-payer--so what's your game out here? Clearly it is to confuse, demoralize, and sabotage.
I've been warned about you by other commenters. People are on to you now. You're talking to yourself.
Sioux Rose
Thank our stars for serious reporters/researchers like Mr. Mokhiber. Following in the Ralph Nader tradition, he has published his corporate crime report also alerting us to the many unsavory practices conducted by the now protected corporate institutions that make their profits from damning citizens, ecosystems, and other nations.
How about them Fox news types stating that "America doesn't want it," when it's been a taboo, cloaked in a conspiracy of silence. DC is a cesspool all right, and it's backed up the nation's currency like a clogged toilet. Americans may be selfish enough to look the other way when wars are fought in foreign lands, after all they get the same dis-information about these outside conflicts as they receive about health care. The right wing uses all the bogus "socialism" terminology to turn some citizens against their own best interests. Still, with the economy a bad joke, no wars "won," and everyone knowing someone who's out of a job or out of a home or s--t out of luck when it comes to medical care... the dots are getting connected even in this climate of manufactured (media) delusion.
Mr. Mokhiber, you left off your list the #1 enemy of Single Payer...Corporate Media.
Corporate Media rarely allows the words "Single Payer" to be uttered.
(Add the words "Single Payer" to George Carlin's seven censored words.)
The fact that the public by a majority wants Single Payer even thought they've been purposely denied the right to learn, debate and discuss it on their airwaves tells you everything you need to know.
If honest discussion of Single Payer were given equal time on television the public would DEMAND IT OVERWHELMINGLY.
Remember when they cut Dennis Kucinich out of the AARP Democratic Presidential Debate because they feared he might say Single Payer?
You give Single Payer advocates an hour a week to explain the program on mass media and you'll see a tidal wave of support grow into an unstoppable tsunami.
Big Media understands this perfectly which is why they're always ready to short-circuit any discussion that may mistakenly take place on their networks.
Keep the public ignorantly misinformed and disinformed. Works like a charm everytime.
"Mr. Mokhiber, you left off your list the #1 enemy of Single Payer...Corporate Media."
I think you're right. Of course, the list could go on much longer concerning what Big Media wants us to think and what they don't want us to know.
The truth isn't the truth if people are blinded to it.
Speaking as a Montanan, how about our very own senior senator, Max Baucus? Single-payer is not on his table, either.
Really, no way is Max not at the top of that list. But speaking as someone from Massachusetts, what about Ted Kennedy?
In fact, you could name a Congressional Democrat from just about every state. So, why arn't they named?
Just being sentimental?
Has ingratiating oursleves with Democrats worked so far? Sounds ass-backward. Arn't Congresspeople supposed to defer to US instead of the proponents of corporate interests on the list?
This looks like another 'we have to be deferential to the Democrats' approach.
While the ones on the list who give the Congressional Democrats what they really want get all the legislation they can demand.
In other words, is this shaping up to be another doomed exercise of pleading instead of demanding?
Speaking of Massachusetts ...where is Mitt Romney ?
Massachusetts has some of the highest premiums in the country to support those who cannot afford insurance. The working person is the single payer in Mass.
Many doctors and clinics will not accept insurance from MassHealth since their reimbursement record is horrible and they are a mindless government bureaucracy.
Well it was a list of 10 people, and there's hundred of Democratic Congresspeople.
Well, if it's a "top ten" list then I guess you would have a list with 10 Democratic members of Congress on it.
Maximum Baucus, poster child for "Peasants? What peasants? I don't see any peasants here at my fine Washington parties." What's on his table? Top 08 contributor: Schering Plough. Top 5 08 donors by industry? 1) Securities and Investments, 2) Lawyers and Law Firms, 3) Insurance, 4) Health Professionals and 5) Pharmaceuticals/Health Products. Total loot for 2008: $11,602,479.
It would be good if you could help to get as many Montanans as possible to call Baucus's Senate office to demand that he start putting the interests of ordinary citizens ahead of the interests of a handful of executives and investors in the HMO racket. Perhaps you could start a chain e-mail to get this going. These Washington hacks have to hear it--and hear it loud and clear--from their constituents.
Assume Max will not change his ways. And I think that's a pretty good assumption. Then what good is pleading?
An aroused citizenry is the only effective countermeasure to the corruption of the big campaign bucks flowing from the HMOs. We need to exert every conceivable kind of pressure--calling the key players (one's own congressperson and Senators, the White House, plus other key players such as Baucus, writing, e-mailing, etc. Beyond that we can write letters to the editor to promote single payer, demonstrate, and generally raise a ruckus. History shows that citizen activism CAN lead to progressive social change--it's pressure from below that led to the end of slavery, the vote for women, union rights, an end to the Vietnam war, etc.
A good place to find out about organizing and educational opportunities is www.singlepayeraction.org.
We need to speak loud and clear to all the scoundrels in Washington--make them feel the pressure of an aroused citizenry on this issue. Defeatism can lead to only one result--defeat.
"History shows that citizen activism CAN lead to progressive social change"
I agree with that. But the trouble I'm having with your advice to Paul is how you seem to define "activism."
Is the primary role of activism to plead for something or is it to be in a position to DEMAND something?
Calling and writing members of Congress and protest parading--I've done all three--are nice, but they don't put you in a position to demand anything.
That's key.
Obviously to be able to demand you need an independent mass movement devoted to a particular civic idea and democratic principles. But what I'm coming to find out is that there seems to be a deap seated reluctance to engage the general population to build such a movement.
It's like there's a grudge against having people act in their capacity as citizens--not consumers--to collectively hold elected officials accountable. In that regard, it's worth pointing out that 9 out of the 10 enemies Mokhiber provides on the list are not Constitutionally accountable.
You're just quibbling now--finding excuses to do nothing rather than something.
The mass demonstrations against the war in Vietnam were the key to ending that slaughter--they demanded OUT NOW!
Likewise, we can DEMAND--not beg for--Medicare for all on a variety of fronts--demonstrations, phone calls to politicians, letter writing, e-mailing, letters to the editor, op-ed submissions, etc., etc. If people work hard at building the movement--instead of grousing like you--it most certainly can become large enough to effect social change. EVERY major social movement has relied on just such measures to get its message through--the Civil Rights movement, for example, pressed forward on a variety of fronts: demonstrations, lobbying Congress and the White House, etc.
Instead of breeding cynicism and inaction with your carping and caviling, you should be encouraging any and all actions needed to achieve single payer.
You present yourself as an expert on what it would take to do this--so let's hear your ideas--something positive, not just throwing cold water on all the time-tested techniques that have worked so well in the past but just don't seem to be good enough for you.
Let's hear your ideas for moving forward on single payer.
"your carping and caviling"
"You present yourself as an expert on what it would take to do this..."
I love that. Just because I have an opinion at variance with yours and am willing to express it you go on a personal attack about me acting like an "expert"--and now you're going to put me to the test and in my place.
What nonsense.
Please, take a breath.
Can we dispense with the 'expose the expert game' and instead exchange ideas like one citizen to another?
No--it's because you trashed every conceivable form of citizen activism without proposing any alternatives.
You want to have an exchange of idea, but you don't offer any ideas. I expressly asked you to offer your ideas on what people should do to achieve single payer, and you again offered zero ideas--a complete dodge.
So here are two easy steps that I suggest if you really want to exchange ideas rather than play peronal flaming games:
1. I repeat: let's hear your ideas on what we should do to achieve single-payer Medicare for all. You completely avoided this point the first time, so I hope you will oblige this time.
2. Do you really favor single payer, or do you really support some other plan that keeps the private HMOs in the game?
You say you want to exchange ideas, so let's start with points 1 and 2.
"you trashed every conceivable form of citizen activism without proposing any alternatives."
My God, its like I'm... a cyclone!
Dude, do you actually read the stuff that you're writing here? I mean, maybe you should go back and read what you type before you hit post.
Anyway, you do seem a bit calmer, in a relative sense, so as to your questions--for number one:
As a citizen—-not an expert—-I’m simply trying to find a way where single-payer is in a position to DEMAND healthcare for all.
It's common sense to me that the best way--likely the only way--to do that is through leverage.
Writing, calling and (so far modest)protest parades can only put so much pressure.
So the primary thing to do would be to hold Congressional Democrats accountable. There should be no misunderstanding as to who is blocking single-payer. I mean, you would think that would go without saying--right?
That's what Mokhiker did in an article at singlepayeraction.org Trouble is, we need a lot more of it--and more widely distributed to places like here at CD. So you and your friends can read it too.
As advocates for single-payer, we can't be afraid to go against the interests of the Democratic Party. That is, the movement for single-payer has to be independent. Whatever the propects are for single-payer--I believe everything will flow from that.
As for question number two: please. It's like you're Joe at the McCarthy hearings and you're asking if I am or ever have been a communiss. I mean, do you think if I really DIDN'T favor single-payer I would tell you? Ditto for the communist question too.
Dude--the opening of sophomoric jerks the world over. You most certainly DID trash every known form of citizen activism--telephone calls, demonstrations, etc.--you dismissed them all as ineffective.
You say we need to hold Democrats accountable--BUT YOU DON'T SAY HOW. You see we need to create more leverage. BUT YOU DON'T SAY HOW. You dismiss phone calling, letter writing, demonstrating--all the classic and proven techniques for mobilizing independent mass action from citizens. BUT YOU DON'T PROVIDE AN ALTERNATIVE.
You want to exchange ideas--but you won't even shoot straight about which idea for health-care reform you actually do favor.
In brief, DUDE--you are not remotely serious. You're a disruptive troll, obviously doing your best to derail and demoralize left activism. You really ought to apply for a job at Fox News--your slippery incoherency would make you an ideal factotum for Bill O'Reilly.
Discussion over.
"...it's because you trashed every conceivable form of citizen activism"
What nonsense.
I think I figured it out.
Someone disagrees with you,
and you flip out getting all angry and huffy.
But it appears your anger and your argument is really with
yourself.
That is, with you, the "discussion" is over before it even
begins.
STILL no positive suggestions on what people should do to achieve single payer?
I've invited you three times now to actually make one such suggestion--but you keep dodging.
You're just full of crap.
Single payer is the only way to go! shame on all of them!
AARP zealously supported the 2003 Medicare pharma extortion bill that makes it illegal for Medicare to negotiate drug prices with big pharma, demonstrating just how much they care about the retired people they claim to serve.
AARP also excluded single-payer advocates from the 2008 Democratic Presidential Candidate debates that they sponsored.
Don't join the AARP when you turn 50 and don't renew your membership if you are already a member.
After working for the state of New Mexico as a planner in the Department of Health and Human Services, during which time (in the 1980's) she came head-to-head against Democratic Governor Toney Anaya over certain policy, my mom retired from paid employment and took up the cause of universal single-payer health coverage within AARP. Mom was president of New Mexico AARP in the early 90's, and every time the folks in that organization met anywhere in the state she made sure that discussion of universal single-payer was on the agenda. Mom educated, pushed, and hoped that people would understand how badly broken our health care "system" in this country is.
Obviously, mom got nowhere. Too many in position at national AARP offices in D.C. had no interest in pushing for universal single-payer. Then, when, as raydelcamino says, "AARP zealously supported the 2003 Medicare pharma extortion bill that makes it illegal for Medicare to negotiate drug prices," mom was done with AARP. Mom died in the summer of '05 greatly pissed and dissappointed in the decades-old rightward turn of the country of her birth, the stupidity of a great number of its inhabitants, and the greed and corruption of those with the power.
I am now 51 and receive mail from AARP just about every month, and on the envelope it always says, "Do not fold. Your new membership card is inside!" Needless to say, I always fold, crumple, and toss.
Universal single-payer (Medicare for all) NOW!!!
That is a mistake! You should dig through the pile of crap, find the Postage-paid return envelope. Write the words "Single Payer Health Care" on a scrap of paper and mail that postage-paid envelope back to them.
They have to pay every time they get one of those envelopes.
Don't throw them away! send them back at their owner's expense!
I quit AARP in 2003 for that very reason. From that time forward I've understood that outfit to be a flim-flam dedicated to harvesting the assets of those for whom they pretend to advocate.
From this article I gather that they are joined by a legion of similar covert racketeers enabled by the biggest whorehouse in the world, the U.S. Congress.
As my son says, "It's a BOHICA nation!" (Bend Over, Here It Comes Again)
agreed, I called AARP and canceled membership when they backed the drug program. It was a massive sell-out that has cost our medicare program tons of money. Thanks to Russell for this insight into our single payer enemies list.