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TechnoratiStanding Against Single Payer
My Ron Pollack Problem — and Yours
Karen Ignagni is not the problem.
As president of America's Health Insurance Plans, Karen Ignagni represents the health insurance industry.
The same health insurance industry that would be wiped out by a single payer national health insurance system.
We know where Karen Ignagni stands.
She stands with the health insurance industry.
Against the will of the American people.
If she stood with the will of the American people, she would effectively be asking her member insurance companies to commit suicide.
Not going to happen.
Ron Pollack is executive director of Families USA.
Ron Pollack identifies himself as a consumer advocate.
Or more precisely as an advocate for health care consumers.
The majority of the American people stand with single payer.
And against the health insurance industry.
And against the pharmaceutical industry.
But Ron Pollack stands against single payer.
Against the will of the American people.
With the health insurance industry.
And with the pharmaceutical industry.
Think we're kidding?
Well, on Thursday at 3 p.m., Ron Pollack will join Karen Ignagni in a live web chat to discuss "health reform."
The live web chat is sponsored by The Campaign for an American Solution.
The Campaign for an American Solution is a fake grassroots group created by the health insurance industry.
The idea is that we can't have single payer because it's not American.
Or as Senator Max Baucus put it when asked about single payer last month - "We have come up with a uniquely American solution which is a combination of public and private, because we are America."
Yes we are, Max.
But there is a uniquely American solution and it's called single payer.
Check out Jonathan Cohn's New Republic interview with Michael Chen of Taiwan's single payer system. Chen told Cohn that when Taiwan was in our predicament years ago, they searched the world for a better health care system. They came to the United States and studied Medicare. And they then went back to Taiwan and modeled their single payer system on Medicare.
Anyway, on Thursday at 3 p.m.,this so called consumer advocate, Ron Pollack, will be standing with Karen Ignagni, advocating against single payer.
Last week, Ron Pollack joined with Billy Tauzin, the head of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, and unveiled "a campaign to promote three key policies designed to help achieve high-quality, affordable health coverage for all Americans."
None of which will do anything to fundamentally alter the private health insurance industry and drug industry's death grip on America's health consumers.
So, no Karen Ignagni is not the problem.
Billy Tauzin is not the problem.
The Republican Party is not the problem.
We know where they stand.
They stand with big corporations.
Against the American people.
The problem is Ron Pollack.
The problem is Max Baucus.
The problem is the Democratic Party.
The problem lies with people who say they stand with the people.
But end up standing with Billy Tauzin.
And Karen Ignagni.
And big pharma.
And the private health insurance industry.
The problem is that the so called opposition is no opposition at all.
Yesterday, I attended a conference on Capitol Hill sponsored by the Alliance for Health Reform - another "collegial group."
Dirksen 106 was packed with over 200 staffers and lobbyists.
The topic: Public Plan Option: Fair Competition or a Recipe for Crowd Out?
There were four people on the panel.
Two argued against giving consumers a choice between public plan and private plan - Karen Ignagni and Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation.
Two argued for giving consumers a choice for a public plan - John Holahan of the Urban Institute and Karen Davis of the Commonwealth Fund.
In opening remarks, John Holahan was downright defensive.
Holahan said a public plan was not part of a "a secret plot to destroy the insurance industry and bring about a single payer system."
There were no advocates for single payer at the table.
Of the 75 or so health policy experts listed in the packet, I couldn't find one advocate for single payer.
So, when question time arrived, I got to a microphone:
"John Holahan said that he's not part of a secret plot to destroy the insurance industry," I said. "But there is actually a public plot to destroy the private insurance industry. It's called HR 676. It's single payer. And it has 76 members of the House who support it. The Lewin Group did a side by side analysis of all of the plans, and they found that single payer saves the most money. The single payer idea is that the private health insurance industry deserves to be destroyed. In Canada and the UK it's unlawful to sell private health insurance for basic health needs. That's the idea behind single payer. Other than the fact that it would be the death penalty to Karen Ignagni's companies, why not do it?"
Out of deference to Karen Ignagni, the panelists pretty much ignored the question.
It was as if the question hadn't been asked.
That's the problem with collegiality.
The industry is facing the death penalty.
It's either them.
Or us.
No amount of collegiality can mask that stark reality.
113 Comments so far
Show AllEstablishing a single payer system is inevitable. Here in California we (Health Care for All) has been working towards this end since 1994- first through the initiative process with Propostion 186. At that time, most people were happily protected from health care concerns and fully insured- hence there was small concern for those who did not have health care coverage, - that measure failed at the ballot box. Since then we have followed a legislative route and although not yet achieved, each year we get closer. Our bill, now named SB 810, becomes more recognized as a refined and well thought out plan for full comprehensive health coverage for all Californians. In the last 2 legislative sessions, this bill, then named SB 840, was passed by both houses of the legislature, only to be vetoed by our republican governor, Arnold Schwartzenegger. We are tireless and unyielding as we know this is the right thing to do- cost effective and desired by the majority of the populace and the health care community. Only the health care industry is against this reform as they would be reduced to only covering for nnon-essential services such as cosmetic plastic surgery. This all boils down to a desperate struggle for money by an industry that is well aware that their days are numbered. Let's not prolong their pain. It IS the right thing to do- let's do it now- If it can work in California, it can work in the nation.
I'm not a health professional, but am an Australian with private health insurance and I think our system works very well and is along the lines of what the majority of you seem to want. But you tell me.
In Aus, everybody is covered under our own Govt. scheme called Medicare(not to be confused with yours). Under this system, everybody (every person with a medicare no, which you're given at birth with your parents or upon residence in the country) has access to GPs, surgery and the like with minimal upfront costs. Depending on circumstance, a visit to a GP is around $20 while a trip to hospital for surgery might cost a couple of hundred bucks, mostly down to accomodation, food etc, not the medical treatment.
There are waiting lists under the public scheme for what's called elective surgery, which are things like knee reconstructions and other non-urgent treatments.
Alongside this single payer system, you can also purchase private health insurance, for which you receive a nominal rebate on your taxes. With private health insurance, waiting lists are shorter so your knee reconstruction would be done within a couple of weeks as opposed to perhaps a month or two.
I've had both urgent surgery in a public hospital (appendicitis) and elective surgery in a private hospital (knee reco) and found the patient care in both to be quite good.
From what I understand, we previously had Medicare, but the rich grew sick of waiting lists and started their own companies to serve themselves (rightfully so, I guess). Only recently did our last conservative PM introduce tax rebates, based on the idea that more people would pay for private with the additional carrot, thereby relieving pressure on the public health system.
I also had the pleasure of waking up in an Argentinian Hospital due to being drugged (no real harm done) and when it came time to leave, the doctor just aided me to my feet and helped me on my way (they'd already cleared me with tests while I slept). Argentinian health care, along with tertiary education is free. No idea what rich Argentinians do.
No reason why you can't have both public and private as long as all citizens are provided with a level of care when required without sending them broke as a base line. If the rich want to pay extra for extra service, good on them, it will relieve pressure on the public system.
"In opening remarks, John Holahan was downright defensive. Holahan said a public plan was not part of a "a secret plot to destroy the insurance industry and bring about a single payer system."
Honestly, it sounds like some kind of kangaroo court where the decision is already made but those in control are intent on going through the motions anyway.
I guess if this John Holahan "wins" they'll even have a "victory" parade too.
It's like the health insurance industry is one big Potmekin villiage.
Single payer healthcare got no showing in last year's election despite the fact that it was critically needed. HR 676 is going nowhere. Sorry but that's reality much as I hate it. Besides, we're too busy selecting candidates on social issues although I thought Obama was cool at the time I voted for him but have some regrets about him too. Until the electorate actually unites behind the idea, the chances of getting it passed are as good as a meteorite crashing this planet in the next 6 months. But then again, the chances of the OK state legislature passing it are even smaller. If your state is closer to passing it, then pass or not, I think you live in a lucky state unlike mine.
Single payer "got no showing" because the corporate class is united against it--the mainstream corporate media, the corporations, and the politicians of both parties owned by the corporations. That makes it all the more imperative to foster grass-roots activism among the populace as a whole to press for Medicare for All. Every major poll shows that 60 percent of Americans support single payer, along with 59 percent of physicians. If we organize and speak out and demonstrate, we can get it--those are the means that achieved women's suffrage, the right to organize unions, social security, minimum wage, etc.
If you sit back and do nothing, nothing will happen.
Go to www.singlepayeraction.org and find out what you can do.
Nothing on my state of Oklahoma but I'll ask them to include. Thanks. And I will try to knock some common sense into some of my rightwing neighbors and friends. There's some agreement to it but like JenniferBedingfield pointed out, we have to be thorough and hit it to them non-politically.
Best of luck with that...and just what kind of "hitting" do you intend? 59/41? Single payer? But 'only' 16% DON'T have any health care (a few more now with Unemployment, but they're just 'losers' anyway - who said life was supposed to be fair?)so, what's all the fuss. Sure some folks go under the bus, that's just Life, right?
PP, this stuff cuts to the core of people's world view and ours (collectively) is flat earth fixed creation marginally literate or pre-literate peasants complete with make believe space giants who tell the 'followers' to kill homosexuals. If it weren't so tragically ludicrous, it would be comic.
Franklin had apparently drunk enough good wine and seen enough of living to know that a degraded population would throw away their humanity, and with it their Freedom. Poof! All gone... bubye now...better to teach them to find the Heart...the real one, the part of them that speaks the truth of their lives...but that would be too horrific to face...
Peace.
"better to teach them to find the Heart...the real one, the part of them that speaks the truth of their lives...but that would be too horrific to face..."
That's why it's unlikely to happen with the masses. Ego is ALWAYS set in the 'me first' mode, and the whole of our world is presently built upon the edifice of ego. The multiplying crises is a great opportunity for those few capable and willing to make a fundamental change, but will only serve to increase the suffering of the 'sleeping' majority.
luckylefty, a "few" more? Try 6 million more in the past year and counting. It's going to get worse.
Two groups fighting for Single Payer are the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee and Physicians for Social Responsibility. The CNA/NNOC sent me a SiCKO scrub, literature and DVD, urging me to inform everyone about the film, which I've done. My son was humiliated when he came with me to see SiCKO and I was nearly thrown out of the theatre for leaf letting in line. Too bad they stopped me, though. People were hungry for information. I've decided to swap out my NO War button for a Single Payer button. They're good conversation starters. I'm beginning to feel like a walking billboard.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
United Health Care just came to terms with Partners Health (Mass General, Brighams, Dana Farber, Newton Wellesley, Emerson/Concord), the Boston elite.
Partners not only controls Harvard Med and Ted Kennedy's brain, they also control health care in Massachusetts and possibly all of the United States through ( Larry Summers ) Harvard..
We must not be naive. Harvard and other elite colleges control health care in the US, not only through medical connections, but also through the unending stream of garbage (Larry Summers) they have inseted into the body politic.
One more major blow against single-payer...
"We must not be naive"
Whatever the outcome for single-payer--at least this issue is having the effect of turning over some rocks.
If you're truly a progressive--you gotta want to air this shit out.
That said, your remarks:
"Compulsary insurance in Massachusetts is moving towards a choice of insurers."
and
"It is possible, however, to beat them at their own game."
...are just naive.
One of the reasons the Democratic party will not go for single payer health insurance, as the majority of the American people want, is very simple. We have a Corporatacracy in this country. The Democratic party is just another version of the Republican party. The corporations own all of them, or most of them. We, the people, do not have much say when the corporations flex their muscleand their money. We need election reform as well as single payer health care and throw the corporations out of government.
The corporations will only be so powerful as long as we the people invest in them. Unfortunately, we have fewer options to go once we cut off ties to all corporations. Small businesses are great but since we're all used to buying and selling in volumes, I'm afraid corporations are here to stay. Corporations are only as powerful as we the people are willing to let them be so. Maybe we can fight for better corporations that won't interfere with the government. There are good corporations out there that do support single payer healthcare plan. They are the ones that need to be brought on board to counter-lobby the anti-single payer ones.
Standing Against Single Payer?
Cut them off at the knees!
My man!
At least here is an article that identifies the real culprits.
Single payer insurance is the only fair health insurance plan for everyone. It assures a floor of preventative and ongoing care for everyone. There may be waits for some treatments...so what? As if there aren't now.
But anyone that would deny another person with more ibncome top buy faster or more luxurious health care is simply wrong. A two tier syatem someone mentioned? More like three tiers. There will be better places to get care around the world and the folks that can afford it will avail themselves of it.
There is nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. Whats wrong is the ppresent system that denies basic and preventative care to our citizens.
Mokhiber is right that "it's either them or us," but the problem remains it's them. Because "us" are never allowed to sit at the table, as he clearly illustrates. Obama sides with Big Pharma and the insurance industry, against single-payer, and no one in Washington will even discuss S-P, except to dismiss and mock it. The people clearly want some version of it but since when did that sway any D.C. politician? No single-payer, no prosecutions of the Bush criminals, not even serious investigations, no withdrawal from Iraq, further surging in Afghanistan and meddling in the Mideast. Smells like Bush spirit! Change we can pretend exists.
Sioux Rose
EPHRAIM: Right on! To hear anyone say "the people" are against single payer is bogus. For one thing, polls show otherwise; and as Ephraim pointed out, no one is sitting at the table discussing the benefits! The very premise which is WANTED by citizens is being marginalized by making it invisible! With jobs disappearing, home values tanking, money stretching less and less, more and more people are going to realize that single payer is a basic necessity. I'd love to see enough angst on this issue to force the "leaders" to back down on funding over 700 bases overseas, and making wars that benefit a few corporations while leaving an obscure body count as the greater toll.
I hate to say this but I still come across plenty of rightwing kooks and even my neighbors and friends who won't take the idea seriously. However, they do take the idea of single payer somewhat well when the plan is elaborated without letting them know the name or whose idea it is. There are still plenty more unstable minds out there. And these same people will scream "more military spending needed to win the war on terrorism, rah rah rah !" Yep, it's a looney bin out here in the Sooner. Your state may vary though.
Your anecdotal experience is not a scientific sample. Poll after poll show that 60 percent of Americans favor single-payer Medicare for all.
Polls don't mean everything. Call my experience trivial all you want but polls don't take everything into account. Plus, they don't stop politicians from bowing down to the corporate masters. I'm not saying I don't favor single payer but I'm only pointing out the reality not covered in those scientific polls. I've seen scientific polls say the same thing about single payer universal healthcare but we have yet to see the plan come to pass. I'm sorry but society has a long ways to go in overcoming ignorance before HR 676 can see the light of the day and no amount of scientific polling will change that fact. If Hr 676 does pass before the end of 2010, then excellent. Until then, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
I'm not saying that your personal experience is trivial--it's just not a truly representative sampling of opinion out there. HR 676 hasn't passed because most of Congress is bought off by the HMO campaign donations, and they care more about that money than about the American people. We have to put pressure on them to heed us, not the legal bribes. It can be done--we have to organize and speak out.
I have read a lot of blogs and seen many programs denigrating single payer national health care systems. They seem to come from people that have no personal experience with such systems. Numerous studies has established that single payer national health care systems cost about half of our system while providing better health care as measured by outcome such as infant mortality, longevity, hospital mistakes etc. My family has personal experience with health care systems in England, Germany, Norway and USA from living in those countries. I would not hesitate one moment to choose any of their systems over ours (USA). It is difficult to understand why systems demonstrated to be better than ours, no matter which criteria you use to compare them, are not seriously considered here in the USA. Are we that misinformed, brainwashed, uneducated, dogmatically tied to capitalist philosophy (that in this case is failing), not as smart as citizens in other countries, or is it that it was not invented by the self-proclaimed greatest nation on earth.
A viable health care system must also be decoupled from ones place of work like the rest of the world. This will help make our industry more competitive, and encourage employee mobility into new economic activities to help spawn and expand new businesses.
The bottom line, born out by facts and not emotions or dogma, is that single payer national health care systems work better for more people at lower cost than our for profit system.
Are we that misinformed, brainwashed, uneducated, dogmatically tied to capitalist philosophy (that in this case is failing), not as smart as citizens in other countries, or is it that it was not invented by the self-proclaimed greatest nation on earth.
yngve, yes to all the above. We may be as smart, but we don't act like it. I think we suffer from a superiority complex that blinds us to reality.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
yngve, you're missing the point. Corporations control this country, and the insurance industry is one of the most powerful, second to banks. This is not a democracy, it is a corporatocracy.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Oregoncharles
the defense industry
"Corporations control this country, and the insurance industry is one of the most powerful, second to banks."
Corporations control the country if there are enough people to fund them. And people depend on all these corporations for all their jobs and daily life needs. How to compete against that? Corporations don't always have to be bad. There are good corporations out there. Maybe there needs to be more of those type. Besides, how else are you going to get your gas tank filled up without a corporation short of a local gas station? Corporations can easily buy inventories at whole-sale volume discounts and sell to the public and profit at it. There are small businesses but they don't get a lot of the advantages corporations get. I hate to say it but we're all gonna end up depending upon corporations of all stripes for all our life's needs.
Peter Pike, this country used to be full of small independent gas stations, but the corporations ran them off with the gas wars of the 50s and 60s. there are a few good corporations out there, but they aren't running Congress.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
That is indeed true. Until we can bring back small independent gas stations, we the people have got to find ways to take over the corporations first and control them. I've heard of plans in my state to research switchgrass or even algae biocrude and perhaps build more local gas stations. I've also heard of hemp but like algae, it's a whole new thing and the costs of producing fuel will be high even if kept locally. I've donated some money to my university researching ways to put switchgrass for fuel ahead of the curve. Switchgrass yields better than corn and can be put to use by our existing petroleum infrastructure unlike algae and hemp. As for those few corporations not running Congress, that's why I recommend finding ways to replicate such corporations and eventually for the bad ones to compete and spend until they surrender. Hang in there.
Under (national single-payer) if I choose (only) private insurance, could I get a tax deduction of what I put into the public system?
dustinchicago, sorry, no. Not according to how it's written. But why would you? You get to choose your provider, including any state licensed health care professional. SOL if you live in Ohio, they don't license Naturopathic Physicians. No one else makes any medical decisions, all medically necessary services determined by your care provider including dental, prescription, addiction treatment, long term care are covered and the govt's only function is to pay the bill. With no other charge to you you pay a tax increase of 3.5% on your income tax. Unless you're in the top 5% income bracket, then it's 5%. Or the top 1%, then it's 10%. Employers pay a small tax, but nothing else, some corporate loopholes are closed, and a small transaction fee on stock exchanges covers the rest of the costs.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Thanks BFK. I'll show my conservative friends and neighbors the tax numbers and see what they then say to single payer. They're all big time anti-tax zealots but this should really knock their socks off.
Any tax needed to implement single payer would end up being far less, per capita, than what people are paying now in premiums to the private HMOs, and they would get better coverage--no exceptions, no deductibles, etc.
That's very interesting. Nothing so good deserves to cost a lot of taxpayer money. If more people hear about these tax numbers and especially among the lower taxes crowd, we can split the Right and win the war for single payer healthcare.
If you live in OK and there's no singlepayeraction there now, you should call the Washington group and offer to start a chapter there. In the meantime, you should call/fax/e-mail your congressperson and two Senators and demand that they support the single payer bills: the house bill is HR676, the Senate bill is S703.
Thank you, Russell. It is us or them, and it's not just in health care but our very system is at risk of being irrecoverably lost. Add Obama to the problem list. As the saying goes, the actions speak louder than the words. He's long on liberal words.
One of the biggest obstacles to single payer will be through the fifty different health systems operated by fifty different states.
Compulsary health care in Massachusetts is structurally different than non-compulsary insurance in New york.
There are different regulations for doctors; there are different regulations for hospitals; there are different regulations for nursing homes (tied into the Medicare system); different regulations covering insuance plans.
Will Tennessee, with the Frist "controled" HCA (Hospital Corporation of America) take orders from Washington. There were states who were reluctant to take free money from the stimulus program.
This will come down to an issue of states rights versus the national or federal interest.
If we are to have "compulsary" insurance, we must have choice. The second largest employer in Albany NY (Home of Health Care Hillary), Albany Medical Center offers one second-rate plan. The Farmington Group, a health insurance broker, makes more than $2,000,000 per year, offering this plan through the hospital human resource division.
Compulsary insurance in Massachusetts is moving towards a choice of insurers.
One of the insurers is a true non-profit that puts excess earnings into program expansion (24 hour/day clinics) and improved services. The "board " of this insurer is made up of medical professionals and true community organizers. A board member from the Hispanic Community in Springfield runs one of the most effective community development organisations in the poorest community in the State of Massachusetts. He is not a Harvard educated community organizer.
Several "elite" hospitals in Massachusetts (Mass General, Brighams, Dana Farber, Newton Wellesley, Emerson/Concord) set higher premium levels, paid by the insured. If the insurance plan does not want to pay higher rates to the hospitals, they can go elsewhere. How can you tell someone with cancer that they cannot get a second opinion from Dana Farber because Dana Farber does not accept their lower premium insurance.
...
It is unlikely that health insurance companies will go away. It is possible, however, to beat them at their own game.
Americans must have the right to choose their insurers. Not the one selected by their employer
There must by true non-profits who operate in the public interest.
There must be full disclosure by every insurer. Americans, with access to honest information will be able to choose.
The "insured" should have a voice in how their insurer operates. If the insurer refuses to allow a voice ...let the insurers vote with their feet.
Expansion of public health should be mandated by Congress. If an insurance company will operate under expansion mandates, they should have access to low cost federal loans for expansion.
I'd rather have a loan, repaid through a thoughtful premium and development strategy, than non-accountable handouts (i.e.TARP) from the government.
I am for a single payer system. But... Do you really think your government can execute a single payer system. Look at the mess we are in. You want these idiots in charge.
The people must run a health care system for the people.
ducksawce, by any chance, have you read the actual bill, HR 676? Why don't you read it and reconsider your post? None of your end of the world prognostications would occur under HR 676. You might find especially interesting how HR 676 funds Single Payer health care. If you want to read the bill, here is the link:
http://www.pnhp.org/nhibill/nhi_bill_final.pdf
In fact, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee has authorized a study showing the following immediate benefits from implementing HR 676:
$317 billion in business and public revenues
2.6 million new jobs
$100 billion additional employee compensation
$44 billion in increased employee tax revenues
Not to mention the fact that over 50 million Americans (and growing) would now have quality health care.
Here's the link to the study if you want to check it out:
http://www.calnurses.org/research/pdfs/ihsp_sp_economic_study_2009.pdf
Of course, Congress is ignoring this because they have other priorities. We know what those are.
Kathy
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Yes...I have read HR 676
I usually operate under the "know your enemy" approach, painting "end of world pronostications" to promote awareness.
Private Insurance companies will be the major enemy in the upcoming debate
My point is we cannot assume that state governments will roll over, especially if there are special interests involved.
We cannot assume that all hospitals and universities are on board for single payer. They are especially beholden to special interests.
We the people should ask our local hospitals where they stand and who they support.
We should ask the same questions of our colleges and universities.
We should ask our local representatives ...not just those in Congress.
Leave no stone unturned ...
We the people should ask our local hospitals where they stand and who they support.
We should ask the same questions of our colleges and universities.
We should ask our local representatives ...not just those in Congress.
ducksawce, you left out the media, a biggie. When Oregon tried to pass a single payer plan, and it was going to pass, even with the media opposing it, the insurance industry came roaring in and spent millions to - successfully - defeat it. One of the biggest advertisers in the Eugene Register-Guard is Sacred Heart Hospital (soundly against Single Payer). With single Payer, there would be nothing to advertise. The Register-Guard was actually running editorials that had been written by the insurance industry as talking point (and lies), as was the Portland Oregonian.
That was another battle I fought hard to win, and lost. Between that and the GMO labeling law going down after Monsanto came rushing to the rescue, I talked with a Portland political pollster who told me that money will ALWAYS win. I'd like to think he's wrong but I don't think so. Even a good friend of mine panicked and voted against the labeling law. This country is pathetic.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Wow ! Oregon doesn't sound so bad. At least you got a closer chance at single payer. Too bad Oklahoma ain't so lucky. The people are somewhat divided on it although I've been told that 60% of Oklahomans support the idea of single payer. The local and state lawmakers though are not as lenient about it though. Try again. If your state can finally make single payer into law, others will follow.
The way I see it going in MA, I think that all that "mandatory" care is so disgusting since the plan appears to be rigged to benefit Big Insurance. My parents already call MA "Taxachussetts". Tell them about the pols in MA giving univeral single payer a bad rap by forcing mandatorycare down everyone's throats and enriching Big Insurance and they'll roar by saying "See, I told you MA is too corrupt, etc ..." Maybe that's why we have too many conservative hard ones like my parents.
Agreed - If they cannot operate a "universal" health care system in the land of Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, how can we expect any progress in Tennessee or oklahoma.
The health care system in Massachusetts was put together by the experts from Tufts and Harvard - witness the cluster f... known as the connector, put together just off Powederhouse Road (Tufts).
The trick to building support for things like single payer even in OK and TN is to get the voters motivated on the actual issue itself. Try not to let them smell anything political about the discussion. Frame the issue in a non-political light. Slowly, introduce them to someone who share their inner desire for single payer. There will be those who disagree but a profound litmus test can bring out unexpected support. I treat all states somewhat the same. I long gave up judging red vs blue but stuck to thinking independent.
Although I am completely sympathetic with Russell's sentiments, it is much more effective to frame the issue as
"The problem is the private health insurance plans"
It's not the companies, it's not the people working for the companies (many of whom are perfectly wonderful individuals), nor their spokespersons - and please note that Karen Ignagni can't even purchase private insurance if she were a single subscriber due to a pre-existing condition (this by her own admission on "Sick Around America"), and it's not all the vested business interests who, after all, are legally bound to their shareholders to maximize profits.
But it is perfectly accurate to say the problem is with the plans. This has several effects. First, it puts responsibility back on the companies instead of letting them play the victim game - "single-payer destroyed our business, waaaah". They are selling the defective product, they should have had the foresight to see what was coming, and, they will not disappear even if single-payer is implemented. They will still be selling insurance for extended travel, cosmetic procedures, hospital room upgrades, and so forth.
So let's be accurate, and incensed, and lay the blame exactly where it belongs - with the private health insurance plans.
"It's not the companies, it's not the people working for the companies (many of whom are perfectly wonderful individuals), nor their spokespersons...."
I disagree. Would YOU voluntarily work for a US health insurance company if you weren't starving? All those wonderful people help get all those claims denied and reduced, and all those fees raised, with varying degrees of directness.
Does it matter if they're faithful to their partners and go to church on Sundays? What they actually DO, on the job, daily, for their employers contributes to the whole, disgusting system of greed and abuse that hurts almost all of their fellow Americans.
Of course I would not work for an insurance company, but that is because I am properly informed about the issue. But if you attack those who are misinformed by calling them Nazis (as the previous commenter did), or invoking only their evil intentions, you are unlikely to catch their ear for a conversation for change not only of those who work for the companies but of those who are inclined to be on the other side for whatever reason.
Framing this issue correctly is critical to winning the day, and that includes acknowledging that not every person who happens to work for an insurance company is a greedy bastard.
"it's not the people working for the companies (many of whom are perfectly wonderful individuals)," You could have said this for the Nazi party as well or the German army. Good people and Ordinary Germans willingly went along with mass murder. They went home every night and played with their kids and kissed their wives, went to church and gave to charity. Then they got up and went to work at the Reich's Transport Ministry and wrote up orders to ship millions to DEATH camps daily! Get the picture. The millions that work for the EVIl bastards that make billions off of our bodies are not good or wonderful, they're just what they are people trying to survive. The difference is they don't care if the rest of us don't survive, if we can't AFFORD their product.
The point is that framing it like you are does nothing to further the conversation for a solution. Your Nazi analogy is beyond the pale. Certainly there are those in the industry who do not have anyone but their own interests at heart - evil bastards, as you put it, and I would agree. But as people become more informed, and less inflamed, the change will come. Speaking about the issue in terms of the insurance industry being just a bunch of heartless Nazis is just us backwards, not forwards.
I personally know people who went to see Sicko and decided to START selling insurance just to get people some coverage. Perhaps they are misguided, but their intentions are good, believe me.
Good on ya Russell!
And what would be the point of requiring the purchase of a public, Medicare type of policy? That would amount to an ultra regressive tax on the poor who can not afford private insurance, which would be another form of slavery, though not as outrageous as requiring the purchase of a private product, I'll grant you.
Health care is simple, actually. As long as you keep greed out of it, that is.
The other countries do not have much trouble with it. They directly or indirectly through training and education give people employment, or at least some decent financial assistance if they can't come up with jobs for them, they collect taxes with a fair system, they have some good regulations for doctors and hospitals and so forth, and they have a single payer health care system. Everyone gets heath care, no one is a criminal, and no one has an ultra regressive tax to pay (or not pay, if they can't pay, in which case they would be criminals again).
It's actually pretty easy if you know what you are doing, as all the other countries of the world worth living in apparently do.
Wow, the thought that Obama might end up, even if only by default, sponsoring a new law requiring uninsured poor people to buy a pivate insurance product that is illegal in most of the world is a mind blower. In a depression no less.
The audacity of hope that po folk would buy it when so many could not even if they wanted to...
Barrack Obama needs to keep in mind at all times that the point of the Civil War was to end slavery, not to make slavery more extensive. Requiring people to buy a private product is a form of slavery. Merely considering forcing poor people to buy an overpriced, illegal private product strongly suggests that Obama does not comprehend what one of the primary points of the Civil War was.
But I would not be the least bit surprised if instead of single payer we get a twisted, perverted distortion of it: a criminalization of the refusal to buy grossly overpriced private, basic health insurance, a product which is illegal at any price in the countries where living is worthwhile.
But in the USA, private health insurance is one of the few truly solid and dependable profit making industries left in what has become a 3rd World style economy, and that alone gives that industry a massive amount of clout. If they say: "Make those who don't buy our product criminals," there are those in high places, even possibly including Obama, who will listen.
Sioux Rose
TREMAINE: Well-said. Do you (or anyone else) know if they force all homeowners on flood plains or barrier reefs to buy homeowners' insurance? It seems I have read about many without it. Hey, if they force us to have car insurance, and now the strategy is to force us to buy health insurance, does everyone living in a home in an area given to floods, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, mudslides HAVE to have insurance? (I know if many of these places are financed through a bank, it would seem to be a necessity; but is there a blanket law?)
Laughable that mandating the purchase of a defective product is the "American solution." My senator should know better, but he's sponsoring a bill to force us to buy insurance - this in a state that mandated insurance for contractors and created a mini-crisis because insurance companies jacked the price on insurance to its new captive customer base. (They were also colluding to only pretend to compete while parceling out lines of business, but that's another story.) That is exactly what will happen with health care. Exactly what is so "American" that astroturfers can brag about delivering captive demand to an opaque supplier that buys influence on Capitol Hill escapes me. It's not American, heck, it isn't even good capitalism.
The Right should be calling for the end of the welfare program to insurance companies that distorts the free market. Health care prices would fall to meet the price demand could pay if it wasn't feeding at the federal trough.
error
But Pitch Fork, it is SO American for the insurance industry to feed at the federal trough. Banks do it, the MIC does it. Isn't that why it's there? And the taxpayers? We're just the suckers that keep filling it.
Cheers, Kathy
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
"The Right should be calling for the end of the welfare program to insurance companies that distorts the free market. Health care prices would fall to meet the price demand could pay if it wasn't feeding at the federal trough."
Hate to disagree, but I do. What the right should be doing is to quit complaining that their "free market" policies are a workable solution when it's been proved time and time again that nothing is further from the truth. They tell you that the "free market" provides the most efficient, lowest cost solution to a problem. We pay twice what the next most expensive country pays for health care, and we get FAR less for it. We have 49 MILLION people uninsured, and we lose 18,000 Americans every year due to inadequate health care. Our insurance companies are incredibly profitable specifically BECAUSE they don't pay for things that they can get away without paying for. For the love of God, our infant mortality rate is higher than places like Jamaica, a third world country!
When the idea of any actual competition comes into play, these republicans scream to high heaven that they can't compete against a gov't run system. Well, why not? If they are so efficient, they why do they demand to make a full 30% in profit on the top of every dollar spent on health care in this country? That doesn't sound all that efficient to me. If their competitive system is so great and so efficient, then they should be able to compete against anyone, the gov't included. But they know they will lose very time, and should.
We deserve better. And getting better would be cheaper, too, as is shown by every other industrialized country in the freaking world.
Let's also put the blame on the biggest culprits, the "Joe the Plumbers" of Main Street confronting the rest of us on Main Street trying to make single payer healthcare a right and not a "special" privilege. The more the unemployment and casualties from the wars keep rising, the greater the chances that single payer will be inevitable. I just hope that we're successful in stopping the bleeding costs first and convincing others to overcome their anti-single payer madness. I can't stand it when the "Joe the Plumbers" go out of their minds and badmouth single payer healthcare despite the fact that they're the ones who need it the most.
On Saturday, April 18th, a resolution supporting HR 676 was passed by delegates to the 7th CD convention in Wausau, WI, Congressman Dave Obey's district. My understanding is that a similar resolution may see passage at the State convention in Green Bay come June. Why can't we at least get this talked about in Washington?
At least Ed Schultz has broken the media silence on single payer on his "The Ed Show" on MSNBC. But I don't hear Rachel Maddow or Keith Olberman talking about it, though I don't watch their shows every night.
This situation really has the Democrats on the spot. With a an almost certain supermajority in the Senate, a large majority in the House, Obama in the White House, and a majority of Americans and health care providers squarely behind single payer, we can't even get a seat at the friggin' table!!! It's a @#*&%#@ outrage!
Posting comments is not enough. Get on the telephone and tell your congressman/woman that WE WANT A SEAT AT THE TABLE NOW OR THERE"S GOING TO BE HELL TO PAY COME THE MID-TERM ELECTIONS IN 2010!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"The single payer idea is that the private health insurance industry deserves to be destroyed."
This is exactly why "Single Payer" is DOA.
Over one million people are employed by Health Insurance companies and they don't consider what they do for a living to be criminal. While most of US would love to see the insurance companies out of the picture, it's a stretch to want to see them punished. The concept that this entire sector of the economy "deserves to be destroyed" is incendiary and will line up opposition faster than Bush created recruits for bomb vests.
Remember also, that these companies are not going to go quietly. They will sue. US. For Billions in lost potential earnings. Under the Takings Clause, among others. And they most likely will win those court cases. At huge cost to US.
And there will be a million newly unemployed whitecollar people added to the already miserable job market (with attendent credit implosion, bankruptcies, foreclosures....).
The way to avoid this scenario is Public Option that grows into a crowd-out. Beat them at their own game, by efficiently serving the market they are milking. Expand MediCare every year until everyone is eligible. We will have to raise taxes across the board, including a per-head tax on employers, to pay for it (approximately $1500/year for individuals and $500/year from employers, less than 1/4 of current cost for Insurance).
When everyone is covered and everyone is paying for it in taxes, the For-Profits will move out of the business because their customer base will move out from under them.
That achieves the same end result, Single Payer, not-for-profit health care, without enduring a very punishing war over it. Words like "deserve to be destroyed" are exactly the inflamatory rhetoric, what Lakoff calls Bad Framing, that scuttles the Single Payer/HR676 debate.
If "having advocates for Single Payer at the table" means that this is how the issue is raised then it's no wonder that they are excluded and/or ignored.
Far less than the million will lose their jobs, as others have pointed out because there will be a market for services not covered by single payer, like cosmetic.
Think of all the new jobs that can occur when employers no longer provide the medical benefits, or partial medical benefits, of their employees!!! Companies will have MUCH lower human resource cost.
Think of our car industries, for instance, with the expensive employee health benefit packages, that compete with car companies in other countries who don't have those costs.
We talk about the average cost of health care for Americans. Is the employer contribution amount factored into that average?
PS Then I wonder why many, many private companies, large, medium or small, are not clamoring along with private individuals for government single payer? Is it because they get a huge tax writeoff or something? I honestly don't know and am not knowledgeable about economics.
"I wonder why many, many private companies, large, medium or small, are not clamoring along with private individuals for government single payer?"
Because they see the destruction of a profitable, legal business and think: "there, but for luck, go I." If the Government can, in their view, take away one kind of business, it can take away another kind of business. That principal scares the bejeebers out of them. That's exactly what terrifies them about "Socialism".
Fuck these blood sucking leeches. Try paying these bastards 15K a yr. for lousy, that's right lousy so called health care Ins., that grows in cost every yr. and shrinks in benefits! This is why the American people and many of America's biggest Corps. have had it with BIG, so called Health Ins. and BIG Pharma! Were tired, no, we're & sick and tired of being ripped off by an Industry with NO real competition.
The fact that they have effectively bought off the Dems. is no real surprise, nevertheless, we need to let the Dems know and President Obama that trying to slide a phony so called Health care solution past us and then calling it a fix, won't work. It won't work if 1. everyone isn't covered and it won't work 2. if NO public plan is an option. If the only option is to have to buy a private plan or else then we will essentially have created another set of protected Too BIG to fail Corps. that will suck us all dry like the thieving bastards on Wall st. My fear is this is exactly the non-solution Obama and Co. will buy into. The myth that everything has to be for profit or it's no "American". This is a GOP line of thinking and not an American way of thinking. As for the millions that might lose their jobs if a God forbid real solution like Single payer ever happens, so what! Nobody gives a shit for the millions of the rest of us that have lost our jobs so far in this Depression. If were ever going to change our Health system now is the moment and Obama had better realize that this single issue will define his Admins. place in history. If he fails or tries to fudge this he will IMHO see his popularity plummet. I would remind our new President of what happened to his own mother when she came up against the utter brutality and heartlessness of the present so called non-system. We need to change health care into what it has to be a HUMAN RIGHT, other wise our lives will become what they are now just another profit or loss fig. on some huge Corp's bottom line.
But the health insurance companies won't be destroyed by single payer. There will still be people rich enough to want healthcare with all the trimmings like the ability to choose where and when to have treatments, to have treatments in clinics offering cordon bleu meals, high staff-to-patient ratios, private suites and so on. Then there's the vanity stuff like hair transplants, boob jobs, face lifts, nose bobs and so on. Insurance companies in Europe do very well under single-payer because companies use that kind of extra insurance to reward staff they want to get or keep.
Rainborowe
That creates a two tiered healthcare system, doesn't it? Justifying disparity in conditions between Innercity hospitals and Suburban ones (for instance)? I'm not sure that Boutique Healthcare is such a great idea. Regardless, the rhetoric from the Single Payer crowd IS that the Insurance Companies must be destroyed, that they deserve to be punished, that's the fatal flaw in their argument.
I don't see it as two tiered. We assume that all necessary healthcare is taken care of under single-payer. The other stuff is either vanity stuff or vanity surroundings, or both. For example, a teenaged girl, as a friend of mine was, had breasts so huge that they put a serious stain on her back and shoulders. The reduction, under single-payer, would come under the basic national health system as a medical necessity. The woman wanting to enhance her endowment from 44EEE to 46GGG would have to go the boutique route.
We already have a two-tiered system with Medicare and Medicaid on one hand and private healthcare on the other. The difference is that the people assigned to each tier are there according to their ability to pay, not to their need.
And, as a matter of fact, we already have a 3 tiered system as a recent development in the US is super-class luxury care in really special clinics and hospitals and even, gulp!, house-calls.
Rainborowe
It strikes me that the boundary between "necessary" and "boutique" could be endlessly gamed by politicians/insurance companies after a dual system is set up - just like insurance companies are constantly gaming what's covered and what isn't, what copays are, etc. The devil is in the details. Since medicine is always changing, a sweeping law setting everything in stone at once couldn't be made, though broad categories could be worked out.
If we had single payer the insurance companies wouldn't be involved in regular healthcare. They'd only be able to cover people who wanted the extras. The UK has single-payer (socialized medicine, actually) and private insurance for the vanity stuff. There is no means for the insurance companies to "game" anything.
Rainborowe
But in America, everyone whines about paying taxes- and you can't explain to the average American that what they'll pay in taxes for health care will be much less than what the are paying, or would pay, for private health insurance. The rightwing media have been successful at convincing their readers, viewers, and listeners that taxes are a bad thing, that we know better how to spend our money than the government does.
Sioux Rose
NMLIB: C'mon... the $ is there! Look what gets poured into the military, wars of choice & empire-building, weapons development. And next look to all the trillions pouring down the bankers' chimneys like some fiduciary Santa Claus determined this was the ticket to prosperity for the nation. The point? It's all about THE priorities, and this land of the free likes its prisons, wars, and corporate trespassers, but it could care less about its actual constituents. Disgusting does not begin to define it...
"listeners that taxes are a bad thing, that we know better how to spend our money than the government does."
They are wrong about the former but quite right about the latter.
And you point out the truth of the argument for singl;e payer, we would pay less taxes and spend less of our own money under single payer.........is that not a win/win?
That's one of the hard truths that is neatly avoided in hr676.
Thanks Russell.
Keep it up.
Keep reminding us that that American people want single payer.
Keep reminding us that the private insurance industry wants to stop single payer.
Keep reminding us that for profit basic health insurance is fundamentally immoral.
It's not a secret plot to destroy the health insurance industry.
IT's a well publicized, very public plot to destroy the health insurance industry.
We want the health insurance industry DEAD. It's a parasite that has only one job and that is to prevent people from getting health care until they get their extortion money.
If the kill people in the process that doesn't bother them. Dead patients do not make further claims. People forced out of the system and denied health care only make their extortionate prices seem justified. Nothing instructs like people who died in agony due to lack of health insurance.
Never mind having health insurance is not any guarantee that you will get health care.
I want the Health Insurance industry CEO's to commit suicide. That would make me very happy. Go for it boys.
Okay people, you wanted a movement to coalesce around? Here it is:
If, as seems increasingly likely, we are told by Saint Obama that we must purchase health insurance from a for-profit corporation, simply refuse.
Don't offer any personal information. Don't fill out the form. Don't write the check. Don't carry the card.
There will have to be penalties built into the legislation to compel compliance. Be prepared to accept them, but know that if enough people call strike in this way, the system might well grind to the halt some of us have been hoping for.
Otherwise this rebirth of feudalism will prevail.
We agree.
While Arlen Specter switching parties is one story, the bigger story is Barack Obama switching parties. He stands tall with Republicans on every major issue except global warming. For some reason, the piece above forgets to mention the elephant in the room.
Sioux Rose
FENNER: That's pretty much how I see it. Maybe every politician should fill out a list of 100 policy positions/priorities and let a COMPUTER determine where they stand on the linear scale moving from red to blue. If too many end up in red, maybe that would trip the computer and create enough of a buzz with the citizenry as to appoint those that actualy represent something equivalent to an opposition party.
Of course this Pollyanna dream can only work if media was forced to allot free air time to viable candidates. Then we could dispense with the prostitution angle, which is what it is after all when lobbyists pay the candidate for future tricks.
I'm glad I'm not a Democrat if Arlen Specter is joining them. I'd hate for this guy to have my back going up the trail.
Agreed. His switch is the biggest non-story of the week.
q
But I hear that Obama is now willing to reach across the isle and help some of the people who got him elected.
Good one.
q
What you say is true but it only touches on a tiny part of the whole.
The entire system under which we have organized ourselves is just as disfunctional or more so.
You can not make tiny adjustments here and there and expect any kind of real solution.
Mother nature to humanity - "Your Money Or Your Life"
We need to restructure civilization before it is restructured for us, and not in a good way.
Millions of people are facing bankruptcy or death from lack of insurance coverage, and you refuse to act until someone comes up with a plan to fix every human ill all at once? Please get your head out of the clouds and please get in touch with the real suffering and problems of real flesh-and-blood human beings. For them, implementing single payer is an URGENT, IMMEDIATE, NECESSITY. You act as though the crisis of our civilization is a graduate-seminar discussion rather than a matter of human survival.
Total transformation will come--but only if it arises from a consciousness that puts the real needs of real humans first and put abstract utopian schemes ahead of the need to address the real suffering of real people. Single player would be a radical step forward for this society--it would put 14 percent of the GDP in the public sector and guarantee health care as a human right to all for the first time in this country. If enough people act to realize this goal, it will be a giant step toward a larger social transformation. You're putting the cart before the horse.
Millions of people are facing bankruptcy or death from lack of insurance coverage, and you only provide a generic response to other posts? Please get your head out of the clouds and please get in touch with the real suffering and problems of real flesh-and-blood human beings. For them, implementing single payer is an URGENT, IMMEDIATE, NECESSITY. You act as though the crisis of our civilization is a graduate-seminar discussion rather than a matter of human survival.
Total transformation will come--but only if it arises from a consciousness that puts the real needs of real humans first and put abstract utopian schemes ahead of the need to address the real suffering of real people. Single player would be a radical step forward for this society--it would put 14 percent of the GDP in the public sector and guarantee health care as a human right to all for the first time in this country. If enough people act to realize this goal, it will be a giant step toward a larger social transformation. You're putting the cart before the horse.
Although Obama's plan to criminalize the uninsured has neocon written all over it, killing private medical insurance in one fell swoop is a non starter.
Phone, write, or email your US Congressional Rep. and your two US Senators and tell them to expand eligibility for medicare by reducing the age limit 5 to 10 years per year until medicare eventually covers all Americans. This gives the private insurers time to adjust over a 6 to 10 year period, after which they will still have customers willing to pay for insurnace beyond the basic coverage provided by medicare.
Actually, HR 676 has built into it a 15-year conversion period of private health insurance to Medicare for all, with Treasury bonds being sold to compensate private health insurance companies for their gradual elimination and private health insurance workers being retrained to be the first employees hired in the new public health care system. So HR 676 will NOT kill private medical insurance "in one fell swoop".
Why do you assert that Medicare for All is a "nonstarter"? This defeatism merely echoes the propaganda of the centrist corporate types that run Washington. According to the latest Gallup poll, 60 percent of Americans favor it, and 59 percent of American physicians favor it, according to a survey by the Annals of Internal Medicine. If people like you would start campaigning for single payer--demonstrating, calling your representatives, etc.--instead of making excuses for the status quo, it could happen--just as abolition of slavery, voting rights for women, union organizing rights, etc., etc., happened--from organized pressure from below.
This discussion is not just an idle academic exercise in pondering the virtues of this or that plan--it is an economic/health emergency for this country. First of all, irrational HMO system of this country is the most wasteful in the industrialized world: the U.S. spends TWICE per capita on health care what Japan, Canada, and Europe spend, with inferior life expectancy to boot. An economy teetering on the abyss can ill-afford such profligacy just to keep a small clutch of HMO executives and stockholders riding in Lexuses.
Moreover, as millions of Americans lose their jobs in this imploding economy, most also lose their employer-tied health insurance. Some 50 million Americans already lack any medical coverage at all--18,000 of them die each year in America's pay-or-die system. Many of those that are covered face destitution or bankruptcy because of extortionate premiums and deductibles and selective coverage of the private plans. Every state experiment in public'private hybrid plans (the phony "universal" plan being peddled by Obama and HCAN) has failed to achieve increased coverage or reduced costs--the whole business is a sham, a flimsy Rube Goldberg construct designed to keep the HMO execs and stockholders in their designer suits, summer homes, and Lexuses--along with the Congressional and White House recipients of their campaign largesse.
For those facing death or penury because of this country's irrational health system, the issue is one of the gravest urgency. Those who are content to settle for half measures probably already have adequate insurance themselves. Perhaps they do not understand how serious the situation is, or perhaps in such people there is a void where a conscience should be.
That's a good idea.
"It was as if the question hadn't been asked."
You mean kind of how the left treats discussion of parecon?
--
Eric Patton
Cincinnati, OH
ebpatton@yahoo.com