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Published on Wednesday, September 30, 2009 by Black Agenda Report
Poll Shows Public Wants Medicare for All
Despite the infamous Max Baucus Senate committee's long-anticipated rejection of even a fig leaf of a public health care "option," public opinion remains remarkably firm in support of allowing everyone access to a comprehensive government health plan. A New York Times/CBS News survey last week provided the best polling evidence in recent months that most people favor a public option that is a lot more "robust" than anything the Congress is offering, aside from straight-up single payer.
The poll once again confirms that something very much like single payer remains an idea whose time has come. After all these month's of the Obama Administration's attempts to shrivel into near nothingness the very concept of health care "reform," and despite the mad howlings of Republicans about the evils of "socialized medicine," two-thirds of the American people still support a Medicare-like government health care plan. Unlike some recent surveys, the language of the pollsters' question was straightforward and unambiguous:
"Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government-administered health insurance plan like Medicare that would compete with private health insurance plans?"
That is the definition of a very "robust" public health care option. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they were in favor.
It's a pity that the New York Times and CBS News neglected to ask how the public feels about a full-blown single payer plan, which has for years commanded strong majorities. But the poll does show conclusively that Americans overwhelmingly endorse expanding Medicare to all who want it - and let the private insurers sink or swim on their own.
Still, it is a wonderment that, with all the disinformation from the Hard Right, and almost a year of backroom dealing, backstabbing and dissembling from President Obama and other corporate Democrats, who have mangled reform into a giant subsidy for the privateers, the people still know what they want: Medicare for all, at the very least.
The tragedy is, none of the bills under serious consideration by House and Senate committees provides anything close to what the public desires. As my colleague Bruce Dixon has written, the "robust" public option does not exist in any practical sense. (See BAR, "The President, Progressives, and the Myth of the Robust Public Option," September 9, 2009.) A version of Medicare for all does exist, in the form of Rep. John Conyers' HR 676, the Enhanced Medicare For All single payer bill - but the measure is anathema to President Obama, who spent most of his energies marginalizing Conyers and his allies in the early months of the administration. Obama has consistently (and viciously) tried to depict single payers and their "robust" fellow travelers as the "extremist" lefty mirror images of rightwing "tea-baggers." Yet at the end of the day, the public center of gravity on health care remains situated in the political realm of the Congressional Progressive and Black Caucuses. Obama is way off to the Right somewhere, in the general vicinity of his soul mate Sen. Baucus, whom the president early on empowered as his health care torchbearer (more like fire-quencher).
The NYT/CBS poll shows the public is not in the least confused about what it wants from the president and the congress on the health care front. Rather, they are befuddled about what Obama wants (55 percent say he has not clearly explained himself), and near-totally up in the air about what the Republicans want (76 percent don't understand the GOP's position). The more the people learn about both, the less they'll like either of them.
Which brings me to the most uplifting aspect of the poll: It is the best recent evidence that Obama has not succeeded in narrowing public perceptions of the scope of health care "reform" to fit his own puny, corporate-vetted positions. The real reform genie is permanently out of the bottle, and he is quite "robust."
The poll once again confirms that something very much like single payer remains an idea whose time has come. After all these month's of the Obama Administration's attempts to shrivel into near nothingness the very concept of health care "reform," and despite the mad howlings of Republicans about the evils of "socialized medicine," two-thirds of the American people still support a Medicare-like government health care plan. Unlike some recent surveys, the language of the pollsters' question was straightforward and unambiguous:
"Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government-administered health insurance plan like Medicare that would compete with private health insurance plans?"
That is the definition of a very "robust" public health care option. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they were in favor.
It's a pity that the New York Times and CBS News neglected to ask how the public feels about a full-blown single payer plan, which has for years commanded strong majorities. But the poll does show conclusively that Americans overwhelmingly endorse expanding Medicare to all who want it - and let the private insurers sink or swim on their own.
Still, it is a wonderment that, with all the disinformation from the Hard Right, and almost a year of backroom dealing, backstabbing and dissembling from President Obama and other corporate Democrats, who have mangled reform into a giant subsidy for the privateers, the people still know what they want: Medicare for all, at the very least.
The tragedy is, none of the bills under serious consideration by House and Senate committees provides anything close to what the public desires. As my colleague Bruce Dixon has written, the "robust" public option does not exist in any practical sense. (See BAR, "The President, Progressives, and the Myth of the Robust Public Option," September 9, 2009.) A version of Medicare for all does exist, in the form of Rep. John Conyers' HR 676, the Enhanced Medicare For All single payer bill - but the measure is anathema to President Obama, who spent most of his energies marginalizing Conyers and his allies in the early months of the administration. Obama has consistently (and viciously) tried to depict single payers and their "robust" fellow travelers as the "extremist" lefty mirror images of rightwing "tea-baggers." Yet at the end of the day, the public center of gravity on health care remains situated in the political realm of the Congressional Progressive and Black Caucuses. Obama is way off to the Right somewhere, in the general vicinity of his soul mate Sen. Baucus, whom the president early on empowered as his health care torchbearer (more like fire-quencher).
The NYT/CBS poll shows the public is not in the least confused about what it wants from the president and the congress on the health care front. Rather, they are befuddled about what Obama wants (55 percent say he has not clearly explained himself), and near-totally up in the air about what the Republicans want (76 percent don't understand the GOP's position). The more the people learn about both, the less they'll like either of them.
Which brings me to the most uplifting aspect of the poll: It is the best recent evidence that Obama has not succeeded in narrowing public perceptions of the scope of health care "reform" to fit his own puny, corporate-vetted positions. The real reform genie is permanently out of the bottle, and he is quite "robust."
© 2009 Black Agenda Report
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41 Comments so far
Show All"Which brings me to the most uplifting aspect of the poll: It is the best recent evidence that Obama has not succeeded in narrowing public perceptions of the scope of health care "reform" to fit his own puny, corporate-vetted positions. The real reform genie is permanently out of the bottle, and he is quite "robust." -- Glen Ford
I agree with you -- it's very clear that our elected officials are NOT listening to us, their constituents. Instead of people standing down, more people are standing up -- more groups are taking action, etc.
In the beginning, when Obama CHOSE to NOT include single-payer advocates at the table for debate, I thought any kind of REAL reform was "dead in the water," so to speak. I had no idea that we would still be talking about Medicare for All and Single-Payer in October, 2009. I really thought that Obama, Baucus, et. al., had it all sewn up into a done deal. But, here we are -- despite the M$M, the Obama adminstation, our very own elected officials, and the health industry executives, all of whom thought they had a finished deal, a deal that enriched the already massively wealthy health industry executives, and their companies.
My senator, Chuck Schumer, today, is attempting to sound populist, and was interviewed on Hard Ball with Chris Matthews last night. Schumer says a "public option" will pass -- but, his particular brand of "public option" has been described as "barely a public option" -- similar to several other plans that exclude millions of people from being able to feel safe and secure in their lives.
On the program, Mr. Matthews showed a commercial that is currently running on air in Montana -- the home of Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus. In the ad, a real human being is featured, a Montana resident, who talks about his need for health care insurance for himself and his family, and states that he can't afford to buy it -- therefore, we need a very robust REAL public option. In addiiton, the advertisement points out how connected Baucus is to the health industries -- taking in over $4 million dollars. Afterwards, Matthews and Schumer talk about how ads, "like this" hurt the debate and the broader cause of reform.
What does the ad really do? It shows our elected officials as the corporate shills they really are -- and proves, once again, that they do NOT represent their constituents.
"In the ad, a real human being is featured, a Montana resident, who talks about his need for health care..."
Technically, this human being from Montana doesn't have a senator representing him. When I check opensecrets for the geography of donors to Baucus in 2008, I see that only 10% of his money even came from Montana. Ninety percent came from out of state with the top 5 being:
1) New York
2) DC area
3) Los Angeles
4) San Francisco
5) Chicago
This is often the case in states with small insignificant people who don't own a robust corporate voice and lobbying phalanx.
Your reply is exactly my point!
Indeed, Democracy Inc. serves only the interests of the corporate elite, they own the place.
In this corporate democracy the CEO declares that there shall now be a vote and he will cast it.
So where is his opposition? Seems like someone would have a very good case to make against him? (One TV ad might even be enough, no?)
I'll be as concise as I can. We do not live in a democracy (one person, one vote). We live in a corporatocracy (one dollar, one vote). It should be evident by now that we are subject to tyranny rather than representation. It is also evident that employed, insured Americans either don't realize this, don't care, or are simply hoping the ax doesn't fall on them, their jobs, their health care, their homes. Having grown up in the 60s, I look around in amazement that so many people being so badly screwed are so complacent about it.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all, on Jan.1, 2010, just stopped paying our health insurance premiums and medical bills? Keep getting service, just stop paying for it. The system's broken, the government won't fix it, so let's just smash it to pieces! Of course, this won't happen (see paragraph 1).
Adios, America!
Adios, America!
Indeed!
Great Post! Lots of good stuff there.
Politicians know self preservation is a strong human instinct, and people will take a lot of B/S as long as they are still surviving. Of course when the politicians get too greedy and people loose too much that complacency turns to rage.
The politicians then have two choices at that point, they can choose to improve the peoples situation so they become complacent again, or they can try to manipulate that rage to screw the people even more. The later seems to be what is happening in this country right now. In most countries that could be a very risky thing to attempt, but is it risky in the good old USofA?
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in our country, because our current ruling class seem to be incapable of of doing anything but screwing the average person. I wonder do Americans have a breaking point like the French do?
You may recall that in the 1790s the French rolled out the Guillotine and kept it handy until 1981 when they abolished the death penalty...by which time their government had been thoroughly conditioned to fear and therefore listen to the people.
In the USA, the government only fears and listens to the corporations.
The people? Well, with a political IQ hovering in the low double digits, the people just don't matter.
Hear Hear!
If it were not for my elderly parents, I would have said "tot ziens" to the USA and moved back to Holland for good (even though I am a 9th generation US citizen). When my parents are gone, I might just do that, or say "Adios al Imperio de Estados Unidos" and move to Costa Rica. (they have a good single-payer system)
Poll Shows Public Wants Medicare for All
You can't have it! The United States is now a totally corrupt kleptocratic tyranny. The election of Obama with his hope and change you can believe in, followed by Full Spectrum Betrayal, has sealed the fate of this nation. The Powers That Be sit in their plush bunkers and gun towers and sneeringly chant, "What're you gonna do about it?"
The Democrats in Washington find themselves in the very difficult position of trying to write a bill that will allow their corporate health care sponsors to continue wringing blood money from the public while simultaneously avoiding a massive revolt from the grass roots of the party. It won't happen.
At some point in the future we will have a single payer health care system in this country. It will happen quicker than most people think and it will rise up from traditionally conservative, rural areas just like the populist movement.
Briggs Seekins
briggsseekins.wordpress.com
You would think corporate America (with the exception of the insurance industry) would support single-payer, too, wouldn't you?
We the taxpayers need to buy the hospitals and furnish everything in it.
No Charge for using anything!
Local communities choose who they want to hire to run the place!
By doing this the staff would MAKE MORE MONEY!
I think I hear strains of the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" drifting on the breeze down Main Street, despite $1.4 million/day worth of bribery in Congress and however much more in propaganda spewing out of the idiot box 24/7.
Whatever it is we're doing, it seems to be working. Let's keep doing it until this fight for universal health care is won.
my two cents:
As Nader,Chomsky, Zinn and others have pointed out for years, a clear majority of the US public have wanted a Canada-style single-payer (not a weak BS "public option") health care system for OVER 30 YEARS!
It is now 2009 and still not getting single-payer or even a genuine public choice, the system will get EVEN WORSE. People that have insurance from their employer might get taxed for it. Those who don't have it might be fined thousands of dollars. The Death Insurance Vultures and MegaDrugsInc. industry will get public subsidies and tens of millions in new custormers and billions in new profits. The neo-fascist system is using the state to extort public funds to transfer it into private corporate hands. This will be as big or bigger of public theft than the Bankster bailouts and giveaways.
Health care Reform in the USA = put a gun to our heads and say "your money or your life" and the money goes to the private corporations, not the public.
Time for some serious civil disobedience
Given the nature of our electoral system, to advance reform I think we need to know state-by-state poll results. Any idea what people in Iowa or Utah think, for example?
Sadly our electoral system is corrupt. Theoretically, in some form of democratic process, the will of the people ought to determine policy formation and outcomes. In our system, the corporate elite determine outcomes, the health-care debate should have made this crystal clear. See this article and a couple of other articles on the subject for more info.
Cut the military budget in half and direct all of that money to medicare. i am not naive enough to think that this will occur any time soon, but the acceptance of the military budget by the govt. and the public shows exactly where our priorities are.
Ray Berthiaume
I totally agree. I think if we cut the military budget in half we would more than pay for Single Payer healthcare and, I think, have enough for free higher education for those who qualify!
Obama's 2010 Defense budget clocks in at around $530 billion.
Cut this in half and you get $265 billion.
Obama's ridiculous 1,000 page plus plan costs $100 billion a year (for ten years).
A single-payer plan would be even less.
We could provide a Medicare-for-all plan AND provide rock-solid stability to Social Security for a hundred years with this savings.
Sirios333, you are probably closer to the truth than if a thousand health care bill's were presented and accepted unanimously by congress. Where exactly would the money come from, if universal medicare were made law, if not out of the Pentagon's budget? Borrowing it would be ludicrous, plus I don't believe the Chinese would be happy about subsidizing the health care of Americans. Federal and state budgets are broke, with huge numbers unemployed drawing benefits instead of a pay check. I wonder, just as a thought, and because of the inexplicable behaviour of the current Democratic majority; would the Pentagon and its many associates interfere with the American people's right to health care? It does maintain a vast, half trillion dollar budget. Would be kind of hard to give some of it up, wouldn't it. Nah, couldn't be, could it?
Obama is going to say:
"No one can say healthcare reform hasn't been debated thoroughly. The Republicans have said they want my administration to fail starting with healthcare reform. So much for bipartisanship. Some Democrats are in the pockets of the insurance companies and are obstructing any real reform. The Big Money opposition is resorting to airing false, deceitful ads and spreading lies to stop any reform at all.
After carefully studying all the alternatives, I have decided that we will take a cue from misguided Republicans who to their credit, know how to get things done. We will go to reconciliation and are going to pass the reform that 3/4 of the people want. I'm talking about Medicare for All. The insurance companies here, like those of our trading partners, will do just fine. And the people will get what they voted for in a democracy, not in a corporatocracy.
We will halve our healthcare costs and bring them to the level of other developed countries. We will pay for Medicare for All with these savings and by increasing taxes on people making over 250 thousand, like I promised in my campaign.
By withdrawing our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, catching Bin Laden and fighting Qaeda with smarter and much less costly police actions instead of by growing, wasteful, bloody and counterproductive warfare, we will be able to cut our bloating war budget and streamline our defense apparatus while bringing the savings home to fix healthcare, infrastructure and to provide jobs."
The audacity of hope.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/30/obamas-secret-bill-white_n_304099.html?show_comment_id=31917937#comment_31917937
Sorry - double post
Well, everyone states the obvious: the elitists, corporatists, banksters, fascists (whatever you want to call them) own the government - lock (congress), stock (executive) and barrel (the courts).
They steal our blood, sweat, tears and money, and then they steal everything else.
The question is: what should/could an enlightened populace do to change this obvious slide into full-blown fascism??
the only thing to do is withdraw from the system...the system is based on the ownership of property...everything else stems from this...
Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...non-electric, non-industrial life...let's get those gardens growing!
the human bodies and processes governing this world are corrupted and broken...they cannot be repaired from within, as their very structure is at odds with the living world...indeed, human opinion is rapidly approaching irrelevancy on almost every issue, as the importance of global environmental health cannot be trumped...humans are a subset of the living world, not the other way around...
we must live humbly, and humbly hope that the destruction we have caused is not so great as to be insurmountable, or irreparable...
there will be violent backlash, but resource depletion, alone, guarantees future violence...fear of this violence cannot cost us our only living world...neither can fear of homelessness or incarceration...
we must abandon the school\job\mortgage way of life, and return to self-reliance, both physically and philosophically...
this is the realm of the individual, not the Congressional representative of the global corporation...
what is your life's purpose?
stand in your own place again...assist your neighbors with physical labor and defense...grow food locally everywhere...live not as others dictate, but as a free, thinking creature, in harmony with the myriad living plants and animals around you...
even with such dire , almost hopeless circumstance ...one can't forget the BEAUTY - the TRUE BEAUTY and Truth of what was just said in your post. as with similarly meaningful comments from others here -- yours , despite the DARKNESS , STILL reminds us that -- as a line from the famous trilogy of JRR TOLKIEN's "LORD OF THE RINGS"
even in the most DESPERATE hours of the quest to destroy the evil ring in the volcano , by two mere, helpless, forlorn Hobbits surrounded by such powerful evil --
the character SAM intoned:
"mister frodo....yes - everything seems hopeless and our quest is hopeless...we are lost...the darkness surely will swallow all....but Mister Frodo...even so ...in my heart....when i look up to the night sky....there reminds me....: for all the evil of sauron and his forces, even if WE fail....there is BEAUTY and GOODNESS far beyond that Sauron Will NEVER touch...that will forever be out of his reach".
Thank you for your post.
Teddy,
THAT was beautiful.
The quote from the Lord of the Rings reminds me of Viggo Mortensen.
He campaigned with Dennis Kucinich.
I agree, although it is difficult sometimes, to see the beauty through all the bleakness.
I noticed you did reference defense and we do need to defend the natural world, plants and animals.
So, I think a simpler life is in order in addition to taking individual non-violent action to defend those without a voice.
I believe we do, however, need to have a voice in government as well.
Dennis Kucinich is my choice for a sane, kind, intelligent voice.
Stunningly beautiful!
What should an enlightened populace do to change? Revolt!
Stop cursing the darkness and keep trying!!!
What do polls matter anyway at this point when Washington won't listen to them unless they're in favor of the monied elites? Year after year after year after... we see the same thing but who will fix it?
A recently released poll conducted by CX-1 Research found that only three representatives out of 535 give a flying f**k about any poll.
Medicare For All, also known as single-payer health insurance, is favored by a majority of Americans.
How can we convince our Members of Congress to enact what the people want?
Let them know that unless they support Medicare For All, you won't support them.
Take the Medicare For All Pledge today:
http://bit.ly/medicareforallpledge
I'll support a new Constitutional Convention.
Thank you Glen Ford. The Black Agenda Report is so consistently good on this issue and so many others.
The Democratic Party died the minute the Obama fans started calling their fellow Democrats racists.
What worries me is how are insurance companies suppose to be able to compete with the government if we had a single-payer system?
I keep losing sleep over this and feel so sorry for the people working for these insurance companies.
If we have a single-payer system these companies would go out of business and many people would lose their jobs.
And then, according to what I know, these giant two-legged red monsters will come out of both seas, the Atlantic and the Pacific, and they will go from town to town and city to city and stomp on everything in sight and the US will then be thoroughly destroyed.
There's no defense whatsoever against these giant red monsters from the seas, don't you people understand???!!!
Well, at least that's what my congressman told me. He whispered this information in my ear while trembling in horror, the poor fella.
Glen Ford:
Your comments are refreshingly honest and factual:
"A version of Medicare for all does exist, in the form of Rep. John Conyers' HR 676, the Enhanced Medicare For All single payer bill - but the measure is anathema to President Obama, who spent most of his energies marginalizing Conyers."
and "backstabbing and dissembling from President Obama and other corporate Democrats"
Obama is selling us out to the insurance companies.
He has proposed a mandate to force all people to buy insurance.
All other industrialized countries recognize that health care, not health insurance, is a basic human right.
Not to mention that Obama and Congress enjoy single-payer health care.
Let's face it, Obama and the corporate Democrats are liars and whores for the Corporations.
Dennis Kucinich (single-payer co-signer to Conyers bill, advocate for peace dept, end to war, end to nafta, wto, pro-environmental regulations) is the people's representative and we need him in the White House.
But, for crying out loud, if we put Kucinich in the White House he's going to run into the same problems Obama is: His own Democratic party.
Nevermind the Republicans.
Protests against Kucinich might even be more radical than what we've seen against Obama. I think that if Obama stuck to his origianl proposals, something that we expect someone like Kucinich to do, and have not tried to be so freaking "compromising" or "bipartisan" there might have been a coup against him or shot dead by his own political party.
All after Ted Kennedy's funeral, of course.
It should be clear by now that the Democratic party is a no go. We need to help build another political party and invite people like Kucinich and Greyson over to it.
I've had it with the Democratic party and their gutless leaders like Obama, Hilary and all their ilk.