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Alegre's Corner
We're not finished folks - not by a long shot!

Open Thread: Why Didn't We Try Single Payer?

by: masslib

Tue Aug 25, 2009 at 09:14:59 AM EDT


masslib :: Open Thread: Why Didn't We Try Single Payer?
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Open Thread: Why Didn't We Try Single Payer? | 34 comments
Good luck to Alegre in her new job! (0.00 / 0)
What's on your mind today?

Me, after weeks of robust growth, my zucchini plants bit the dust.  :(

Medicare for All is Civil Rights

Same thing happened to my neighbors. They were strong one (0.00 / 0)
day, and collapsed for no apparent reason the next.  What the heck happened?
[ Parent ]
Obama, the Un-Reagan: (0.00 / 0)
http://anglachelg.blogspot.com...

Medicare for All is Civil Rights
Glad to see Anglachel back (0.00 / 0)
Her posts over the last several days clearly lays out the problems with Whole Foods Nation and Obamacans.  
[ Parent ]
we? (0.00 / 0)
oh, yeah, I guess they were elected to represent us?  Slipped my mind.

Reasons have been speculated - don't do anything HIllary did is the most optimistic one.  The others bode even less well.  

of course before negotiations you start with what is best, and sell is as the best science, cheapest, mostly like to save health care one, and that's single payer. Then, when it's clear that congress won't accept anything so rational, you cut back to having a choice of a public option and then you demand the people get a choice.  

You surely don't kick it down the road, if co-ops don't work great, then congress can give us a public option in five years. A lot can happen in five years, we might get a bill banning any public option, and have it put into our constitution. And anyway  Bill fell for that a few times, don't ask don't tell for one, and he got burned.  Well, we got burned.  


Hillary - alternative energy

Well, I am pretty sure the "we" refers to Pelosi, Obama (0.00 / 0)
and Reid.

Medicare for All is Civil Rights
[ Parent ]
what a waste of opportunity? (0.00 / 0)
Don't want to get cynical but these guys aren't getting the big picture.  The Motley Fools want a public option, many pugs want that too, we pretty much all want choice of insurers, and yet it has come to this, and so soon.  

So, what can we do?  Seems like many are now on board with a demand for a public option, it is the new cool, the liberal blogs have woken up to 'reality' a la our elected representatives, but nothing I can see is changing - the answers are all to the far right and no answers for us.

Why?  

Hillary - alternative energy

[ Parent ]
Why do you keep saying "we" pretty much all want a choice (0.00 / 0)
of insurers?  I'm sorry, but I have to disagree.  I think that's the only "choice" that has been offered.  I think the American people would like to have Medicare.  If someone said, how would you like cheaper, better basic health care, which can only be provided through a one payer system, I don't think people would say, oh no, I want a choice of insurer.  I really don't.  Which is what bugs me about the entire debate.  That choice isn't even discussed.  Now why would that be?  Call me cynical, but I'm fairly certain it's because most Americans would want that.

I mean, I will post more about this later, but HCAN news updates on FDL sensor out single payer articles.  AFSCME sensors single payer speakers.  The AFL-CIO sensors unions that support single payer from their own deliberations.  Why?  I'm fairly certain it's because these groups can't stand the competition.  I think "competition" in the insurance sector is a crock.  In countries that have multipayers, they have far less private payers than our system already has.  What about competing ideas?  Why are ideas that compete with what some grad student(Jacob Hacker) dreamed up, and Celinda Lake(HCAN a-hole)pushed on the Democratic Party, excluded?  My guess, because they are better ideas.  Medicare for All, improved, and gradually expanded, may not happen right away, and a discussion of that idea may render Obama's health plan obsolete, ie it may take longer to pass than Romney-Care with a symbolic public option, but if it were allowed at the table, allowed to compete in the market place of ideas, I'm fairly certain it would win out, as it is the only viable proposition for reducing the household cost of health care AND expanding care to every resident.

Medicare for All is Civil Rights

[ Parent ]
I guess (0.00 / 0)
cause that seems to be a consensus.  Yes, I want single payer and I want at the very least the choice of medicare among whatever other options anyone else may provide, including co-ops, that already work well in some locals.  

The single payer advocates have been shut out of official debates, were not allowed to present their case.  and the case for single payer is awesome. So, I don't me me or you, but I mean that's a real consensus, that's what everyone will say that they want.

the case has not been made, in the media or by our current administration, for single payer.  the fight is with the far right, which is irrelevant, and only gives a 'look' at answering the opposition. the real opposition is between those who want to prop up private insurers and those who want best science.  that's how I see it.  

There is a moral position that also works for single payer, but it's not needed. it's best for the economy, best for each and every one of us, and only worse for big insurance conglomerates.  

Hillary - alternative energy

[ Parent ]
The case is not being made by A list bloggers. (0.00 / 0)
Do a google news search any day of the week and you will see that newspapers editorial boards from every corner of the country are advocating single payer.  Read what the ten of thousands of doctors and nurses, including Obama's doctors are writing and saying everday.  The consensus is staged.

Medicare for All is Civil Rights
[ Parent ]
or (0.00 / 0)
it builds on what's best to include even  more for what's second best?  And why not, that's what has bloggers up in arms, what had already been factored in as a compromise?  

Hillary - alternative energy
[ Parent ]
No, I don't think so. (0.00 / 0)
I think the top down effort has been to silence those who oppose ObamaCare from the Left because the opposers have a better argument for real reform but it would gut the for-profit health finance industry, even if it would do so incrementally.  I am very worried about the PO crowd, because the PO has largely disappeared and the trade-offs to pharma and Big Insurance are an abomination.  If they come to terms with either the death or complete scalping of the PO, it may be too late.  They may have hung on too long afraid to let go of the sunk costs of their PO advocacy.  It may at that point pass without the PO or with the warped PO, and then we'll be stuck waiting around for another 15 years to reform health care, while the experiment fails.

Personally, I don't find the PO "second best".  It's not anything like the PO Hillary or Edwards talked about on the campaign trail, even though it has the same ambiguous name. To me, the next best would be some incremental expansion and improvement of Medicare and regulations such as no underwriting, no exclusion, etc. by private insurers.  It would not be a meager public option plus a bonanza for the insurers.  

Medicare for All is Civil Rights

[ Parent ]
we're not talking about the same thing (0.00 / 0)
i'm talking about the public interest in the choice of medicare.  I have no idea what they're even proposing anymore, it changes and it looks dispensable anyway, but I have noticed that where there was silence on the public option, by which I mean the choice of medicare, there are now voices, not all saying the same thing mind you. I'm not sure anyone understands what the administration is backing, except that any public option isn't part of the core for Barack, that's one thing that is clear. I think there is momentum from the people, but no one is listening high up on the hill and mainstream media isn't covering it.

Why?  Well, the media is as out of touch with the desires of the population as any hill insider, which is where they identify.  

Just like the recovery being tooted, when so many are out of work, and more coming.  In today's paper China is now the lead in solar panels, they've been training the scientists and the engineers for two generations, they have talent to burn.

Meanwhile Barack is stuck with his weird vetting rules for public servants that means anyone has to hire a lawyer to be considered for a job that takes a cut in pay and many other sacrifices.  So, we're not getting the top professionals and experts, the collective experience of our own generations.

It seems to me that the nation is in a free fall, we're still on top, but just because we've been there so long, and control so much world wealth.  We're not maintaining our own population, that would require robust early childhood education, which is my big thang, and what I liked about Hillary. OUr kids now need to be rich to afford higher degrees, and so we're wasting a lot of talent, and giving resources to those that won't use them for the good of the nation as a whole.

Our citizens, our kids are our most precious resources, and we're worried about propping up insurance companies so our economy won't change?  

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the people are ahead of the administration and those cable news places that only a fraction of Americans tune in for. They're talking to themselves, and not listening to the reality of the world today.  

I'm discouraged and thinking that being old isn't so bad, if the best years are truly over, and they weren't all that great?  

Why do you misunderstand me, am I that unclear?  

Hillary - alternative energy

[ Parent ]
No, you are not that unclear... (0.00 / 0)
"public option" is that unclear.  See, if you mean, opt-into or expansion of Medicare, or even a program exactly like Medicare but called something else, you have to be specific, because the public option is the mother of all Rorschach proposals, it means anything to anyone.

Medicare for All is Civil Rights
[ Parent ]
plus (0.00 / 0)
I don't mind provoking your well-thought out, researched, and great responses.  I always learn a little more each time from you.  

Hillary - alternative energy
[ Parent ]
What I do agree with (0.00 / 0)
Is that you start negotiating with your wish list, what you REALLY want, and if you have to then move to something less desirable, you still get some actual reform.

This "process" that's going on now is a disaster, whether the eventual bill passes or fails.

[ Parent ]
and that's where you start (0.00 / 0)
informing and educating. then, it's in the collective wisdom and becomes more plausible as time goes on.  That's really starting incrementally, not making the most incremental change possible.  

Hillary - alternative energy
[ Parent ]
Why would the unions not want single payer? That doesn't make sense. (0.00 / 0)
Mostly all union members, I would guess, are paying something toward their health insurance, even if it is offered by the employer.  The cost of health care is rising at a faster rate than pay increases.  Negotiating a contract sure would be a lot easier without health care as part of the equation.  Of course people would be taxed more, I believe, but I doubt if the taxes would increase to higher than what people pay towards it now.  The cost of advertising and pr would be eliminated if it was government healthcare.  

The only reason I can figure out that AFSCME and some other unions would be against it would be because they were so smitten with Obama, that they only want what Obama is pushing.  See how far they got with the Free Choice Act with their idle Obama in?  Nowhere.  

[ Parent ]
idol (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Some reasons, One, health care is still (0.00 / 0)
on bargaining chip unions can offer their membership.  I think it's shortsighted to protest single payer on that premise.  Two, some unions administer their own health care benefits.  Three, ideological reasons.  Andy Stern, for instance, doesn't support single payer.  Four, yes, there was probably some deal struck, maybe including the auto industry takeover, I believe somewhere in the health plans being debated legacy costs for union employee retirement benefits will be subsidized by the government(I've heard that, but may be just a rumor).  Fourth, yes, they probably believe they have a deal to pass EFCA.  Since Obama has yet to utter the acronym EFCA since winning the presidency, I'd say that's folly.  Fifth, they are probably afraid that if the Dems don't pass something called reform they will lose future elections.  But these are the big union bosses I am speaking of.  AFL-CIO is brewing up for a floor fight over this.  Several of the local affiliates of the big unions feel betrayed by their leadership.

Medicare for All is Civil Rights
[ Parent ]
Although, I heard the president of my branch of SEIU remark about the amount of raises (0.00 / 0)
we could get in a contract if we could get rid of the healthcare issue. SEIU of course, is supporting Obama, but I am not sure that they wouldn't like single payer.  
[ Parent ]
Why didn't we try it? (0.00 / 0)
Because the puppetmasters never wanted it.

The talks probably went something like this: "Don't worry your pretty little head. We'll take care of the details while you swan around being President. Won't you look fine!"

And then they proceeded to spend $650 million on a marketing campaign that turned a vain and vapid man into the coolest thing since the iPod.

I want to cry when I realize how well it worked.

Why? LAT: " Healthcare insurers get upper hand" (0.00 / 0)
Lashed by liberals and threatened with more government regulation, the insurance industry nevertheless rallied its lobbying and grass-roots resources so successfully in the early stages of the healthcare overhaul deliberations that it is poised to reap a financial windfall.

It's disgusting... (0.00 / 0)
Stranger still are the FPers at Daily Kos, Fire Dog Lake, Digby, etc., who stare these articles in the face and say, well, that's why we need some sort of public option.  It's unbelievable to me.  It shows literally no rational thought.  Their belief seems to be all this bonanza to the insurers is fine as long as there is the word "public" somewhere in the legislation.  Me, I read that, and think, this clearly isn't a proposal I could support.  

Medicare for All is Civil Rights
[ Parent ]
I can't support the current proposals either. (0.00 / 0)
I also am concerned, as is Robert Reich, that the three Democrtic Senators on the Senate Finance Committee are from South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana -- not exactly places with either booming populations or large amounts of people needing health care (simply because there aren't large amounts of people, period); these aren't the guys I want deciding health care for all!  (Among this bunch are the vilified -- and rightly so -- DINO Max Baucus, D-MT, and the odious Charles Grassley, R-IA.)

Here's the link to that article, if you haven't seen it (you probably have):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

There's no excuse for this, DNC.  None.

[ Parent ]
Btw, why is it that everything has to be vetted by these six guys on the Finance Committee? (0.00 / 0)
Makes you wonder how it was this bunch got onto the most powerful committee in the Senate (overall), doesn't it?  (Te American people just simply do not have the leverage of the insurance companies or the drug companies.  Baucus has taken big-time money from both, and I'm willing to bet the other five on this committee have, too.  Which is why nothing substantial will get done!)

There's no excuse for this, DNC.  None.
[ Parent ]
There is an article on Huff Post tonight about one of the 6 a dem is moving to (0.00 / 0)
the idea that the Democrats pass a bill without the pugs, and pass it with 51 votes.  That is encouraging, and I still think when it is all done, the public is going to look at the ignoramous loudmouthed trouble makers at townhalls as not like them and not representing what they want.  People just have to push even harder contacting their congress idiots to make them think they better pass something worthwhile or they will pay.
[ Parent ]
Single payer is what we want, but it would have been such a bust (0.00 / 0)
if it was proposed.  Can you imagine the money that the insurance companies could scrape together to fight single payer?  It wouldn't have had the slightest bit of a chance.  That would be the end of them.  They wouldn't go down without destroying everything within arms reach.  No way could we have ever gotten single payer through.  The guns and god people would have lost their minds and shot up the place.
I disagree. The public option is a huge bust. (0.00 / 0)
The case for expanding Medicare, even incrementally, is far more politically saleable than a "public option"(whatever in hells name that is?)that meets the test most supporters of such expect it to.  Indeed, the debate is over single payer(via the mythic trojan horse, proposed as such by liberals, hated as such by anti-government types)but because the Democrats didn't propose, they can't defend it and instead are stuck triangulating their own plans against it.  

Medicare for All is Civil Rights
[ Parent ]
Probably the best road to single payer would be to get the public option (0.00 / 0)
through, make it spectaculary successful, and cause the public itself to demand a move to single payer.  In fact that is probably the fear, of eventual elimination, of the dogs who are fighting any possibility of government at all.  Afterall, medicare has been a success, and so has social security.  Though not directly run by the government, the Post Office has a reputation of being the best in the world at what they do.  The old thing they fall back on that the government running anything is the worst thing in the world that could happen, is bogus.  It is actually one of the best things, and the healthcare vultures know that.  
Uh, we have that. It's called Medicare. (0.00 / 0)
If you were right then the public option would be sailing through Congress right now.  It's no harder to sell than improved Medicare for All.  First, it's undefinable.  Medicare is not.  Second, it would be layered on top of an existing private system, which means savings could not be realized for years to come.  Medicare for All(though, I would be fine with a steady expansion downward) saves money over our current system at the outset.  Three, it's an experiment.  There is no people to look at and say, they like it, so will you.  Medicare has a ready made sales force, millions of older Americans who would never give it up.  Four, it has no longstanding activist community to push from the ground up.  Medicare for All is supported by millions of individuals and hundreds of organizations, tens of thousands of doctors and nurses.  It has a grass movements that's been growing for twenty years.  Five, the rallying call is weak.  Give us a "public option".  Yikes.  It's no exactly We Shall Over Come.  Medicare for All, Everyone in, Nobody Out is a better soundbyte.  

The insurers, if you haven't noticed, killed the public option, so it seems silly to argue that would have had a better chance.

Medicare for All is Civil Rights

[ Parent ]
I don't think that they have killed it yet. It still has to go through the Senate. (0.00 / 0)
There is no real bill yet, and I sense a little bit of a backlash and loosening up in the last week after the rightwing fringe shut their mouths and people got to look backward at how obnoxious they were.  Congress isn't really back in the swing of things yet. The polls still show that people overwhelmingly want a the government to be involved on a larger level.  Dems in the house will not pass a bill without it.

And medicare is something for old people and people with disabilities most people think.  Most people who are not eligible for it, don't really understand it and how well it has done.  They, I think, need something that is open to the public and that working people and everyone else can give some feedback on.  A "public option" would be watched much closer than medicare has been because people see it as actually related to them and having the potential to affect them. I don't agree that people are ready for one payer system, but it could grow on them.  

[ Parent ]
Well, I think Weiner lays out the best (0.00 / 0)
argument for health reform by expanding medicare I have heard yet.  And, he would say start with the 55-65 set because they get it the most, and that is what Bill Clinton argued, and that is what even Max Baucus allowed for in his white paper early this year.  Further, every single committee that has a pub. opt. in their bill has either a CBO expected enrollment of zero, or only up to at most ten million by 2019, so I think it's hard to argue that is what most people envision as a public option, i.e., I think most think it would be open to them.  I think cheaper, better health care with a robust private option is the easier sell.

Medicare for All is Civil Rights
[ Parent ]
Health care reform,.. (0.00 / 0)

Killing health care reform has always been easier than creating consensus (especially if you're willing to demagogue the issue with "death panels").  But amid all the screaming, here's a point that adds important contextual ballast: Americans don't really think their health care is so hot. People wonder who is behind the town hall riots when anyone discusses health care reform, or Obamacare - the answer is Conservatives for Patients' Rights. Conservatives for Patients Rights, or the CPR, is headed by one Rick Scott - who isn't a doctor - but used to be the CEO of a hospital, and under his watch, his medical administration defrauded Medicare of $1.7 billion through a practice called upcoding, wherein a Medicare patient gets treated, but Medicare is billed for additional tests that never took place.  (That's fraud.) Realistically, Conservatives for Patients Rights  and Mr. Scott will never need short term loans, and the only reason why they oppose the bill is that they want the money from the program for themselves.

Open Thread: Why Didn't We Try Single Payer? | 34 comments
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